Seven Questions with Raeghn Draper

Raeghn Draper is the Associate Partner for Mobilization and Partnerships at Global Zero. Bringing their experience in labor organizing and community storytelling to their current work, Raeghn holds steady in their belief that collective action and imagination have the key to realizing a more equitable future for everyone. This is part of a series of interviews in which you can get to know the grants given under the 2022 Equity Rises Request for Proposals and the people behind all the work.

Question 1: Tell us about your work! What kind of goals do you have? What are you excited about?

At Global Zero, I primarily focus on partnerships and building authentic relationships with organizations and activists worldwide. One of my goals includes broadening the movement for nuclear abolition to include issues and voices not present in the field. That’s one of the reasons, I’m excited about my work on Notes From the Edge. Thanks to Ploughshares, we received a grant to produce content around nuclear abolition specifically for marginalized communities.

Question 2: How can the nuclear policy community build power and connect with other social justice movements?

In my experience, this field invites people to come in and do it our way. People often need to feel related to an issue before they do something about it; nuclear weapons oppress us with their potential and their everyday slow violence. When we inform people about how the weapons complex impacts their lives right now, they become charged up to do something about it and that’s empowering.

Question 3: How do you measure progress?

Personally and professionally, if I know more than I did the year before. Learning is growth and evolution.

Question 4: What's the most interesting or memorable project you've gotten involved with in your career?

Notes From the Edge of Society, I’m working with a group of bad-ass people of color and not everyone is working in the nuclear field. Our meetings are both productive, healing, and educational. I learn so much from each of them and it feels fantastic to be doing something we are all so passionate about in a safe space we’ve created for ourselves.

Question 5: What’s the one thing about the nuclear policy field you wish people knew or would talk about more often?

The slow violence of nuclear weapons instead of only their potential world-ending power.

Question 6: What advice do you have for someone trying to enter the nuclear policy and security field?

Stay true to who you are! If your interests are outside of nuke policy and security, bring those with you. Don’t assimilate into the predominately white and male culture.

Question 7: What is the best book you’ve read recently?

“Begin the World Over” by Kung Li Shun is a historical fiction account of if the revolt in Haiti had spread to the United States and enslaved Black people, allied with Native people and murdered their torturers. It was a very healing and empowering read; maybe a little sad to think about what could have been.