Join Us in Remembering Howard Zinn: 1922-2010

Highlander mourns the passing and celebrates the life of your friend and ours, Howard Zinn. Please join us in rededicating, in his honor, to the long haul of brave, courageous, and thoughtful action for justice

For tributes from friends and colleagues, click here.

It was a frigid day in New Market, Tennessee and the sky hung its rose hue like a silk scarf. It was December, and my first month as part of the Development and Communications Team at Highlander. My co-workers, Marquez Rhyne (who started at the end of October) and Director Pam McMichael, and I had spent hours discussing and planning our year-end fundraising. This year was special because 3 donors had responded generously to our requests and put up a $10,000 challenge for us to match this amount with new donors. We drew a thermometer in the front office and the team, board and staff began to reach out to friends, associates, and family members. As a new team, it was exciting to mark in red and orange the thermometer's rising levels each day.

The days of December quickly slipped away, and the results were in! Highlander now has 115 new donors. They range in age, starting as young as 9-year old Leah Paige, and with gifts from $1 to a $1,000 for a total of $10,267. As we sat around the table with this knowledge, I came to such deep appreciation of the thousands of people who make this place possible because Highlander is those who participate, work, and give. Thank you!

Highlander sends its heart and hopes to the thousands of individuals and families who continue to struggle for survival after the devastating earthquake and aftershocks struck Haiti these past few weeks. We wish to recognize and support our global community of organizers and human rights activists who have been responding to the urgency of this situation. We urge our Highlander community to continue to act. Given that the damage will not be overcome in a few weeks, months, or even a year, sustainable humanitarian support in the form of donations, volunteer relief efforts and supplies are essential throughout the entire rebuilding process.

DONATE!

Please consider donating to the following groups:

• Partners in Health (pronounced “Zanmi Lasante” in Haitian Kreyol) has been working on the ground in Haiti for the past twenty years: http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti

• Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders has been working to provide medical care in the form of emergency surgeries and operations: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/

TAKE ACTION!

While it is important to support and donate to responsible organizations working on the ground in Port-au-Prince and surrounding communities, it is essential for us to take political action in this moment in solidarity with the people of Haiti. To echo Naomi Klein, author of the The Shock Doctrine, this catastrophe must not be an excuse to drive Haiti further into debt. In accordance with these values, Highlander believes that the international community, including the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank, should forgive Haiti's debt. We urge you to support this initiative too: http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/haiti_debt/?r_by=-2291122-4XxYRFx&rc=confemail1

LET’S EDUCATE OURSELVES!

Understanding Globalization Through Story

It is paramount that we educate ourselves about the history of Haiti and its people’s incredible struggle of resistance and self-determination against continued cycles of colonial and neocolonial subjugation. The mainstream media continues to stress that Haiti is the most impoverished country in the western hemisphere without offering a critical analysis of why that is the case.

Haiti’s experience with poverty and economic oppression can be understood in this story from former Haitian president Jean Bertrand-Aristide's excerpt in Eyes of the Heart:

The history of the eradication of the Haitian Creole pig population in the 1980's is a classic parable of globalization….  In 1982 international agencies assured Haiti's peasants their pigs were sick and had to be killed (so that the illness would not spread to countries to the North).  Promises were made that better pigs would replace the sick pigs.  With an efficiency not since seen among development projects, all of the Creole pigs were killed over a period of thirteen months.

Two years later the new, better pigs came from Iowa.  They were so much better that they required clean drinking water (unavailable to 80% of the Haitian population), imported feed (costing $90 a year when the per capita income was about $130), and special roofed pigpens.  Haitian peasants quickly dubbed them “prince a quatre pieds,” (four-footed princes).  Adding insult to injury, the meat did not taste as good.  Needless to say, the repopulation program was a complete failure.  One observer of the process estimated that in monetary terms Haitian peasants lost $600 million dollars.  There was a 30% drop in enrollment in rural schools; there was a dramatic decline in the protein consumption in rural Haiti; a devastating decapitalization of the peasant economy and an incalculable negative impact on Haiti's soil and agricultural productivity. The Haitian peasantry has not recovered to this day.

On Sunday, January 24 in Little Rock, Arkansas, Highlander staff member Tufara Waller Muhammad helped organize a discussion on “Haiti, the History, US Policy and the People” at her monthly Sistah Sunday program. Featured artists included musical artist/faith leader Carol Ann Blow & visual artist/poet Amy Edgington. For more information about Haiti, we recommend the following links that have informed our analysis and recommendations:

http://inciteblog.wordpress.com/ http://www.alternet.org/world/145221/9_things_the_u.s._could_and_should_do_for_haiti http://preview.tinyurl.com/gihaiti

Highlander is a Technical Assistance Provider for Communities Creating Healthy Environments (CCHE), an initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to support community organizing and policy advocacy for access to healthy food and safe places to play in communities of color. CCHE will provide funding for up to ten local community organizing groups and indigenous nations with grants of up to $250,000 over three years, and Highlander is pleased to announce the call for proposals is open. Youth-led organizing groups in communities of color are strongly encouraged to apply.

Southern Regional Information Sessions and General Webinars

Regional information sessions have already taken place in Durham and Nashville as well as a webinar in Spanish on January 27. Upcoming sessions include:

February 3rd- Miami, FL from 1-4 hosted by Power U, Miami Workers Center and Saint La Haitian Neighborhood Center

February 5- General Webinar in English

February 10^th- Webinar II in Spanish

February 11th- Itta Bena, MS from 9:30-2 pm hosted by Southern Echo

New Orleans hosted by Safe Streets, Strong Communities- TBD

Atlanta, GA hosted by Environmental Justice Resource Center- TBD

For more information contact elandria@highlandercenter.org or swilliams@highlandercenter.org.

Highlander believes in the importance of working across languages and cultures in order to build stronger movements in our region and beyond. We are looking for an Education Team Member to help support our multilingual work and to participate in our education work.  You can see the job announcement here. For more information you can email swilliams_at _highlandercenter.org or call Susan Williams at 865) 933-3443 ext. 229.

5. New Multilingual Interpretation Training Curriculum

Now Available through Highlander’s Bookstore – Along with Other Great New Items!

Highlander has worked with interpreters across the region to develop a level one interpreter training for social change settings.  The curriculum has been tested in multiple communities and can be adapted for different lengths of times and different settings.  You can order this curriculum through Highlander's online bookstore. You can download the catalog here and order form here.

6. Sistah Sunday

All had a wonderful time at the monthly Sistah Sunday in Little Rock. Featured artists were musical artist/faith leader Carol Ann Blow & visual artist/poet Amy Edgington. The political discussion topic was Haiti- the History, US Policy and the people of Haiti. The Women's Project holds Sistah Sundays the 4th Sunday of the month so if you live in or are traveling through Little Rock on the 4^th Sunday of the month, join us for sisterly solidarity, cookies, punch, tea, and coffee.

Highlander staff Tufara Waller Muhammad is the lead organizer for Sistah Sunday's and the project is co-sponsored by The Women's Project, The Wesley Foundation UALR, Arkansas Gathering for Justice, and Highlander Research & Education Center.

Check out the New Materials at Highlander’s Bookstore

• Are you trying to understand all this economic mess? Try "Economics for Eeryone" or "The ABC’s of the Economic Crisis".
• Want to hear stories about brave people working for serious change – look for the books "Something’s Rising: Appalachians fighting Mountaintop Removal" or "Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca" or the DVD “The Clinton 12” or, in English and Spanish, “Made in L.A.”

National Peoples Action (NPA) came to Highlander Center in December to strategize how to build a stronger organization rooted in their partner groups around the U.S. NPA came to Highlander to experience and think about the uses of popular education and cultural organizing to help strengthen their organization - an idea born when key NPA organizers were part of Highlander’s Workshop Work Week last summer.

The NPA has been around for many decades as a multi-issue organization. They worked years ago to get the Community Re-investment Act passed and implemented so that banks didn't bypass poorer communities where they were located. This last year, they had a major action at the meeting of the American Banking Association to protest the banks who led us into this economic devastation. While at Highlander, they also researched leaders from other movements, sang and learned new songs to feed their organizing, square danced and marched to their tune "When NPA Goes Marching In." They left with strategies for a long-term planning for strengthening their leadership, and they left lots of good energy and ideas here with Highlander!

For workshops at Highlander and or with Highlander staff, contact Kristi, coleman@highlandercenter.org.

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