Adventures in Democracy with Baratunde Thurston and Elizabeth Stewart
May 20, 2026/inEconomic Empowerment, Insights, Past Events

Adventures in Democracy with Baratunde Thurston

May 20, 2026/inEconomic Empowerment, Insights, Past Events
Jon Alexander, Baratunde Thurston and Elizabeth Stewart discuss redefining democracy as something we do, and where “citizen” becomes a verb.

In much of the world, democracy is at a low ebb, with autocrats, authoritarians, and outright fascists on a seemingly inexorable rise, and few politicians seemingly capable of charting a credible way forward in the face of the challenges of our time. At such times, even election “victories” come to feel like little more than delays to the inevitable, cause more for relief than excitement.

Yet just beneath the media radar, there are signs that another story is taking shape: a story of the renewal and reinvention of democracy, from the ground up and the outside in; of democracy as something we do, not something we have; and of the word citizen more as a verb than a noun. Nowhere is this new story more needed than in the United States of America, and no one tells it better than the Emmy-nominated host, producer, writer and storyteller Baratunde Thurston – working in close partnership with Elizabeth Stewart, his partner in life and creativity.

Their work weaves together threads of race, technology, democracy and climate, always coming back to the fundamental truth of our interdependence with one another and with nature. Join us to hear Jon Alexander, author of Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us, in conversation with Baratunde and Elizabeth, as they discuss this new story – and how we can all be part of it.

Speakers

Jon Alexander is the author of CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us, and co-founder of the New Citizenship Project, a book and company that work to shift the dominant story of the individual in society from Consumer to Citizen. Among other plaudits, CITIZENS was listed by McKinsey as one of its Top 5 Recommended Books in its Summer Reading Guide 2022, described as “an underground hit” in the Financial Times, and selected by the World Economic Forum for its CEO Book Club. Jon began his career with a decade in the advertising industry, before shifting his attention to understanding how communications skills might be deployed to invite people into their agency as citizens, instead of just selling stuff to them as consumers.

Baratunde Thurston tells stories of interdependence through our relationship with nature, each other, and technology. He is an Emmy-nominated host, producer, writer, and public speaker. He is the host and executive producer of the PBS television series America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston, creator and host of How To Citizen with Baratunde which Apple named one of its favorite podcasts, and a founding partner and writer at Puck. His comedic memoir, How To Be Black, is a New York Times best-seller. In 2019, he delivered what MSNBC’s Brian Williams called “one of the greatest TED talks of all time.” Baratunde is unique in his ability to integrate and synthesize different and difficult topics in a style that’s intelligent, compassionate, and humorous. Baratunde serves on the boards of Civics Unplugged and the Brooklyn Public Library and lives in Southern California.

Elizabeth Stewart is an experienced entrepreneur, mentor, investor, founder and executive leader of multiple civic enterprises. She established the second ever co-working space in Los Angeles in 2011, building a community of over 500 members and 30+ organizational partners from the Mayor’s Office to Microsoft. She later became the founding Executive Director of Civic Hall Labs in New York, pioneering large-scale civic innovation approaches through programmes like NYCBigApps, the largest civic innovation challenge in the US, before taking on the role of Managing Director at Harmony Labs, creating and overseeing its Media Tech Accelerator and Research Network. Most recently, she co-created and executive produced four seasons of the award-winning podcast, How to Citizen with Baratunde.

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