Building Power with Our People, Across Communities and Within Ourselves
Sep 26, 2006, 14:10
Notes from the Southeast Social Forum
By Emery Wright
“How many people here have been incarcerated or know someone that’s in jail right now? How many people currently don’t have a job or know someone that doesn’t have a job?” The state-wide alliance of hip hop artists in Mississippi had its hands raised. “How many people have been directly affected or know someone’s that directly affected by Katrina?” People had both hands stretched in the air.
It was the second meeting that evening during an outreach trip to Jackson, Mississippi. We were hosted by Maurice and Carlton Turner, of MUGABEE and Alternate ROOTS, and they had arranged for several meetings and conversations in their home of Jackson, MS about the upcoming Southeast Social Forum (SESF). Maurice and Carlton were all among the many people who worked to facilitate outreach and planning for the Social Forum.
Planning: Building Connections, Valuing the Face to Face
The SESF planning process exposed some of the barriers and much of the promise we face in organizing and movement building for justice and self-determination. The process was challenging, at times frustrating, but also a source of inspiration to move forward. Race & white-supremacy, conflicting world views, difference in experience, role in and purpose of struggle were just some of the questions asked, issues debated and lessons learned from. The promise was in genuine effort of people in struggle to find ways to connect across difference and in the representation of powerful people from powerful communities demanding self-determination and justice.
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| Loretta Ross, from SisterSong, Alice Lovelace, Lead Organizer for the USSF, and Jody Lasseter, Volunteer Coordinator for SESF pose for a shot after the Immigrant Rights Plenary |
Along with Project South staff, Chaka Uzundo, from United for a Fair Economy, and Najma Nazy’at, currently Lead Organizer at Boston Youth Organizing Project, participated in trips to visit communities in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia. The purpose of each outreach trip was face-to-face communication and discussion about the how the SESF could propel our work and promote unity among communities and struggles throughout the Southeast. Some people call this “movement building” and some people just call it “survival”. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, this hope and need to connect was the driving force behind southern involvement and work towards the Southeast Social Forum.
At the Southeast Social Forum
After months of arrangements, the Southeast Social Forum took place at North Carolina Central University, a historically black university in Durham, North Carolina. Over 560 people, working for justice and equality participated in three days of workshops, meetings, panel discussions, hallway conversations and film screenings. Participants designed and facilitated workshops and presentations on their issues, strategies and campaigns. Formal and informal discussions were held on the pressing concerns of our work and child-care became its own children’s social forum (thanks to the hard work of one volunteer!)
People traveled from across the Gulf Coast, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama throughout Georgia and Florida reaching Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia and all the Carolinas. We represented Black organizations working for racial justice and human rights, economic justice, worker and labor organizations, immigrant rights and farm-worker rights organizations, women’s organizations, anti-war groups and many groups and individuals working on and affected by the Gulf Coast Disaster.
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| Rev. Kenny Glasgow from The Ordinary People's Society (far left) is the Southeast Regional Representative for the US Social Forum |
On the first evening of the SESF, around 300 people were in and around the historic Hayti Community Center in Durham, North Carolina. People from across the region were mingling in the lobby, outside and in the auditorium talking with each other and checking out the beginnings of a large sheet that would go through a process called Indigo dye, similar to tie-dye, that would read: “Southeast Social Forum 2006”. There was an electric and positive vibration ringing throughout the space at Hayti that would last for the remainder of the Forum. A momentum and excitement about our movements has grown from this gathering, and can inspire similar planning for the US Social Forum next year.
Building Solidarity = Building the US Social Forum
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| Farm Labor Organizing Committee members and staff from North Carolina. |
In an environment of fellowship, the Southeast Social Forum participants felt and experienced the potential for strategic solidarity to energize and build momentum in our struggles. Together, we voiced a collective commitment to the long haul struggle of building movement in an effort to transform our oppressions into liberation.
As both distant and recent history reveals, many of our people are forgotten and left for dead when it fits the interest of money and power. The SESF and US Social Forum process provides space for our people, the people forgotten to America, to connect using our culture and history of struggle to build strategies and win victories. We struggle to transform from forgotten people to the people who will always be remembered: for their courage and principles in fighting for justice and equal rights.
Links
United States Social Forum - June 27 - July 1 2007 Atlanta, Georgia. The US Social Forum is more than a conference, more than a networking bonanza, more than a reaction to war and repression. The USSF will provide space to build relationships, learn from each other's experiences, share our analysis of the problems our communities face, and bring renewed insight and inspiration. It will help develop leadership and develop consciousness, vision, and strategy needed to realize another world.
Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide
Alternate ROOTS
The Ordinary People's Society
Highlander Center
Southeast Social Forum Timeline
August 2005: National Planning Committee selects Atlanta as host city to the first United States Social Forum (USSF) and holds meeting in Atlanta.
September 2005: Hurricane Katrina hits Alabama Gulf Coast, New Orleans levees breeched and Gulf Coast Disaster unfolds. USSF postponed to June 07
January 2006: Southeast Regional Organizing Committee meeting called in Atlanta to discuss Gulf Coast Disaster, anti-immigrant movement and how USSF could help build our movements in US South. 100 people representing organizations across Southeast and Appalachia attend meeting. Participants call for a larger southeast-wide gathering with greater representation from our organizations and communities’ base.
June 2006: “Southeast Social Forum Planning Meeting for USSF” held in Durham, North Carolina. 600 people from across the Southeast & Appalachia attend 3 days of workshops, plenary, discussions and conversations to build on their current work and debate the opportunities of USSF process.
© Copyright 2005 by Building Movement
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