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Progressives converge on Atlanta
continued from page 9
Minnesota, were able to harness the power
of the faith networks like never before," she
said. "We dispelled the myth of gays vs.
African-Americans. We really tapped into
an especially huge campus system in North
Carolina to get young people out to vote like
never before."
Though North Carolina lost, organizers
here learned important lessons, she said.
That loss, however, has reinforced negative
stereotypes about the South.
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“I still don't think national LGBT organi
zations appreciate the unique challenges
of organizing in the South," said Equality
North Carolina Executive Director Stuart
Campbell. "Many still write-off the South,
but the tide is turning."
Campbell cited Republican-led Virginia
state Senate's recent passage of employment
protections on the basis of sexual orientation.
"Virginia shows there are opportunities
for the South to take important strides toward
equality," Stuart said.
The conference had a strong showing
of southern attendees, likely bolstered by its
location in Atlanta and the active nature of
the local host committee. But, Sarah Reece,
director of the Task Force's Academy for
Leadership and Action, said the large showing
might also be a result of other factors.
"A big piece of is what is already hap
pening on the ground in a host city or a re
gion when Creating Change comes to town
and the moment in the movement where we
are," Reece said in an interview via tele
phone the week after the conference. "You
put all that together, shake it up and have a
Creating Change and you're going to get the
results of that."
In addition to dozens of conference
participants from North and South Carolina,
regional groups like Southerners on New
Ground (SONG) were present The Atlanta-
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based SONG kicked off their weekend of
activities at the conference with a session on
southern organizing.
"There is time now for us to build a south
ern freedom movement given the shifting
landscape in the South and in the country,"
SONG Senior Strategist Kai Lumumba Barrow,
of Durham, told a crowd of more than 50 par
ticipants gathered for their session the South,
politics, sex and god.
"We work in a place — this region, this
land, this culture—that has a legacy of
both slavery and the most extraordinary civil
rights resistance movement," SONG Senior
Strategist Suzanne Pharr told a room of more
than 50 session participants. "We live in a
place you could say is a place of contradic
tion, but in some ways it isn't because both
of those connect to each other. There are not
good or bad guys. This is a complexity we live
every day."
Reece said The Task Force agr'ees.it's
keenly aware of the South's special place in
progressive politics.
"The Task Force has been the progres
sive voice for the LGBT community and
has striven to be the LGBT voice of the
progressive community," she said. In their
work. The Task Force, like SONG and other
southern regional groups, have attempted
to highlight the intersections between
issues like LGBT rights, immigration rights
and reproductive choice.
"It hits a different note when you have
this conversation in the South, which has
been used as the training ground for the
rightwing opposition over the years," Reece
said. "You're having this conversation about
these intersections in the place in the country
where people have lived the intersections and
taught the rest of the country what it means to
live in these intersections and organize at the
intersections."
Equality North Carolina's Church thinks it's
time for organizations, activists, bloggers and
others to take notice of the South.
"A lot of people have this mentality of 'Oh,
well, that's the South,"' Church said. "But,
organizing in the South is unique. It's special
to me personally because'this is our home.
The options are either be complacent and live
your live going through the moves or do some
thing about it."
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More people are getting involved. Church
said. Change is happening.
Reece recognizes that progress can be
viewed through different lenses.
"Red, blue or purple - what does your
state look like? The South can get a bad
wrap at times when you see a slew of red,"
she said. "There is progress being made in
the South all the time. If we just look at the
narrow definition of progress just by looking
at the make-up of legislatures [then] we don't
lift up and look underneath and see the great
work organizations like Southerners on New
Ground and Highlander Center are doing to
make progress every day."
The message throughout the conference
from southern attendees was one of strength
and perseverance. Equality North Carolina's
Jones thinks southern history prepares south
ern organizers for political and social justice
achievements that are often harder to win in
the South. Those lessons are important for
others across the country as well.
"There has to be a realization that if
we're going to get the Employment Non-
Discrimination Act or marriage equality or
safe schools in other states without it, then
we have to apply lessons the South has been
learning decades longerthanthe rest of the
country," Jones said. "Specifically, that's
perseverance ... [and] a narrative of learned
lessons of working together against oppres
sive forces and of marginalized groups form
ing civil rights movements."
Organizers at The Task Force know there
is more work to be done.
"Last year was not a win for everyone in
our community," Reece said, noting losses
on topics ranging from immigration and
reproductive rights to the death penalty and
non-discrimination laws. "We have to be
ever-vigilant in making sure we are doing the
good and hard work of one-on-one relation
ship building to tell our personal stories and
built a climate of changing hearts and minds.
The lesson we can take from the South - it is
about how we treat each other. Even though
policy change is happening we know that
it doesn't translate into culture change fast
. enough for it to always matter in people's daily
lives, As [Task Force Executive Director] Rea
Carey said at Creating Change, the work is not
over and there is still work to be done.":;
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