Paul Cienfuegos

Author, Activist, and Founder of Community Rights US

For as long as Paul can remember, he has been passionate about nonviolent social change. From his high school days until his years living in the coastal ancient rainforest on Vancouver Island in his 30’s, he worked tirelessly on a wide variety of single issues, and also became proficient at leading workshops on a whole variety of topics such as “Active Listening for Activists”, “Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age”, and “Intro to Nonviolent Direct Action”. In 1994, he stumbled upon the writings of Richard Grossman, co-founder of Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD), and his world was turned upside down. The next year, Paul founded Democracy Unlimited in northern California in order to begin to test out the ideas he had learned from POCLAD’s leaders. In recent years, he has become a national leader in the rapidly growing Community Rights movement, having led workshops, given speeches, and done organizing across the country. David Barsamian’s internationally syndicated show ‘Alternative Radio’ has broadcast many of his speeches. He moved to Portland, Oregon in 2011, co-founded Community Rights PDX in 2012, and was instrumental in launching the Oregon Community Rights Network in 2013. From 2014 to 2016, he produced a weekly radio commentary & subscribable podcast. He spent much of 2017 building a new core staff that successfully launched Community Rights US that October, which has been building capacity ever since.