Stories

Education

  • Sophia Bracy Harris: Southern Rural Black Women's Initiative

    Sophia Bracy Harris is Executive Director of the Federation of Child Care Centers of Alabama (FOCAL) and Alabama Director of the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Economic and Social Justice (SRBWI). Her lifelong dedication to improving educational opportunities for children and their families has been recognized with the Rockefeller Public Service Award, Gleitsman Foundation “People...

  • Report Documents Hardships, Solutions for Rural Black Women and Children

    As the wealth gap in America widens, one group consistently finds itself at the bottom of the economic opportunity chasm. “On nearly every social indicator of well-being — from income and earnings to obesity and food security — Black women, girls and children in the rural South rank low or last.” So finds an eye-opening new study by the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative of Black Belt...

  • Rural Challenges, Real Solutions

    The ongoing paucity of public and private investment in the rural South has caused outsized harm to African-American women and girls. In a study published this week titled “ Unequal Lives: The State of Black Women and Families in the Rural South ,” the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative (SRBWI) found “on nearly every social indicator of well-being — from income and earnings to obesity and...

    Shirley Sherrod
  • Daa'iyah Salaam: Why Rural?

    For five years, Daa’iyah Salaam served as Business Development Specialist for the Southwest Georgia Project, an organization founded in 1961 to educate, engage and empower through advocacy and community organizing. The organization has successfully addressed school segregation, welfare rights, voter rights and education, housing, land loss, economic development and unfair policies affecting...

  • John Littles: Funding Rural

    Since 2000, John Littles has been Executive Director of McIntosh SEED (Sustainable Environment and Economic Development), a grassroots organization that fosters quality education, housing, recreational facilities, business opportunities and environmental protection for McIntosh County, Georgia, through community development, organizing and advocacy.

    Littles provides technical...