Mountaingirl’s Weblog

Over twenty five social and environmental justice groups from the Southeast met at Highlander Research and Education Center this week to continue exploring ways to support the civil and economic rights movement in the region. After the exciting election season, many groups see the opportunity to work together and lift up common goals and needs of the South. On Tuesday, we spent time talking about the shaky economy and what that could mean for non-profits and other groups working for justice, which usually rely heavily on grant and foundation funding. We shared our enthusiasm about Obama’s election and how to reach him and his transition team with our hopes, expectations and demands for justice and prosperity. We noted the importance of remaining vigilant and resolute given the political and economic environment. (My one caveat was that we do not look to Obama to make the changes we know are necessary, but to ourselves and to our communities. He will not make the change; We will make the change.) On Wednesday, we looked more closely at barriers to moving forward including resource competition, bad mouthing, duplicating our work and “silos”. The concept of a silo was new to me, but basically describes the lack of communication and sharing of common goals among departments in an organization. More broadly speaking, within the movement for social justice, organizations may not communicate with one another and therefore not be as effective as they might be if means to share information were in place. We continued to address these obstacles over the next day and a half, as we crafted a strategy to infuse new energy into the movement and come up with solid steps for moving ahead. Five small groups were set up to brainstorm around 1) coordinated actions 2) communication and technology infrastructure 3) convergences/big gatherings 4) consciousness raising & political education and 5) economic survival and sustainability. My group discussed economic sustainability and creating a framework that would decrease our reliance on foundation grants and bring our fundraising back to the grassroots. We talked about examples in place across the Southeast, such as Appalachian Sustainable Development in SW Virginia, Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC and the Little Grill Collective in Harrisonburg, VA. Some great models are already in place, but sharing these ideas across the South is one big task we have before us. Other means to support a solidarity economy could be space and resource sharing, with a few organizations having one office space, so that electricity and internet bills could be shared. More extreme methods we dreamed up were beginning to move off the grid, with in-house electricity generation or water catchment systems. Finally, we discussed the need to decrease our reliance on large donors and diversify our income “portfolios”. (Sounds strikingly similar to decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels and diversifying our energy portfolios, huh?) This just illuminates the link between our economic and our energy sustainability. After bringing our small group brainstorms back together, our strategy for moving forward was to draft a letter to Barack Obama as well as a Southern Manifesto, to lift up the uniqueness of the South. The tone of these documents would be informative, assertive, affirming and rooted in reality. The reality is that there are many issues in the South that need to be addressed, including but not limited to: agricultural policy, racial justice, health and safety, labor, mountain top removal mining, immigration, education, voter rights, mental health, poverty and militarization. The letter to Obama will push the social and environmental justice issues to the forefront, asking him to seriously tackle each of these topics during his time in office. The Southern Manifesto would be directed towards the groups and organizations in the South working for freedom and justice, bringing our common goals together and placing them on the same page. This framework could keep us on track in the years to come and would likely be revised and revisioned along the way. Between all the discussions, we left ample time for singing and sharing our stories with one another. There were older folks from the Civil Rights Era and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee as well as younger leaders just beginning their work for peace and justice in the South. Overall, we agreed to continue to build relationships in our respective communities, communicate with each other as best we can and to support collaboration when possible to build a solid movement in the Southeast. Leaving Highlander, I felt jubilant and inspired, though slightly exhausted just thinking about the work we have ahead of us. However, knowing that we are working together for justice and liberation made me breathe a sigh of relief.