The second prong of SURJ’s three year strategy to block authoritarianism and build a base of white people to win is to grow our work in poor and working class white communities in the South.
The South is key to stopping an authoritarian takeover of this country and building an enduring progressive base to win things we all need.
For the last fifty years, the ultra-conservative GOP has targeted the South and relies on this region to stay in power. Out-organizing them in white communities there cuts their base from beneath them.
One way we’re doing that is through our project, Southern Crossroads, that organizes poor and working class white people in small towns and rural areas in the Deep South. Learn more about this part of our strategy.
Southern Crossroads (SCOPE) brings folks into our work by meeting them in their day-to-day struggles around issues like housing, healthcare, and wages. After launching local listening projects, winning city-wide renters protections, and winning local elections, we’re growing our work to launch new small town, statewide, and regional projects.
Bedford County Listening Project (BCLP) was formed after the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville in 2017, when white supremacist came to Shelbyville, Tennessee. Community members came out to counter-protest and recognized that there were so many people in this small, majority-white town that wanted their community to stand for justice.
Six years later, we have elected a BCLP member to city council who ran on an anti-KKK and tenants rights platform, won changes to tenants rules, and won a renters committee to advise the city.
Tennessee for Safe Homes (T4SH) launched this year out of the BCLP. T4SH is a statewide initiative where we’re contacting thousands of poor white renters across the state to bring them into campaigns like the ones BCLP has won.
Last month, 17 BCLP members and allies (and kiddos) gathered for two days of mass door knocking to reach out to neighbors about how the growing housing crisis in Tennessee is affecting families in rural areas. We knocked 500 doors in 10 housing complexes to talk to renters about issues they’re facing. Over the last two months, we’ve called 2,000 renters and have had 500 folks in rural TN take action with us.
Last month, 17 BCLP members and allies (and kiddos) gathered for two days of mass door knocking to reach out to neighbors about how the growing housing crisis in Tennessee is affecting families in rural areas. We knocked 500 doors in 10 housing complexes to talk to renters about issues they’re facing. Over the last two months, we’ve called 2,000 renters and have had 500 folks in rural TN take action with us.
Want to join this work? Help us contact more rural renters on June 13.
Georgia Healthcare Listening Project (GHLP) is our newest SCOPE project launching this month.
Hospitals are closing in rural areas across the South, making accessing healthcare services even more difficult. We’re calling people in majority-white, working class communities across the state to learn about how this issue is affecting them and to invite them into our work.
SCOPE’s efforts are not only blocking far right radicalization in working class, white, Southern communities, but we’re bringing people into our work to change their communities for the better. Here are three ways to support SCOPE:
1) Make a donation to grow our Southern organizing
2) Join us to call renters in Tennessee on June 13
3) Help us launch the Georgia Healthcare Listening Project on June 12
In solidarity,
Showing Up for Racial Justice
