Stories

Organizing

  • John Littles: Youth Training and Vision for the Future

    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...

  • Hollis Watkins: Advice to Young Organizers, Generational Transition

    A veteran of the civil rights movement, Hollis Watkins founded Southern Echo, a leadership development, education and training organization working to develop effective, accountable grassroots leadership in rural Mississippi and the surrounding region.

    Watkins and Southern Echo have been instrumental in challenging redistricting in Mississippi, protecting communities from landfills and...

  • Sophia Bracy Harris: Early Work with FOCAL

    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...

  • Daa'iyah Salaam: SWGP Cultural Corridor

    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...

  • Mayra Rangel: Early Orientation

    At age 16, Mayra Rangel walked through the desert for six days to escape poverty and find a job to support her family back in Mexico. Her activism began in 2011 when the Alabama legislature passed HB56, the nation’s strictest immigration law. She helped the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice defeat many parts of the bill. Since then, she has continued to volunteer, organize, register...