Blog
The Joy of Organizing Along the Road to Justice
It is a powerful time to be doing election work. When we ride out to the communities, there is a merging of fear and excitement. We round the unpaved roads through the Blue Ridge Mountains, rural Appalachia full of reminders that there was once a thriving industry here. We pull up to the mobile home […]
If my mother could challenge racism in 1960 North Carolina, what will you do for Justice today?
Tags: civic engagement, community organizing, cultural shift, empowerment, get out the vote, linda stout, spirit in action
I remember when I was about seven years old, my mother took me with her to a small country store that served as a store, gas station, post office and now I know a voter registration center. We went in and stood in line behind another woman at the post office window. It was the […]
How do we sustain HOPE in times of crisis?
Tags: Collective Visioning, community organizing, cultural shift, empowerment, leadership, linda stout, popular education, spirit in action, We the People
It’s really hard to have a positive outlook or hope with all that’s happening in the world today: political chaos, hate, violence, environmental disaster, and a list much too long to write here. And worse, it seems that people are feeding off all this hatred and chaos and it continues to grow, taking over everything […]
The Power of Plain Ol’ Human Talk
Tags: civic engagement, Collective Visioning, cultural shift, empowerment, leadership, linda stout, popular education, spirit in action
Popular Education, Economic Justice and Civic Engagement “Let’s get on with technology as a way of connecting us to people and places we have never known and have never seen. But let us not give up the power of plain ol’ human talk to do the same.” -Johnnetta B. Cole During a family reunion at the […]
Celebrating our Victories and Preparing for the Future
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. Over the last year, I attended two dynamic national conferences: one called “Creating Change,” which included more than 4,000 LGBTQ activists and organizers across the country working on multiple issues that affect disenfranchised people, and another dealing with building power through voter engagement. I was […]
Alligators & Frog Legs: The Face of Hunger (Part 2 of 2)
Tags: cultural shift, empowerment, hunger, linda stout
Last week I wrote about growing up hungry. If you missed Part 1 of this blog, click here. Yesterday’s local paper carried the headline that 450 local students were homeless and needed food and other items to survive. As I wrote last week, I am haunted by a billboard on our way to the interstate […]
Alligators & Frog Legs: The Face of Hunger (Part 1 of 2)
Tags: cultural shift, empowerment, hunger, linda stout
A couple weeks ago, I got fooled into eating some alligator at a festival (I thought it was a super-sized chicken finger) and also frog legs (which I thought were chicken wings). The taste is different, although does resemble some taste of chicken in the mix; but they are certainly not something I would choose […]
Becoming an Elder: Bravely Going Where Young People Have Gone Before – by Linda Stout
Tags: cultural shift, empowerment, leadership, linda stout
The best part of getting older (I just celebrated my 61st birthday!) is that I get to see young leaders that have come through one of our trainings or networks, now taking the reins of both new and old national organizations, as well as regional and local. It is a thrilling moment to see these […]
“We the People” Talks Southern Politics
On Saturday, March 29th, the students from Warren Wilson working with Spirit in Action’s We the People project went out into several trailer parks of Swannanoa, North Carolina. to listen to the folks who lived there. It was a rainy and muddy day, but students came prepared for door-knocking. Although nervous, soon into the interviews most […]
Humiliation at School Should be a Thing of the Past – by Linda Stout
“Dozens of children at a Utah elementary school had their lunch trays snatched away from them before they could take a bite this week. Salt Lake City School District officials say the trays were taken away at Uintah Elementary School Tuesday because some students had negative balances in the accounts used to pay for lunches”. […]
