The People’s Party: Where Art Meets Action
What if civic engagement felt like a block party?
That’s the question that sparked The People’s Party—a two-day festival that fuses film, art, and music with the civic and social justice organizations shaping our democracy. Co-presented by the enduring NAACP and my new organization Civics Is Sexy, it’s part celebration, part civics immersion, and all community.
The idea for The People’s Party was born out of my film One Person, One Vote?. While screening the film across the country, at festivals, schools, and grassroots screenings, I saw firsthand how hungry people were to understand our systems of government not through lectures or punditry, but through story, sound, and emotion.
That realization inspired Civics Is Sexy, a cultural movement designed to make civic education a cultural, lived experience. The People’s Party brings that philosophy to life. A civic-education-to-action-pipeline, if you will. It’s a space where artists and audiences meet in real time to explore the issues that define us: voting rights, land loss, gender justice, climate, disinformation, and the stories we tell about who “the people” really are.
But beyond the panels, performances, and screenings, The People’s Party is about building bridges—between generations, between communities, and between perspectives. It’s a refuge from polarization, a space where we peel back the curtain of humanity to see one another more clearly. And it’s all steeped in joy: the joy of culture, of connection, of remembering what’s possible when we come together, as they say nowadays, IRL — in real life.
The festivities will kick off with Rebel Soul Revue: Robeson Meets Hathaway, a transcendent musical performance where resistance meets reverence, and soul meets struggle. Performed by Boise Holmes (who lent his incredible acting and singing talent to One Person, One Vote?) and Chaz Lamar Shepard, the piece imagines a timeless conversation between Paul Robeson—the revolutionary baritone who sang truth to power—and Donny Hathaway, the soulful genius who gave voice to Black love, pain, and liberation.
Comedy also takes the stage, proving that laughter, too, is an act of resistance and release. Yasmin Elhady, the quick-witted lawyer and comedian best known for Muslim Matchmaker, joins Nic Novicki, founder of the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, for comedy sets that celebrate our shared humanity through humor and heart.
This year’s lineup continues with screenings like One Person, One Vote? and Following Harry. An interactive session on disinformation called F.A.C.T.S. (Finding Accuracy and Clarity in Today’s Social Media). Trial By Jury gives audiences a rare chance to step inside one of democracy’s most hidden spaces—the jury room—and experience what it feels like to deliberate on justice firsthand.
And at the center of it all is a coalition that feels like a United Nations of changemakers—organizations such as the League of Women Voters, The Sierra Club, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Homeboy Industries, Gold House, The Happy Pappy Foundation, and many others who represent the beautifully diverse machinery of civic life. For one weekend, they take a collective pause from working in their separate silos to stand together in shared purpose—to remind us that we are greater than the sum of our parts.
The buzz has already begun across Los Angeles. Today, I will have the honor of sharing the vision behind The People’s Party on KTLA Morning News and Spectrum News 1, and with our radio family on KJLH 102.3 FM and KBLA Talk 1580 alongside the incredible Kyle Bowser, SVP of the NAACP Hollywood Bureau.
The People’s Party is a space to rebuild trust, reclaim joy, and reimagine civic life as something we do together. A place where we can dialogue instead of demonize. It’s civic engagement as a cultural act.
If you’re in Los Angeles this Saturday and Sunday, November 1-2, join us at the NAACP Hollywood Bureau. Doors open at 11am. Learn more at peoplesparty.la.