Stories

Rural

  • Shirley Sherrod: Focus Areas

    Shirley and Charles Sherrod founded the Southwest Georgia Project for Community Education in 1961 to educate, engage and empower through advocacy and community organizing. SWGAP has successfully addressed school segregation, welfare rights, voter rights and education, housing, land loss, economic development and unfair policies affecting school children and families.

    After decades of...

  • 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...

  • Cheryl Peterson: Working in Rural Areas

    As Senior Managing Director of McIntosh SEED (Sustainable Environment and Economic Development), Cheryl Peterson provides technical assistance to organizations in youth leadership and development, community outreach and engagement, local and regional organizational development, and educational supervision and instruction. McIntosh SEED is a grassroots organization that fosters quality...