1959 Highlander Way · New Market, TN 37820 · phone: (865) 933-3443 · fax: (865) 933-3424
e-mail: hrec@highlandercenter.org

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2007 Year-End Letter
by Anasa Troutman
Development & Communications Coordinator

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What an amazing year we have had at Highlander!!!

2007 has been an incredible year for the Highlander Research and Education Center, and we couldn't have done it without the many generous individuals who share Highlander's commitment to social and economic justice.

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Anasa Troutman, and I recently accepted the position of Development & Communications Coordinator here at the Highlander Center. It is an honor and a privilege to serve Highlander in this capacity, and to work with and learn from fellow Highlander staff like Tami Newman, who continues to be a vital part of the Development Team as she celebrates her 25th year here at Highlander. This is an exciting time to join the Highlander family as there are many, many exciting and innovative things happening here.

Although I am new to the staff, I am no stranger here. Highlander and I got to know each other quite well this year as I took the lead in organizing the 75th Anniversary Celebration that took place this past Labor Day weekend.

For three days, Highlander became a global village where 1,100 from Alabama to Australia and Louisiana to Indonesia gathered to celebrate together and learn from each other.

The gathering included day-long institutes on Highlander's methodology, workshops and conversations on critical issues, strategy sessions on the future of the South, music, dancing, celebration, and on and on and on. There were veteran activists from organizations like SNCC and SALT, and young people working with Highlander today for justice in their communities. There were people fighting mountaintop removal in Appalachia talking to those working on the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita along the Gulf Coast. There were casino workers from Mississippi, poultry workers from North Carolina, and immigrants from across the region talking about workers' rights. There were Freedom Singers from the Deep South, string bands from eastern Kentucky, choirs from the Bay Area, and hip hop artists from Mississippi. There were people from all over the South and all over the world working on immigration, environmental justice, LGBTQ issues speaking with one tongue and singing in one voice. There were people who had not been to Highlander in years, and folks who came for the very first time.

Highlander's 75th Anniversary was a space for transformation - at once bold, historic, unifying, fortifying, reflective, informative, and forward thinking. The feedback we have received since the gathering testifies to its impact: "One life-changing moment after the other." "A splendid moment for us to feel ourselves as a movement." And many more.

The 75th was an incredible and gratifying task, and we still made great strides in other areas of work here at Highlander. Here are some of our other accomplishments for 2007.

• Highlander was central to interpretation, translation and cultural organizing at the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta which brought together 15,000 progressive minded activists to strengthen the work for justice in the U.S., which means things then get better around the world.
• Highlander conducted an eight-day Seeds of Fire camp that rocked the lives of 20 youth and 10 adults from rural North Carolina and Mississippi, small cities in Tennessee, and urban communities in Miami and Atlanta.
• Highlander emerged as a leader in intergenerational organizing in the region and is looked to as a critical resource on this issue, leading workshops at the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation grantee convening and the Southeast Regional NAACP Civil Rights and Advocacy Training.
• Highlander conducted a multilingual capacity building workshop in New Orleans that included folks working with Vietnamese fishermen along the Gulf Coast, one in Mississippi with folks organizing poultry workers, and two more workshops here at Highlander.
• Highlander conducted Justice Schools with immigrants from across the state of Tennessee, supporting their work for fair and just immigration reform, and staffed a regional convening on immigrant rights issues with the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights in Durham.

And that's still just part of the story.

Will you help us keep this work moving forward? Seventy-five years of organizing for justice is built one hard-working year at a time, and we need your support to continue this work in 2008 and beyond. Our 2008 goals include:

• Conducting a new 18-month Justice School with working people from communities all over the South, including the Deep South, Appalachia and immigrant communities, supporting their local community efforts as well as connecting people and issues for collaborative work.
• Establishing the Zilphia Horton Community Arts Project, a new cultural organizing residency that will place artists with community groups to model the importance and mechanics of cultural organizing and address critical community issues.
• Convening a regional gathering of young adult community leaders and organizers to focus on leadership transition.
• Developing an advanced training for multilingual capacity building and a "train the trainers" curriculum to help spread this vital tool for organizing across language and culture throughout the southeast and beyond.
• Focusing our Seeds of Fire Youth Leadership Camp on education and prison pipeline issues.
• Enhancing the capacity of our unique social justice library and resource center, which is used by hundreds of activists and researchers every year.

The gift of Highlander's first 75 years was never guaranteed, and neither is the gift of the next 75. You and your support are a big part of the reason that we are still here diligently working for justice. We hope we can count on a gift from you and your participation in launching the next 75 years of relentlessly pursuing justice.

Thank you for being such an important part of the work to build collective power in the South and Appalachia. Thank you for supporting the simple but radically profound practice of bringing every day, ordinary people together to learn from each other. It's a method that has supported the transformation of communities 75 years. It's why Highlander is still here, it's why you support us, and it's why I am still here; committed to Highlander and its work.

Again, it's an honor to be here at Highlander. I am looking forward to getting to know you as I continue my work here as we continue collectively to build and move. See you on "The Hill"!

In progress,
Anasa Troutman
Coordinator, Development & Communications Team

To make a secure online contribution to Highlander, click on the button below. For other ways to contribute, click here.

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