Category: Newsletter
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The Case For A Southern Freedom Movement: Learning from the March On Washington
By Keilani Kimes-Parker, Project South Member This August marked the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. An important milestone in what we, as Generation X’ers, identify as the Civil Rights Movement, the 1963 March is credited for ushering in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights…
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The University Without Walls: Why do we need a University for Movement?
By Rasha Abdulhadi, Operations Coordinator Why does colonialism matter to talk about? Is it in the past? Does it still exist in the US, in the Global South? We can’t understand current politics in the Middle East, Africa, Caribbean, Central and South America without considering colonialism. Likewise, we can’t understand race, economics, immigration and geography…
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Childcare: Fight the Sequester & Build Alternatives
By Tamika Middleton “For Black women today and for all their working-class sisters, the notion that the burden of housework and child care can be shifted from their shoulders to the society contains one of the radical secrets of women’s liberation.” -Angela Davis, Women, Race, and Class As the force of the right-wing grows, and…
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Pushing our voices to the center
by Tamika Middleton, Atlanta Local Program Coordinator The reproductive justice movement has strong and deep roots in the South. This is no coincidence, of course. Reproductive violence against women, and especially women of color, is ingrained in the history of the region through enslavement and genocide. Current iterations of reproductive oppression build on these legacies.…
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South to Freedom:Place Matters: Jacksonville, Florida Represents Southern Resistance
by Aleta Alston-Toure’ of the New Jim Crow Movement & Stephanie Guilloud One of the principles of the Southern Movement Assembly is centered on respecting and lifting up local leadership in any site where we convene. As we build stronger regional efforts, we remain committed to the self-determination of organizations and groups rooted in local…
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Streets Ain’t Nothing but a Trap: Why the National Student Bill of Rights is important in the South
By Niqua Douglas Niqua graduated from the 1st Annual Septima Clark Community Power Institute in 2008 and joined the staff as a Regional Youth Organizer in January 2012. Niqua serves as the Co-chair of the National Student Bill of Rights Task Force. This article is the first in a series and part of a larger…
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South x South Africa
By Ruben Solis Garcia Ruben Solis co-founded the Southwest Workers’ Union in 1981 in San Antonio, and was part of the founding group of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, the Southwest Network for Environmental & Economic Justice, and the Colegio Jacinto Trevino in 1970, a Chican@ Freedom School in the Rio Grande valley. Recently, he…
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Stop the Killings: Children from Florida to Pakistan & a Southern Response
By Emery Wright I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie extoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids — and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am…
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Don’t believe the Hype: Election Day decided by Movement, not Majority
by Emery Wright, Project South Co-Director In the U.S. South, we have a colored history with “Majority” politics. In fact, history teaches us that political campaigns, social struggles, and leaders that focused on Majority- rule rarely achieve social justice or greater political freedom. A Majority-rule politic has meant freedom for some, rather than a liberation…
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Grab an Oar: Fighting Currents that deny our right to vote
by Pat Hussain, Project South member The act of voting seems like a simple thing until you realize it took four Constitutional amendments, the Indian Act, the Nationality Act, the Voting Rights Act, civil rights advocates, suffragettes, and the streets filled with people like us. It feels like crossing the deep, wide, and strong Mississippi…