Dredging the Southern Earth, Four Years Later

Preface

At the time of writing this, it’s been just over 4 years since an infamous series of events culminated in the suspension of dozens of comrades - most being comrades of color - from the Atlanta DSA chapter. Even now, it’s difficult to identify what exactly happened, perhaps even moreso now than then. Time erodes the clarity of details, and many pieces that might have painted a clearer picture have been lost.

As Atlanta DSA recently held its annual chapter convention on January 10th, 2026 - coming just over a month after the testimony of another comrade in the chapter^[1] regarding the power dynamics between leadership and member body - the existing central clique within the chapter continues to maintain a hold over chapter leadership. And, as this recently-elected leadership maintains a strongly conserved ideological core as it did back then - even containing some of the same individuals who have since held leadership continuously - my aim is to uncover what happened, how it happened, what - or who - caused it to happen, and why it happened. Until we have these answers, we can’t truly prevent it from happening again.

These events happened for a few simple reasons: the chapter leadership’s refusal to take accountability, the abuse of authority and procedural technicalities, and a subsequent failure of delivering repercussions against those who were responsible. In this article, the exact nature of those misdeeds, as well as those responsible, will be laid out in no uncertain terms.

This is not a politically-motivated endeavor, or a targeted hit piece against others; this is an investigative pursuit for clarity and closure. Although my current organizing efforts are in Baltimore, Atlanta is the city I called home for the first two and a half decades of my life. Even now, though I haven’t lived in Georgia since 2024, I still say I’m from Atlanta. Yet when I ask my comrades, in an organization nearing 100,000 members, why the chapter make-up of Atlanta - a city blacker than it is white - is whiter than a sheet of paper in a snowstorm, I’ve never gotten a straight answer.

Uncovering the answer myself was by no means a simple endeavor: I had to dig up screenshots of old emails, Discord messages, forum posts, Twitter posts, and articles that had been deleted for years. Everyone involved had some level of glaring unreliability; some accusations were so obviously targeted that they weren’t even corroborated by a second testimony. So, before I began this investigation, I set myself a few rules for the evidence I gathered:

Treat every testimony as flawed. Everyone involved had some level of bias.
Every detail is an allegation until corroborated. Look for consistencies and inconsistencies across and within sources and testimonies.
Get the timeline in order. Dates, numbers. and names need to line up.
Redact nothing. Leave nothing out, withhold no information, protect no one.

This article includes quite a few named actors. For the sake of accessibility to those who are unfamiliar with the actors in question, brief descriptions of key groups and individuals are listed below:

Magnolia: An informal chapter-level collection of members in leadership, primarily composed of members formerly of the newly-defunct caucus Collective Power Network (CPN), nominally formed as a chapter-level slate (also called Magnet at times); members would eventually go on to join Groundwork. Key members include Nate K, Kelsea B, Sumter A, Shafeka H, Joshua M, Nikhil P, and Josh T.

Mosaic: Initially a two-time chapter-level slate that formed in late spring of 2021 for Atlanta DSA’s delegate elections for the 2021 DSA National Convention; it would eventually split to become its own organization. It was the primary opposition bloc within Atlanta DSA at the time. Key members include Brandyn B, Rachel K, Lindsi B, Rara I, Cole R, and Will H.

DARC: A local, independent, police abolitionist group founded in 2020 in response to the announcement of the construction of Cop City. Prime organizing group in the Stop Cop City coalition with Atlanta DSA and Community Builders Movement; eventually disbanded and was absorbed by ATL-DSA. Key members include Kat P, Jasmine B, and Shaun (last initial unknown).

Others: Miracle F, an independent candidate in the 2021 chapter steering elections; Matt M, a close friend to Lindsi B and the North Fulton branch co-captain; Paula Branter, the then-National Harassment Grievance Officer (NHGO) of DSA; Jose P, a former chapter HGO; Lily Z, a short-time chapter member involved in ecosocialist organizing; and Jack B, a newly-joined member to the chapter in 2021.

Introduction

On October 12th, 2021, at 2:50 PM EST, the leadership of the Atlanta DSA chapter - in particular, Nate K and Kelsea B - openly and brazenly formulated a conspiracy to purge the chapter of members who opposed them. In the wake of the chapter’s recent convention, landslide incumbent leadership victory, and a subsequent scandal just 17 days later, three “nuclear options” were put forth in a private chat among the elected Steering Committee:

The entirety of the steering committee resign en masse and recall elections are held
Leadership apologizes takes accountability for the harm done, and deprioritizes their own ambitions in favor of the vocal will of the chapter
All chapter communications are shut down, show trials are held, and mass expulsions of opposition are carried out

As the chapter’s history shows, the steering committee elected to proceed with the third option.

The decision resulted in almost 40 members of the general body being unilaterally and indefinitely suspended from the chapter, including all of those who had been affiliated with the opposition slate, but also many others who simply had the misfortune of being too close to members of the slate. The mass suspension, from which most affected members were offered little to no recourse on the matter, occurred as the result of no less than 3 compliance violations with the appointment of the HGO office itself and 4 violations of the investigation and suspension process - all of which were evidently knowingly abused by the chapter’s leadership at the time.

Several individuals involved with orchestrating these events - including Nate K, Kelsea B, and Sumter A - continue to enjoy prominent positions within the leadership or high-profile organizing work of the chapter, and several others remain active in DSA through other means - including Shafeka H, now a part of Zohran’s transition team in NYC-DSA, and Nikhil P, currently the co-chair of Albuquerque DSA. After the organizing careers of dozens of DSA members were abruptly cut short in late 2021, those responsible for it have faced little to no consequences for their actions.

The questions that remain are: what happened, and how did things come to such a drastic end?

The true beginning was starting to unfold years before the cascade that eventually resulted in what transpired, perhaps as far back as 2017, when DSA was most recently reforged. Many systemic issues broiled below the surface: petty factionalism, immature leadership, power trips, the list goes on. Even the leadership structure itself was broken, an issue that notably flared in the lead-up to, duration of, and aftermath following the tenure and resignation of khalid kamau^[2] (then-mayor of South Fulton) as chair of ATL-DSA, then still referred to as Metro Atlanta DSA, or MADSA.

To quickly dispel any presumptions, there is little heartbreak over the departure of khalid from MADSA: he was an unpopular mayor, an ineffective chair, and one whose actions - and accusations leveled during his resignation of his post - prompted the polemical response by Brandyn B^[3] in retort. However, it provides foundational context for events to come, and shows just how deep-rooted the problems within the chapter were. The very structure of the chapter’s leadership model, the imbalance of power, and even the very presence of the individuals who were involved with this early executive committee all came into play in these events, and their residue can still be seen in the chapter to this day.^[1]

The Stop Cop City Coalition and DARC

The first domino finally came to fall in August of 2021, between ATL-DSA and DARC (short for Defund APD, Refund Communities); some would call it an implosion, but it more resembles a demolition. However, this event cannot truly be understood without its history.

DARC was founded in July of 2020 by a team of 5 core organizers - two black women, one Latine man, and two white people.^[4] The two black women, Kat and Jasmine, were not affiliated with DSA at the time of the founding of DARC - Jasmine never joined the organization, and Kat did not join until after DARC was founded^[5] the Latine organizer, Shaun, similarly never joined DSA. However, the two white organizers - Nora and Kelsea B, the latter having recently been elected to Atlanta City Council - were both DSA members.

Following the founding of DARC, it almost immediately joined forces with Atlanta DSA and Community Movement Builders (CMB) in a coalition campaign for Stop Cop City (SCC). Of these three organizations, it was readily apparent that the bulk of the work was being carried by DARC, with CMB and ATL-DSA being junior partners in the coalition.^[6] However, numerous members of ATL-DSA remained on the organizing committee for DARC; by August 2020, when they voted to name the body “DARC”, the name had been suggested by Sumter A., an ATL-DSA member and then-member of the Steering Committee who had found their way onto the organizing committee alongside Kelsea and Nora.

In September 2020, Shaun and Jasmine - both non-DSA core organizers of color in DARC - were confirmed as part of the organizing committee, under the explicit understanding that they did not have to join DSA. The two of them had provided a sizable portion of the initial research and resources for the actual establishment of DARC and all accompanying campaign materials.^[5] This distinct organizing home was pronounced further by the removal of Sumter from the DARC OC at the end of 2020, officially citing capacity concerns; however, prior to their removal, 2 POC organizers had left the OC, including Kat, and were both invited back within hours of Sumter’s removal.

Kat elected to rejoin the OC, but only after receiving specific assurances that DARC would remain an independent body from ATL-DSA and not be interfered with by the chapter’s steering committee. These assurances were provided following allegations of Sumter (who sat on the chapter’s steering committee at the time) attempting to exercise their authority to more decisively envelop DARC within the chapter, bring them under tighter control by steering, and coopt their organizing efforts by effectively reducing them to a working group.^[5] The direct nature of these allegations remain uncorroborated, however, the explicit assurances were provided to Kat nonetheless, and as such must be strongly considered.

Following this meeting, members of the steering committee stopped attending the open DARC meetings in any notable capacity, eventually leading the DARC OC to open the discussion topic of complete separation from ATL-DSA in February 2021, citing concerns of oppressive chapter control, diminished value of coalition maintenance, and the possibility of white cooptation.^[5] These discussions were tabled at the time, but were never closed or killed. By this point, DARC had become involved in at least two abolitionist campaigns - their main focus, SCC, and a junior campaign, #NotOurBudget (#NOB) - and eventually voted to close their work on #NOB prematurely, in June 2021, to focus on SCC and prepare for divergence from ATL-DSA, understanding that the fracture of such a coalition - while maintaining the sanctity of their efforts - came at the cost of a reduction in bandwidth and organizing capabilities.

In August 2021, however, the ATL-DSA steering committee - then run by a faction called Magnolia - made the decision to attend the open DARC meetings en masse; Kat considers the occurrence “ironic that the one meeting they decided to attend en masse was the meeting that marked DARC’s destruction,"^[5] yet the move appears orchestrated. It seems to be no coincidence that the August 2021 meeting, where the steering committee elected to attend in droves, was also the meeting that definitively killed DARC.

In the ex-DARC OC’s October 2021 open letter to ATL-DSA, numerous testimonies were published on a shared Medium account; however, now only the initial open letter penned by Kat and Jasmine still exists. The Medium account the ex-DARC members had used has since been suspended for a violation of the site’s rules - the reason for the suspension is unknown, but a possible culprit lies in a perceived false distortion of events within the letters themselves, in violation of Medium’s rules against Controversial, Suspect, and Extreme Content.^[7]Additional details were laid out in this open letter, not in the least of which being allegations of verbal abuse and accusations of “anti-austerity” from the wider SC.^[5] Allegations of racist behavior were leveled against Nora, claiming she “weaponized her white womanhood to create false narratives” and “fabricated numerous lies” about multiple black organizers, yet “when confronted, admitted that she had no basis for her claims.”.^[4] Shafeka is alleged to have attempted theft of DARC’s intellectual property, with her stating that “Atlanta DSA has a claim to any and all of DARC’s content” and “Atlanta DSA ‘owned’ that work,”^[4] despite Jasmine’s insistence that “without a contract or agreement, [her] words were simply a reflection of her feelings and not a legally enforceable claim.”^[4]

Numerous allegations lay stacked against Kelsea (amounting to 13 separate mentions by name), including “locking DARC organizers out of [DARC]’s Gmail, Instagram, and Twitter accounts… without any warning”^[4] attempting to enforce ATL DSA’s top-down structure upon the still-autonomous organization and “violate our agreements to keep DARC autonomous from Atlanta DSA,”^[4] and the “exclusion of DARC members from… our work”^[4] and “treat[ing] DARC members simply as bodies to show up at… events.”^[4] While all of these individual accusations cannot be corroborated and therefore cannot be considered as fact, DARC ultimately imploded as an independent organization in August of 2021,^[5] and was reduced to a chapter abolition working group populated by white DSA members. This resulted in most of its original organizers - most of whom were people of color - leaving or being pushed out of the abolition work that they had committed so much time and effort to, including Jasmine and Shaun. DARC’s efforts were eventually scrubbed of their origins with DARC, and the SCC work that they had been the forefront organizers for was eventually used as a campaign plank for Kelsea Bond’s own election campaign for Atlanta city council.^[8] After the dissolution of DARC, it became apparent that the momentum and full year of work was utterly squandered - the chapter seemed to completely fall silent on the matter of SCC after September of 2021, coinciding with the vote by the city council to approve the construction. At best, it was an undue admission of defeat and an appeal to bourgeois authority, and at worst, a complete scuttling of a year’s worth of abolition organizing efforts over petty factional clashes of movement control. Unlike the body of ATL-DSA at the time, DARC represented a clear movement towards anti-carceral and abolitionist policy, a movement that the chapter did not share. The leadership’s decision to co-opt the project was driven by a desire simply to take credit for the work that had been done, not out of a passion for the work itself. In their effort to monopolize the anticipated favor of the community for the efforts of SCC, the heart of the campaign was fatally cut out, leaving behind a carcass to decay and crumble to dust.

Centralizing Collective Power

However, the DARC scandal was by no means the end-all event, nor was it an isolated incident. It was merely a symptom of the disease that plagued the chapter; one that, by all accounts, still seems to.

As per an open letter by Lily Z (an AAPI comrade) to the chapter’s SC, after finding themselves working within the chapter through the Ecosocialist working group alongside minor involvement in a relatively new ecological campaign at the time known as Just Transition, they were suddenly and without warning “interrogated about what Ecosocialism was doing” by the SC and dragged into the center of a steering meeting, despite being under the impression that they would simply observe the meeting, wanting to learn more about the chapter.^[9]Following this initial interrogation, there was a pattern of apparent mistreatment towards ecosocialist organizing, as well as a visible pattern of shutting down voices that didn’t agree with leadership.

Working group Slack channels were deleted and replaced, seemingly arbitrarily^[9]; discussion of campaign strategy was stalled for weeks over an unrelated chapter vote^[9], and a member was allegedly shut down so hard on volunteering to take lead on communications for People’s Bailout that she quit the chapter.^[9] And when the topic of discussing the possible endorsement of Georgia Public Service Commissioner candidate Daniel Blackman was broached, the SC refused to even hear the motion, citing the divisiveness of the topic, despite there being significant interest in the matter.^[9] SC’s unilateral dissolution of the Ecosocialist WG without consultation of the working group itself in June of 2021 would seem to lend credence to the claims of executive authority run rampant.^[9]

While Lily voiced their initial concerns in June of 2021, it should come as no surprise that they would later leave the chapter in January of 2022, citing concerns over the mistreatment of DARC, racist and anti-black behavior by leadership, a lack of accountability among leadership, and the widespread silencing of dissent and discussion of these topics in chapter spaces.^[9] This testimony, along with the written account by Kat P in September of 2021,^[5] provides a clear timeline that this unchecked abuse of authority was a long-festering concern that plagued the chapter, long before October of 2021.

There are numerous further allegations of behavior that could certainly be interpreted as racist and anti-black by ATL-DSA’s leadership, including the rejection of branch formations in West Atlanta (a heavily black and working-class part of town), in favor of the formation of branches in Dekalb County - which focused almost all of its organizing efforts in the mostly-white northern third of the county - as well as Buckhead, Midtown, and Cobb County, all strongly white and affluent areas.^[10] Other instances include the reticence at participating in a Juneteenth rally (and then cutting Brandyn B, the black point organizer for the chapter at the event, out of the photos and giving him little credit)^[10], and the sudden closure of a Latino/AAPI outreach committee while the organizer was on vacation.^[10] Many of these - in particular the branch formation efforts - were done in conjunction with the chapter’s Afro Socialists of Color (AfroSOC) Commission.^[10] If nothing else, these events highlight a clear pattern of the chapter’s leadership consolidating authority, by extending unilateral decisions to curtail member autonomy, suppressing dissent and disagreement, and deliberate (if not outright exploitative) steps taken to ensure positive reflection primarily on themselves for events within the chapter - even if they were not the fruits of their own labor.

Convention and the Mosaic Slate

Which brings us to September of 2021.

Atlanta DSA’s annual convention that year occurred on the weekend of September 25th, 2021, and among many things, marked the convening where resolutions, bylaws amendments, leadership elections, and officerial positions were voted on. Two primary slates formed, each mirroring the previous slates that had formed for the 2021 National Convention just a few months earlier. The Mosaic slate re-coalesced, forming a smaller opposition slate - composed of Brandyn B, Rachel K, Lindsi B, Bridget S, Q B, and Will H - against a slate containing the chapter’s core leadership: Magnolia, a rebranded slate mirroring the Magnet slate that had formed for the national convention. Magnolia - and by extent Magnet - adhered to the now-defunct mandate of Collective Power Network, and contained a wider spread of 8 different candidates, of whom 5 were incumbent Steering officers: Nate K, Kelsea B, Shafeka H, Joshua M, Matt M, Kiana E, Uzma A, and Marco O. One final candidate, Miracle F, was also on the ballot - though her status remains complicated.

The 2021 Steering election itself is filled with nearly as much controversy and confusion as the subsequent purge that occurred - accusations and allegations of misconduct were leveled at both sides; allegations of election fraud were answered with accusations of bribery; evidence of conflicts of interest glare across the years; and forgery remains stamped into the reputation of past members. Regardless of the misconduct in question, the results remained the same: the Mosaic slate lost entirely, and all 8 members of the Magnolia slate - along with Miracle F - were elected to the 9-person steering committee.

As Lindsi B’s open letter to the NPC details, there were a slew of irregularities. The SC vote was held asynchronously, using first-past-the-post, over a 6-hour voting window - in stark contrast to the most recent ATL-DSA convention on January 10th, 2026, having a 30-minute voting window within the otherwise 4-hour-long in-person convention meeting, using Scottish STV. Many candidates were supposedly uninformed of key deadlines for filings, leading to panicked last-minute filings and statement drafts for slate candidates, and effectively all unslated candidates being unable to run for any leadership positions. And, perhaps most damning of all, a glaring conflict of interest arose on the Nominating Committee for the steering elections: Sumter, who had similarly been a delegate on the Magnet slate for convention and was close to Nate K and Kelsea B, served on the supposedly impartial NC (despite sitting on the outgoing SC) all while openly soliciting support for the Magnolia slate.^[11] These issues, regardless of their overall outcome of the election results, indicate a clear mishandling of the election and disregard for proper protocol by the chapter leadership - members of which were involved in the running of said elections. However, the controversy surrounding the supposed election fraud of Miracle F’s candidacy is much less clear.

As per the official steering committee statement following the fact,^[12] Miracle was entirely unaffiliated with Mosaic and put on the ballot without her knowledge, only discovering her candidacy during the convention. In contrast, per Rachel K’s description of the accusation in the Mosaic Discord server^[13], numerous discussions had occurred between Miracle and the other members of the Mosaic slate regarding her candidacy, corroborated by Brandyn B’s account^[10] of events. Rachel's statement does indicate fraudulent filing, however, including a ghostwritten candidate statement by Brandyn on Miracle’s behalf.^[13] It is worth mentioning that a quick examination of the Mosaic Discord server dates the earliest message on September 28th, 2021, regarding a community garden in Fayette County by Will H. The first visible joining member, however, is dated October 1st, 2021, by Qasim R^[13], yet there are no visible typical Discord join messages, indicating a level of obfuscation of channels or message logs from view. The server containing only 3,421 messages over 4 years casts further suspicion on the totality of these message logs.

However, while there is certainly fault among certain members of the Mosaic slate, it does not - and should not have been weaponized to - reflect on the slate as a whole, particularly due to internal communications indicating that there was no malicious intent behind such actions; from Rachel and Brandyn’s perspective, they were simply helping a comrade with an administrative task during a moment of mental distress. This is evidenced by Rachel’s admission of fault for submitting Miracle’s nomination, paired with their response to discovering their error.^[13]

(Mis)conduct Committee

However, a closer look at the timing of these events reveals a clearer picture beneath the surface. The grievance against Rachel was submitted on October 15th, 2021 - three days after the publishing of DARC’s open letter against ATL-DSA on October 12th, which came alongside the vacating of both of the chapter’s HGOs and subsequent replacement by just one appointed HGO (which stood in violation of DSA’s Harassment Policy, commonly referred to as Resolution 33 at the time.^[14] While Brandyn’s report declares that both HGOs were forcibly removed from their posts due to expressions of solidarity with DARC^[10] one such former HGO Rara I’s own email correspondence with the appointed solo HGO, Josh T, indicates voluntary resignation^[15] on their part, though no indication is provided as to whether the second HGO similarly resigned voluntarily, or if there was any pressure from the SC for them to resign.

Additionally, screenshots from the Magnolia discord server^[16] show discussions to deliberately orchestrate expulsions immediately following the SC election, specifically targeting Brandyn B. The initial discussions are dated October 2nd, 2021 - 10 days prior to the DARC open letter, and 13 days prior to Rachel’s grievance filing - indicating prior intent to conduct expulsions, and the offenses charged strategically to facilitate such expulsions. As seen, the initial target of such an expulsion was Brandyn B, seen as a political opponent to the leadership within the chapter, and the decision to expel Rachel was likely done as a means to target Brandyn’s close allies within the chapter and deprive him of immediate support. The decision to strip him of being AFROSOC chair was further done as a means to isolate him from potential allies and internal credibility. Nate K, the newly-elected chapter treasurer, justified such a course of action by citing Brandyn’s loss in the SC election a week earlier, stating:

“[R]emove all titles, take [Brandyn] off every list and password. [H]e lost the election, elections have consequences…” (Nate K, 10/02/21, 1:34 pm)^[16]

We can further see in the screenshots that deliberate steps were taken to stack the conduct committee in favor of Magnolia’s course of action, as a decision to reject the application of a previous HGO (likely Cole R) was made under the arbitrary guise of desiring “new blood in the conduct committee” (Shafeka H, 10/02/21, 7:49pm)^[16], indicating that at least one of the previous HGO chairs had been vacated by that point, likely being Rara. Brandyn alleges that private SC communications indicated the vacating of both HGO posts was a retaliatory decision to DARC solidarity, but there is little evidence to corroborate such - additionally, as the discussion of conduct committee appointment occurred on October 2nd (10 days before the ex-DARC scandal), we can verify that the vacancies occurred prior to such. In contrast, Lindsi’s own public letter implies that JT was appointed as one of two HGOs (likely Rara’s replacement), and the second HGO was allegedly stripped of their post in retaliation for expressing outrage towards the mistreatment of ex-DARC members.^[11]

However, despite the grievance being filed against Rachel and Brandyn for election fraud - a charge that would invalidate the outcome of the election and make Miracle ineligible for candidacy - no recall elections were performed, and Miracle retained her post on the SC. These patterns of leadership misconduct, paired with yet another offense - specifically, the newly appointed solo HGO (already in and of itself a conduct violation) being Josh T (aka JT), a chapter member in an active relationship with the sister of Josh M,^[10]^[15] the membership secretary sitting on the current SC, indicating a gross conflict of interest - highlights a stark pattern of severe misconduct by the chapter’s leadership.

Further offenses regarding the abuse of communication channels and the grievance process highlighted a continued consolidation of power among the SC and complete silencing of dissent and criticism within the chapter body. Following the ex-DARC open letter, the chapter Slack channel was completely shut down and muted for all members temporarily after a flood of criticism erupted from the body, with channels purged, messages deleted, and members of the chapter outright removed from the official chapter Slack^[10]^[13]^[17], the primary moderator of which was Nikhil P, the previous treasurer and noted ally of the Magnolia slate.^[11]

However, the grievance process was not abused solely through weaponization; as per Lindsi’s public letter to the NPC, a grievance was filed against Nate K, treasurer of ATL-DSA^[11] for engaging in racist behavior on a since-deactivated Twitter account, making a derogatory comment directed against Asian-Americans on October 3rd, 2021.^[18] In addition to the disparaging remark, the Magnolia screenshots reveal that Nate had been taking deliberate attempts to cover up their online presence,^[16] indicating a knowing understanding of wrongdoing yet refusing to take accountability for it. Prior to filing any grievance, Lindsi attempted to mediate the matter informally with Nate directly, yet the conversation proved fruitless, with the latter allegedly saying:

“[T]here's plenty of other leftist orgs and you don't have to be in DSA if you disagree with DSA's core politics… [I’ve] been here a while and think I can say with confidence that trying to change DSA into something it's not is just not gonna be a fun time.... This internal conflict isn't going anywhere and it really isn't a good use of anybody's time.”^[11]

Regardless of the many disagreements members of DSA might have with each other, there is the understanding - one which permeates throughout all the work with which we are involved in and organize through - that we operate within a big tent. Though disagreements do occur between comrades - and any DSA member can confirm that they are certainly frequent - the organization operates towards a united goal of abolishing capitalism. Nate’s assertion that their behavior was excusable on grounds of it being representative to DSA’s core politics is not only outright dishonest, but exhibits a clearly and fundamentally antidemocratic conception of the organization. The corrupting presence of such a conception within the chapter’s leadership makes bureaucratic and executive overreach - and eventually, purges of anyone who dares to oppose leadership - not only likely but inevitable.

Given the response from Nate, it comes as no surprise that Lindsi elected to formally file a grievance on October 13th, 2021,^[13] yet only receiving confirmation that the report was received by the new sole HGO, JT, on November 12th. During subsequent remediation attempts with other members of the SC, a group chat was formed between two members of the Mosaic steering slate, Lindsi and Bridget, as well as three members of the SC: Uzma, Kiana, and Miracle, the former two being members of Magnolia. However, of the three steering members, only Kiana communicated with these two members, taking anywhere from two to eight days to respond to inquiries, with all responses falling silent on December 2nd, 2021.^[11]

Throughout this entire process, Rachel and Brandyn were both undergoing grievance trials. Additionally, during this time, on October 23rd, 2021, ATL-DSA held a general body meeting, at which a resolution was passed titled “For Political Unity”, which called for an external mediator to “identify the issues underlying this conflict and… resolving matters in dispute”.^[19] While the intent of the resolution was likely in good faith, the wording of such was left incredibly vague, allowing for any number of interpretations by whoever had the authority to enact it - namely, the steering committee. Additionally, as evidenced in the Magnolia chats, the initial plans for mass expulsion were formulated in the first half of October.^[16] Nate K specifically cited the ex-DARC letter as justification for expelling all former DARC members under grounds of them no longer being in the organization,^[16] despite the fact that this technically would have included Kelsea and Sumter as well, showing a bias among the SC that, frankly, strongly mirrored the chapter’s racial composition.

Entryism or Divergence

By the next day, October 24th, 2021, the conception for Mosaic as an independent organization had already come into being, as evidenced by the notes Lindsi had written in their notebook that day^[20]; however, the credibility of the claim that Mosaic is and was an entryist organization is dubious at best, and in most likelihood, outright disingenuous and libelous. The accusations leveled against Mosaic charge the slate affiliates with having engaged in entryism within DSA and the chapter, branding it “a malicious conspiracy by an external organization to infiltrate and disrupt DSA work for its own gain”.^[12] However, the accusation completely disregards the easily verifiable fact that Mosaic first began existing as a convention slate of hopeful delegates within the DSA chapter - meaning it was not an external organization but rather an informal internal faction, one that simply re-coalesced as a candidate slate for steering elections. Similarly, Brandyn attests that Mosaic did not exist in any capacity within the chapter following the elections, as the slate had served its purpose.^[10] This can be verified by a number of factors. The official steering memo cites Mosaic’s legal incorporation on November 1st, 2021, as justification for its entryist nature, despite the slate having existed earlier in the year to run candidates for both the national and chapter conventions in August and September, respectively. Second, each Mosaic slate contained different candidates; this is exemplified by Rara having run on the slate for convention but abstaining from SC elections.^[15] In the same correspondence on December 21st, 2021, they also affirm that they had never been a member of - and had no affiliation with - Mosaic as an external organization. And third, no online presence belonging to Mosaic as an external organization predates November of 2021; this can be seen via use of the Internet Archive in the NPC’s official statement regarding the expulsion of all Mosaic affiliates, dating the site archive at November 15th, 2021,^[21] over 7 weeks after the ATL DSA convention. Even the Mosaic official Twitter account has no activity prior to December of 2021.

Throughout the proceedings of the grievances against Brandyn and Rachel filed by the steering committee, JT - already in violation of Resolution 33 as the sole HGO - continued to engage in what can only be described as gross misconduct of one’s responsibilities. The suspension and expulsion, respectively, of these individuals was conducted in a manner that presumed guilt before innocence and was entirely noncompliant with DSA’s bylaws and harassment policy^[14] - more specifically, Brandyn and Rachel were indefinitely suspended prior to the completion of the investigation, and in fact were suspended from the very onset of such. As Rachel and Brandyn both denied the substance of their grievances, the duty of investigation fell upon the HGOs - of which there was now only one - to be conducted within a span of ten days.

However, as can be seen by Rachel expressing emotional distress about the ongoing grievance process as late as November 30th, 2021^[16] - over 45 days after the filing of the grievance - there is clear evidence of a gross mishandling of the grievance process by JT, as Rachel and Brandyn were functionally suspended indefinitely without a conclusive investigation, representing a gross breach of conduct, internal justice, procedural compliance, and abuse of power. As both members had functionally been removed from their previous organizing home with no recourse for action (a grievance investigation has to be concluded before one can appeal to a higher body) and alienated from their fellow organizers, Brandyn turned to his closest friends within the chapter and did the only thing he felt he could: split from DSA and diverge to work on their own campaigns.

These suspensions were additionally facilitated by another actor, one who was called to serve the role of outside mediator under the chapter’s Resolution 21-15^[19]; the now-former NHGO, Paula Branter. As many comrades who have been a part of DSA for more than a couple years would be more than happy to affirm (as well as likely add a few extra details and stories of their own), Paula’s means of meting out just investigations and penalties in regards to national grievances were inconsistent and disproportionate at best, and glaringly biased, bordering on nepotistic, at worst. She was, for all intents and purposes, the single most powerful person in the organization, one who was nearly impossible to hold accountable for her actions - and her authority was particularly influential in the mediation of what is now known to constitute the beginning stages of a purge.

Beginning with the grievance handling of Rachel K’s expulsion^[13], a weaponization of the grievance policy’s confidentiality rules^[14] - designed in good faith to protect victims of grievances and harassment - was put into play to effectively silence key members of the Mosaic slate, one by one, to more easily facilitate their removal from the chapter. While ATL-DSA’s SC officially stated by December that the suspended members within Mosaic had been abusing the grievance process,^[12] an allegation that was repeated by the NPC following the conclusion of their investigation^[21], it becomes readily evident on closer examination that the actual attempts at filing grievances on the part of Mosaic affiliates, most notably Lindsi’s grievance against Nate K (the only grievance actually filed), were more than legitimate.^[13]

The NPC’s report alleges the presence of a Trello board containing a note that a Mosaic member “[needed] help filing the grievances… against ATLDSA Steering Committee”,^[21] the cited evidence to which this claim refers to is inaccessible, and therefore cannot be fully considered. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that the mere presence of a request note for help in filing grievances is in no way indicative of weaponization, and its juxtaposition alongside Lindsi’s own grievance filing seeks to disingenuously downplay the sincerity of Lindsi’s own grievance against Nate K. Similarly, the proposition of the numerous grievances levied in regards to a denial of access to the chapter’s official communication channels - the denial of which was extended towards dozens of non-grievanced members of the chapter completely unaffiliated with Mosaic outside of simply interpersonal friendships with some members^[22] - is a clear instance of adjudicative bias favoring chapter leadership, broadly and implicitly declaring the grievances by ATL-DSA SC to be just and correct, while the grievances filed by the purged caused them to be branded as “wreckers” and their attempts at seeking justice used as grounds for the imposition of a collective punishment.^[21]

Christmas Crackdown

The decision for the declaration of collective punishment by the NPC against 23 members of DSA, and 38 members by the Atlanta chapter leadership, ultimately came to a climactic head on December 15th, 2021 - referred to by Brandyn B as the Christmas Crackdown.^[10]

On Wednesday, December 15th, 2021, at 1:36pm EST, a mass email was sent out by the official Atlanta DSA email address to a wide swathe of the chapter’s member body. Within this email, an accusation of “undemocratic, disruptive behavior” was levied against members Mosaic Atlanta, charging them with a slew of accusations including entryism; election fraud and manipulation; forgery; bribery; covert theft of DSA assets; using DSA as a front group for predatory recruitment; and a wide arrange of code of conduct violations such as filing false and weaponized grievances to frame others for misconduct, silence vocal opposition, and expel targeted individuals.

The email continued, stating that dual-carding with DSA and Mosaic was thereby prohibited, and that all recipients of such an email - the collective number of which is unknown, but could plausibly be as high as a triple digit number of members - were being suspected of collusion and engagement with Mosaic. We do, however, have reasonable grounds to estimate that the number of recipients numbered at least fifty different members, as Jack B’s testimony as one of the many recipients includes mention of a dozen other chapter members having received the same communications, a count which they admit is likely to be significantly lower than the true number due to them arriving at their count by “casually asking around”.^[22] At least one of these dozen members elected to leave DSA altogether as a result of the email, regarding it as a sign of disrespect from chapter leadership; ultimately, 38 different members were immediately and indefinitely suspended without any conclusive investigation against them, all on the grounds of supposed affiliation with Mosaic.

Yet as per Jack’s testimony, they were not affiliated with Mosaic as an organization. They had not run on either Mosaic slate for the delegation nor steering elections, and they were not a member of the newly-incorporated organization.^[22] Their crime had been being friends with just a couple of members on the first Mosaic slate. Additionally, the gross mishandling of their suspension and investigation - being indefinitely suspended without a conclusive investigation, receiving next to zero communications from chapter leadership in regards to the status of such investigation, receiving no aid or communications from National, and effectively being unilaterally shoved out of the organization due to an abuse of chapter administration - is something that is corroborated by Lindsi’s letter to the NPC^[11] (as well as their Twitter thread outlining the events^[22]), as well Rara’s own testimony and correspondence^[15], and the testimony of Jose P, another former chapter member and socialist of color.^[23]

By the time Jack elected to cancel their dues and depart DSA, they had been held in an indefinite suspension from the chapter for over 4 months, and received exactly one piece of communication in the entire time: on January 6th, 2022, when Shafeka, the co-chair of ATL-DSA, emailed him - from her own personal email address, no less - in response to his request to gain access to the chapter forums following the abrupt closure of chapter communications in Slack. Her communication was a curt and cold statement that Jack’s response to the email sent out on December 15th, in particular to the very last portion of the email: a demand to “[refuse] to participate, directly or indirectly, in any misconduct or undemocratic, disruptive behavior organized by Mosaic Atlanta Inc,” or to immediately revoke one’s Atlanta DSA membership.^[22] It was the same ultimatum that dozens of other members had been similarly provided: swear an oath of fealty to the chapter’s leadership, or be suspended indefinitely.

Ultimately, this strategy by the steering committee worked: every chapter member who refused to submit to these vague demands was suspended indefinitely or outright expelled, with the NPC’s decision reaffirming the action for no less than 23 of these suspended members. The problem with this course of action, of course, is the fact that the oath is impossible to uphold in any capacity that isn’t arbitrary: as Jack B stated, “indirect participation with disruptive behavior”^[24] is an entirely relative and arbitrary metric, and one that is fluid enough in application yet severe enough in its written consequence that it can be used as a cudgel to ensure that chapter members fall under the explicit desired operations of the leadership.

This exact level of malleable policy is what enabled ATL-DSA to purge dozens of members from the chapter - largely unilaterally and without recourse - by the simple distortion of facts to fit their narrative. Despite Mosaic incorporating as an independent organization after Brandyn and Rachel were purged from the chapter, its independent existence and gradual divergence from the chapter was weaponized as grounds for a mass expulsion, branding them an entryist organization operating under democratic centralism.^[12] The branding of demcent was particularly important for a key reason: it allowed for the immediate expulsion of entire groups under the then-enshrined clause in the DSA bylaws banning democratic centralism (which was removed as a part of the CB01 omnibus bylaws amendment at the 2025 National Convention).

Additionally, Mosaic was heavily and disproportionately composed of people of color, and the purge extended far beyond the immediate slate to also encompass nearly-every member who had even been friendly with the Mosaic members - many of whom had also been people of color, as well as functionally the entire chapter branch of the AfroSoc commission simply by mere association with Mosaic - effectively forcing nearly all of the active organizers of color out of the chapter. Cast out from DSA, they were branded as entryists, wreckers, undemocratic, and detrimental to socialist efforts.^[21]

Perhaps most ironically of all, much of the misconduct that the ATL-DSA steering committee accused Mosaic of in their efforts to consolidate power, centralize leadership and authority, and expel potential opposition was the exact kind of misconduct they had carried out towards those they chose to purge. During the 2021 chapter convention, the leadership election was rife with mishandling, not in the least the blatant conflicts of interest with Sumter being on the nominating committee while soliciting support for Magnolia, alongside the retention of Miracle F’s chair on the SC despite her alleged ineligibility. The SC also made rampant misuse of the grievance process, weaponizing its confidentiality to silence prominent members of the Mosaic slate as they expelled them from the organization and isolated them from their comrades. Manipulation of the grievance investigative process was also used to indefinitely suspend members without trial, enabling leadership to unilaterally purge the chapter of targeted individuals, many of whom were organizers of color.

And as for the accusations of using DSA as a front group for recruitment, and bringing DSA assets under the control of the organization, we must look no further than the coalition with DARC. From the constant attempts to press-gang members of DARC into joining DSA, functionally using DARC as a recruitment pool for the chapter, to the attempts at theft of intellectual property, cooptation of campaigns and credit, and ultimately demolition of DARC once its usefulness had run dry, the ATL-DSA leadership was guilty of nearly all that they had accused the Mosaic affiliates of.

Aftermath

This is not to say that Mosaic did no wrong. Rachel filed a fraudulent candidacy on the behalf of Miracle F, and Brandyn ghostwrote a forged candidate statement. The evidence of message obfuscation within the Mosaic discord server casts further suspicion on the actions of Mosaic at the time, and numerous emotionally-charged messages within such a server make disparaging comments towards many chapter members at the time. (Out of respect for those to whom the comments are directed at, they will not be included in this article, as they add nothing of substance due to them occurring after the chapter’s convention, cited Magnolia messages, and grievance filings.)

Yet the pattern of behavior by ATL-DSA is undeniable, one that clearly continues to plague the chapter to this day. However, this should come as no surprise; after all, the long-time ideological core of the chapter’s leadership - as well as the chapter’s policy and campaign directions - are still controlled by the same cluster of individuals. Nate K remains an officer in chapter leadership, Sumter A maintains their position of direct influence within the chapter, and Kelsea B’s successful campaign for Atlanta City Council has since launched them into a pseudocelebrity status, enabling the three of them to firm up their hegemony within the chapter. After all the injustice that occurred from their misconduct, they took no accountability, faced no repercussions, and - if anything - stood only to benefit from the fruits of their abuse of executive authority.

And perhaps most sinisterly, it may have been the plan all along. After all, on October 12th, 2021 - mere hours after the ex-DARC letter had been made public - Nate K and Kelsea B openly and brazenly formulated their conspiracy to purge the chapter of members who opposed them. In Nate’s own words, “I sound like a psycho but there’s seriously no way out of this other than show trial expulsions.”^[16] When the other two proposed “nuclear options” are between resigning from leadership or taking accountability and apologizing for misdeeds committed, Nate’s comment of self-reflection feels all the more true.

Years of grief and internal struggle had led up to this point. The leadership of Atlanta DSA was and is ultimately little more than a clique that maintains total dominance over the chapter to this day. A recent anecdote from this past December describes the omnipresence that Groundwork - in particular, the wing of the caucus led by Nate K, an individual who has remained in virtually uninterrupted (though not uncontested) chapter leadership since 2020, if not longer - holds over the Atlanta chapter, describing it as a “chokehold on [chapter] policy”.^[1] This hegemony is further reflected in the make-up of the chapter’s delegation to the 2025 National Convention, with 17 of the 22 delegates ranking the Groundwork slate highest on their NPC ballot (with 16 of the 17 ranking Sumter first).^[25]

In the business of striving for a socialist future, there is no place for ego, and the cast of our play has no protagonist. And in Atlanta - the “black mecca” of the Deep South - a small leadership clique of white comrades is furthest from the main roles; elsewise, the tale falls to become one of chauvinism. And in our socialist organization, such chauvinism - the death of solidarity and a festering wound of reaction - has no place.

Yet the 38 members who were unjustly suspended and expelled from the chapter 4 years ago, the ex-DARC organizers who watched their year of hard work and abolitionist organizing efforts be stolen from them - imperialized, even - only to be immediately squandered within a month, and all the people of color who were pushed away from DSA and organizing towards a socialist future will always remember the pain of the wound that the chapter leadership inflicted. If our organization - our deliberately multitendency organization, nonetheless, aimed at uniting the many different currents of socialism under one big tent - is to not only succeed in its endeavor, but simply survive to see it through, we must build a DSA for all, not just those who abide by the demands of a select few in power. And within this big tent, there must be room for our many comrades to have their voices heard and not be drowned out by the manipulations of a select few.

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About

Iskandar N. –

Iskandar N. is a Gramscian Marxist member of Mountain Caucus within the Democratic Socialists of America. They are currently based in Baltimore, with roots in Atlanta and international organizing history in the Levant and West Asia.