Join Us for Highlander Homecoming and Apple Fair; 9/6/09! Please join us Sunday, September 6, 2009, from 2:00-9:00 p.m. for Highlander's Homecoming and Apple Fair. This year we are celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Highlander’s Children’s Camp. Come and hear the remarkable things our former campers are doing. Special appearances by Silas House, Jason Howard and Kate Larken of Public Outcry and "The Cost of Coal Banner" by the Beehive Collective. There will also be great music, children's activities, workshops and dinner, as well as hayrides to our apple orchard. For more information and a schedule for the day, click here.

As Highlander works to nurture the skills and capacity of marginalized communities, build on the momentum of the elections, and maximixe our regional resources and efforts, we are fortifying current issue campaigns happening in the South with the strategic inclusion of art and culture. A new pilot project called the Zilphia Horton Cultural Organizing Residency Project will match artists and communities in residency work to help local organizers develop cultural tools to help take a current campaign to another level.

As the first stage of the Zilphia Horton Project, we are currently accepting applications for two communities/organizations interested in partnering with us to host a three-week cultural organizing residency in fall/winter 2009. Communities in Appalachia and the Southern United States are eligible to participate.

The goals of the Zilphia Horton Cultural Organizing Residency Project and partnerships include:

• Help organizations expand the role of art and culture in their organizing and advocacy efforts
• Enrich the work of Cultural Workers, Artists and/or Cultural Organizers involved by providing a strategic opportunity to engage community issues and to work with and learn from grassroots organizations.
• Inspire people to develop cultural tools that can help bring more interest and energy to campaigns. This could be song, video, performances, paintings or other works of art that draw on local cultures and address community issues and concerns.

The project will begin with an orientation workshop for the artists and community representatives at Highlander in September and close with an evaluation workshop at Highlander in December.

To apply to the Zilphia Horton Cultural Organizing Residency Project, download the application form (PDF, 8kb) and send it to Susan Williams, Highlander Center, 1959 Highlander Way, New Market, TN 37820. Fax: 865-933-3424, email swilliams (at) highlandercenter.org.

For more information about the program, contact

• Tufara Waller Muhammad 865-335-2443 tufara (at) highlandercenter.org
• Susan Williams 865-933-3443 ext. 229 swilliams (at) highlandercenter.org

The Zilphia Horton Community Cultural Project is named for Zilphia Horton, one of Highlander’s first staff members, who brought an understanding of the connection between culture and organizing that has continued throughout Highlander’s history. Zilphia taught song-leading, helped organizing workers to write labor dramas, and helped to share the song "I Will Overcome" after learning it from striking tobacco workers in Charleston, South Carolina. The Zilphia Horton Project continues Zilphia Horton’s legacy by bringing together artists and grassroots activists to address and develop solutions for the pressing social and economic issues facing the region. The Zilphia Horton Project is funded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

Zilphia Horton singing on a picket line in the 1940s.

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From June 26-29, 2009, 22 youth and young adults from Appalachia gathered in Highlander's rocking chairs to begin coming up with a plan for how they can help to ensure that young people and adults would be able to STAY in the Appalachian, particularly the Central Appalachian region.

The STAY Project (Staying Together Appalachian Youth) moved from an idea to a group with an identity and a structure. The project - a collaboration of Appalshop Media Institute, High Rocks for Girls and Highlander Center - is a diverse regional network of young people working together to create, advocate for, and participate in safe, sustainable, engaging and inclusive communities throughout Appalachia and beyond.

For more background on the STAY Project, click here, or contact:

• Stayproject (at) gmail.com
• Elandria Williams at elandria (at) highlandercenter.org, 865-933-3443 x 244 (o) 865-973-1896 (c)

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Seeds of Fire participants walking to Highlander's orchard.

"There is a space for all who come to Highlander" is part of an opening stanza of a new song, "A Place at Highlander," written by Mr. Freddie Mosley, an adult ally from 2nd Chance, during the 2009 Seeds of Fire camp. Mr. Mosely drives 2 hours from Columbus to Lexington, MS to do the hard and amazing work of supporting youth and families tying to make change. This dedication to change by the young people and adult allies who attend Seeds of Fire camp and who are active in our region is the beginning of the transformation of the systems and practices which impact our communities.

From July 19-26th, 23 young people from the South and Appalachia gathered at Highlander, along with their 11 adult allies. They came from rural and urban communities in Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Florida to work together to understand and develop strategies and actions to change the education system and the juvenile justice system in the South.

During the first day of the camp, the group explored the history of globalization from 1490 to the present by making murals and creating skits that allowed participants to understand the connections between our current reality and the global histories of imperialism and slavery. They then moved closer in and made community maps to look at where power lies in their own communities and share this with others.

The next few days involved a youth track and an adult track. Each track explored the challenges and experiences of youth organizing and the role of adult allies. In the youth track, youth developed and led workshops about organizing, all the way from defining an issue to media to making and meeting a budget.

When we all came back together, several groups led workshops on the issues they are working on, including Restorative Justice, Peer Communication, and the DREAM Act, and others went home ready to incorporate these issues into their work.

At the end of Seeds of Fire, participants said that they felt empowered to become stronger leaders in their groups. The youth were able to make connections between their struggles and movements and form coalitions with each other. As one group said as they reflected about their experience, they left with "inspiration with SKILLS!"

We were blessed this year with an amazing Seeds of Fire Camp staff which exemplified our commitment to having a youth-led process. The Youth Track was staffed by Courtney Oats (MS), Ausheyia Cunningham (MS), Horacio "King" Leal (MS), Cassandra Barba (TN), and Catalina Nieto (TN). The Adult Ally Track was staffed by Leslie Etienne (GA) and Jamie Harrison (GA). We were also honored and grateful to our summer intern, Sarah Apt, who rocked it in every way this summer, including helping to write this article.

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Highlander Announces our 2nd

Wild and Wonderful
Witty and Wacky
Workshop Work Week!!
October 8-12, 2009

"Transformative." "Changed my life." "What a powerful community we built." "Do it again."

These are just a few of the words from the 33 people who came to Highlander for W-7, our 1st Wild and Wacky, Witty and Wonderful Workshop Work Week. It was such a powerful time we are doing it again.

Come to the mountains of east Tennessee at the time of leaves turning and spend one of your best fall breaks ever with Highlander staff and people from around the country at W-7.2, our 2nd Wild and Wonderful, Witty and Wacky Workshop Work Week, October 8-12, 2009.

Spend your morning in the idea of Highlander, learning from each other and engaging in political discussions and workshops on popular education, organizing, movement building, and the history of social change.

Spend the afternoon in service to the place of Highlander. As part of a team, and in a way that continues your dialogues and educational exchanges, work in the fall harvest of apples, help in the garden, clear a trail, plant trees, paint, file, or build a bench, for example. There will be volunteer jobs for all levels of skill and physical ability.

In the evenings, sing, tell stories around a fire, and square dance with a caller and live band (lessons provided).

It's a proven good old Highlander throw-down that will start with supper at 6:00 pm on Thursday, October 8, and conclude with lunch at noon on Monday, October 12th, the day Columbus didn't discover America.

Cost: Sliding scale $350-500. Some partial scholarships available.

How to apply:

• Online application form
• Printable application form (PDF 17kb)

Payment Options:

• Online payment form ($350-$500. Enter "Workshop Work Week" in the "Purpose" box)
• Send a check marked "Workshop Work Week" to Highlander - 1959 Highlander Way, New Market, TN 37820.

Please fill out an application form before paying. If you are applying for a scholarship, please call Highlander first: 865-933-3443.

For more information, contact Highlander at hrec (at) highlandercenter.org or 865-933-3443.

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Highlander is proud to announce that we are once again collaborating with the Rockwood Leadership Institute to bring Rockwood's widely praised "Art of Leadership" training to the South on October 4-7, 2009.

This is a special invitation to join a select community of social change leaders in creating and sustaining compelling visions for their organizations, dealing more effectively with organizational challenges, and building a broad-based network of progressive leaders committed to shaping a more just and sustainable society.

The four-day intensive seminar is designed to teach powerful visioning, listening, speaking, presentation, coaching, teambuilding, and feedback skills to emerging and established leaders. The session will be led by nationally known trainers Michael Bell and Roberto Vargas.

Highlander staff members Susan Williams and Rob Reining attended the first "Art of Southern Leadership" training in January, and found it a powerful and transformative experience. Said Williams,

This was an amazing opportunity - to have a great group of Southern leaders and directors and the amazing facilitation of the Rockwood staff, in a challenging and useful training to help you think about your goals and how you would hope to behave in a leadership or any role with a group of people. It really helped me to get a focus on how to be most useful and more productive, (as well as improving real listening and communication skills.) I hope more Southerners and Appalachian folks can have access to this experience.

Rockwood offers a sliding scale training fee based on organizational budgets.

More information about the training is available here (PDF 47 kb). To apply or nominate a leader to the Art of Leadership, contact:

Peter Kim, Outreach and Web Manager
1-510-524-4000 x 106
Peter (at) rockwoodleadership.org
www.rockwoodleadership.org/trainings

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Developing popular education tools that help communities talk about the intersection of race, migration and globalization is critically important, especially in the U.S. South. A predominantly Black and white region still unresolved around race, the South has experienced dramatic demographic change due to immigration in the past twenty years, contributing to cross-race tensions and challenges. In addition, what happens in the South, good or bad, affects the rest of the country and therefore the world. The Civil Rights Movement shook the racist underpinnings of U.S. society and led to public policy that made life better for everybody, including low-income and working-class whites.

A strong movement here made up of and led by African Americans and immigrants and refugees, a number of whom have experience in liberation movements in their home countries, has tremendous potential to move the whole country forward. But this can only happen if communities see the connection between the U.S South and the Global South, learn about each others' countries and regions, as well as the histories and strategies of resistance, and are able to contextualize their experiences and understand that the problems that they face are rooted in systemic racism and economic exploitation, and that a key component of those systems is the divide and conquer strategy that pits their communities against one another.

On June 11-13, Highlander brought together a team of 16 African American, immigrant and refugee organizers, community leaders, popular educators, artists and cultural organizers to develop three educational tools that help people understand globalization and migration in the context of race. Last year, Highlander organized a delegation of 12 activists, popular educators and artists to attend the International Conference of Racism and Globalization, a gathering for people of color organized by Agricultural Missions and the Federation of Southern Cooperatives Land Assistance Fund and held in Chicago. Highlander drew from this delegation, as well as participants from our Southern Strategy sessions, and our immigration, cultural organizing and youth work to bring together a race and globalization working group to develop these tools.

The working session participants were: Tomas Aguilar from Colectivo Flatlander, Austin, TX, Malik and Vassie Browne from Storytree, Etowah, AL Jona Kasoanga from Greensboro, NC, Roxanne Lawson from Washigton, DC, Ann Lennon from the American Friends Service Committee, Greensboro, NC, Ana Mercado, from Blocks Together, Chicago, Chioma Oruh from Washington, DC, Collin Rajah from the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Oakland, CA, Tonio Verzone, from Washington, DC, Attica Scott from Kentucky Jobs with Justice, 13 year old Advocate Scott from Louisville, KY, and Jamil Smith from the United Methodist Church, New York, The gathering was facilitated by staff members Tufara Waller Muhammad and Monica Hernandez and Board Chair Maurice Turner.

The group worked on developing three popular education tools that integrate art and culture as a way to bring communities together and to jumpstart a dialogue around race and globalization. They include:

• A series of 3 workshops on the impact of globalization on food sovereignty around the world
• An Interactive Listening Party to challenge individuals to envision themselves a global actors and activists making change and to help generate community discussion about how to frame their organizing work within the global level, while still being rooted at the community level
• A Race and Globalization Tribunal that uses art and culture in addition to traditional oral testimony to capture and tell the story of how the intersection of race and globalization has impacted a local community.

Although they are being developed as individual tools, communities will also be able to integrate the three tools to undertake a longer, more integral process by combining the three tools.

Over the next month and a half, the teams will be finalizing the three tools and will then test them in their communities. Participants will then share the results of the field testing and make any necessary revisions to the tools. The tools will be finalized and then made available through the Highlander website in late fall.

For more information, please contact Mónica Hernández: Hernandez (at) highlandercenter.org.

This work was made possible by a special opportunity grant from the Akonadi Foundation.

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Twenty three youth from community development credit unions from across the nation gathered at the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions' 35th Annual Conference on Serving the Underserved, held June 11-13 in Phoenix, AZ.

These young people came to Phoenix from Dallas, TX; Quitman County, MS; Shreveport, LA; Baton Rouge, LA; Rochester, NY; and San Francisco, CA to meet their peers from around the country and to advance their skills in financial education, community economic development, and in the management and operation of youth credit union programs.

Elandria Williams, a member of Highlander's Education Team, facilitated a workshop at the conference focused on working with youth to understand the power dynamics in their local economies. As part of this workshop, youth discussed their experiences with issues of race and class in the economy, and how they could work to build a new solidarity economy based on the ideals of equality and community.

At the end of the conference Elandria also gave a 5 minute pep talk about why it is so important for this work to be based in social change and systemic transformation, and the power of connecting the credit unions to local organizations doing organizing work in our communities.

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The Labour Education Centre (LEC) in Toronto is passionate about how unions and communities should come together to respond to the current economic crisis and how it is affecting their communities and organizations. On June 8-10, Highlander and the LEC co-sponsored a conference in Toronto entitled "Connecting Struggles, Movement Building." The organizers and facilitators for the event included an amazing group of Toronto area educators and organizers as well as Jojo Geronimo, a member of the LEC staff and the Highlander Board; Susan Williams, Coordinator of Highlander's Education Team; Elandria Williams from Highlander's Education Team; Deborah Rosenstein, a Labor Educator at the University of Minnesota; and Rosalyn Woodward Pelles, a member of the Highlander Board and Director of the Civil, Human & Women's Rights Department of the AFL-CIO.

Participants at the "Connecting Struggles, Movement Building" Conference; June 2009.

The conference was an incredible three-day gathering of a diverse group of over 100 people including representatives from unions and central labour bodies, migrant workers centers, workers' action centres for people without jobs, neighbourhood groups and social justice organizations, and progressive academics.

In the face of the current economic melt-down, very immediate organizing struggles energized the event: demands for training and adjustment services for laid off workers; campaigns for reform of Employment Insurance and for good jobs and fair wages; organizing for the rights of temporary and contingent workers and all migrant workers, like those in domestic and agricultural employment; and neighbourhood, housing and anti-poverty groups organizing to meet spiralling cost of living. The conference was organized around three popular education workshops:

• Worker-Activists: A Political and Collective Response to Job Loss - This workshop aimed to empower and sustain the activism of laid-off workers in their communities and unions while crafting a political and collective response to job loss. Ultimately, it aimed to create an alternative to job loss that goes beyond job search or the "training and adjustment" of workers.
• Activist Tools for Economic Literacy: (economic inequality in the age of global capital) - This workshop had three goals: 1) to develop education and organizing tools to frame the discussion of the current recession within the broader context of social and economic justice; 2) to help workers and activists shape the conversation around the economy; and 3) to empower migrant, laid off, and temporary workers as active agents of social change in the workplace and in the community. One participant said, "This workshop helped fill in gaps, there are still some missing pieces in the puzzle but I can now see the picture, not just the borders."
• Social Justice Organizing across Communities, Campaigns and Cultures - This workshop aimed to help participants strengthen their capacity to organize and build networks and coalitions across issues and constituencies. As part of this effort, participants explored how to integrate culture into their organizing; examined the organizing implications of multiple language situations and different cultures and explored the challenges of building the capacity of unions/community groups and of nurturing union/community partnerships across cultures. This was a very powerful workshop. As one participant put it, "I have been to many workshops and come away with great information but this was the first time I got how we need to dismantle so much of what we have learned which - and rebuild with a true social justice agenda".

Participants in each workshop were not only presented with inspiring content and practical tools, they were also challenged to "truly connect" with each other's struggles and see how they are all interrelated. Stories, skits, singing, educational tools, tears, laughter, posters, and even supporting one group's press conference on the second day, helped provide energy and space for sharing across very real differences that keep people from building strong alliances.

One evening during the event, the Labour Education Centre hosted a wonderful Highlander fundraiser, with music, art, and testimonials. Highlander has had contact with popular educators, researchers, labor organizers and others from Toronto for many years,, so this helped to renew some old ties and began to build new connections. Highlander folks were amazed and inspired to see a crowd of people who know of Highlander and wanted to support our work.. It was a wonderful testament to how the ideas of popular education can cross borders that often serve to keep people apart.

The conference marked the beginning of an 8-month process to support the local work of groups and encourage movement building. Support will be provided by a team drawn from practitioners, educators, and academic allies. In Fall 2009, participants will reconvene to continue their alliances by working not only on their own campaigns but also by supporting each other. In Winter Spring 2010, participants will consult with each other to share their findings/insights and to develop their own framework and action tools, using what they have learned and shared from each other and the support group. Finally, in March or April 2010, Highlander and LEC will co-sponsor a one day conference during which participants will share their experience of learning, sharing and doing. Experiences and models emerging from the program will then be compiled, published and shared during the rest of the year to continue the building of a movement for the long haul!

Pictures from the event are available here.

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Highlander is happy to announce two new books for sale through our bookstore for activists, popular educators, and others concerned with social justice.

ECONOMICS FOR EVERYONE: A SHORT GUIDE TO THE ECONOMICS OF CAPITALISM by Jim Stanford, Economist for the Canadian Auto Workers; $25.00

Wondering about how the economy works - or doesn't? This book is for you. Economics for Everyone is punchy and readable, with short, bite-sized chapters, and illustrated with cartoons and flow charts by renowned political cartoonist Tony Biddle. Best of all, it is completely free of technical jargon and mathematics. As Stanford notes in this book, "Economics is too important to leave to economists."

When they've finished it, readers will understand the basic features and relationships of modern-day capitalism. They'll see where working people fit into the big economic picture - and the points of opportunity where we can try to build a better, fairer system.

Most important, Economics for Everyone is backed by a comprehensive set of web-based instructional materials at the Economcis for Everyone web site - including a course outline, lecture notes, student exercises, and a glossary, all available for free on the web. This book can thus be part of a broader, ready-made popular economics course for unionists, activists, and just plain regular concerned individuals.

PLANNING TO CHANGE THE WORLD by the Education for Liberation Network; $18.00

Planning to Change the World is a plan book for educators who believe their students can and will change the world. It is designed to help teachers translate their vision of a just education into concrete classroom activities. Order your copy now!

The new edition created by Education for Liberation has all the things you would expect in a lesson plan book plus:

• Weekly planning pages packed with important social justice birthdays and historical events
• References to online lesson plans and resources related to those dates
• Tips from social justice teachers across the country
• Inspirational quotes to share with students
• Thought-provoking essential questions to spark classroom discussions on critical issues
• Reproducible social justice awards for students

Both of these books are very informative, and both will be helpful for community organizers, activists, educators, and anyone else concerned with social justice. You can order them online here.

The Highlander bookstore has a wide variety of other books, videos, and CDs to inspire social change. To access the bookstore, click here.

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Check out these two new articles about Appalachia:

"A President Breaks Hearts in Appalachia" by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Washington Post) explores the impact of mountaintop removal on Appalachia and challenges the Obama administration to take action to stop it. In Kennedy's words,

Mountaintop removal coal mining is the worst environmental tragedy in American history. When will the Obama administration finally stop this Appalachian apocalypse?

"What Happens When You Don't Own the Land" by Chuck Shuford (Daily Yonder) focuses on the connection between coal mining and poverty in Appalachia. As Shuford demonstrates,

The region’s immense wealth found in timber and coal has never benefitted local communities because it is owned largely by out-of-state corporate interests, resulting in the region’s wealth being transferred to urban centers outside the region. Despite extensive land and mineral holdings, the coal industry historically paid a pittance in taxes, leaving the region deprived of basic municipal services and adequately-funded schools.

Both of these articles are critical reading for anyone who wants to understand - and help to change - conditions in the mountains.

The full text of Kennedy's article is available at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/02/AR2009070203022.html.

You can read Shuford's article at www.dailyyonder.com/what-happens-when-you-dont-own-land/2009/07/03/2205.

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