A (Brief) Chapter History

Like many around the country at the time, DSA members in the Piedmont region of North Carolina were inspired by Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential run. The Piedmont Chapter—then spanning from the Triad of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point to the Triangle of Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh—was incorporated in 2016. Meanwhile, national DSA membership continued to grow and hit 24,000 members in July 2017. However, the Piedmont chapter faced many challenges organizing in such a geographically large area. Then, in 2018, the Triangle split from Winston-Salem and Greensboro and they became three distinct chapters. While the Triangle chapter and the Winston-Salem chapter continued to grow and organize, the Greensboro chapter went defunct around May 2021.

In late 2025, at-large members from Greensboro wrote a resolution to expand the Winston-Salem chapter to become the Piedmont Triad chapter, encompassing Greensboro, High-Point, and surrounding areas. The resolution passed unanimously at both the November 2025 and January 2026 Winston-Salem general meetings. Soon after, chapter members applied to annex the new geography and on February 13, 2026, DSA’s National Political Committee officially approved the chapter expansion.

Today, there are over 100,000 DSA members nationally—making it the largest socialist organization in the US in the last century—and the Piedmont Triad chapter continues to grow by the day.