In 1965 — eight years before Roe v. Wade — University of Chicago student Heather Booth made one phone call that grew into an underground network so vast it would later be immortalized in the HBO documentary The Janes and the film Call Jane. Arrested at eighteen for registering Black voters during Mississippi's Freedom Summer, Booth went on to found the Midwest Academy, help win the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and marriage equality, and train two generations of America's grassroots organizers. In this episode of Leading Boldly into the Future, Anne Pratt sits down with the legendary strategist to unpack the three-question test Booth teaches every organizer — a test that echoes Harvard's Adaptive Leadership framework and the parallel life's work of fellow 1964 Freedom Summer volunteer Marshall Ganz. This conversation arrives at a pointed moment: with the November 2026 midterms two weeks out and abortion rights on statewide ballots in Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia, the fight Booth helped start six decades ago is back in front of voters. Booth closes with her own reflection on Nelson Mandela's greatest lesson: hope, even in the moments that look hopeless. "When we organize with love at the center," Booth says, "we can change this world."
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