Love. Justice. Power. Community. These themes are the common thread for a large, diverse gathering of community organizers from all over the South. Young, old, White, Black, Latino, LGBT, poor, wealthy, and everything in between. Although each face looks different, it’s obvious that for this audience, at least, it is much more about what brings them together rather than what divides them.

On the occasion of their 10th Anniversary, the Southern Partners Fund has gathered over 100 community organizers, grantmakers, nonprofit professionals and young leaders at their inaugural Social Justice Institute, a leadership development and capacity building program designed to enhance the sustainability of SPF’s grantee organizations and other grassroots organizations committed to under resourced individuals and communities in the South. The Institute opens with a poem by Erin Byrd (excerpted below) that sets the stage for the daylong conversation.

We have come too far we can’t turn around
We have music without a message and messengers without substance
Being smart isn’t as cool as dropping out of school

We’ve got to build up leaders, share our stories with our children
Build unity within our communities

We must all stand together or we’ll never be free

The clapping is thunderous. The tone is set for a day of lively conversations about the kinds of subjects that aren’t normally talked about in most circles. Changing power through redistricting. Structural racism. The role of culture in community organizing. Public policy, advocacy and lobbying. Fundraising as a form of organizing.

Alta Starr, program officer at the Ford Foundation is our mistress of ceremonies. She points out the obvious. “There are a lot of people here that really like people, who really do care about each other. People who are about justice and power and love.” Many of Alta’s family members were “freedom fighters” and she says she feels an unpayable debt for how she shows up in the world. There is nodding around the room. Then Alta shares this amazing quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”

Alta leads into moderating a great panel called “Organizing Power: The Voices of Organizers from the South” where we hear about efforts to help Latinos, Vietnamese, Blacks, farmworkers, and LGBT communities in the south.

These are their stories.

Tirso Moreno, Farmworker Association of Florida
I had more to expect from society than what I got as a farmworker in the U.S. The systems are set up to benefit those that are in power and control the industry. When I started organizing, didn’t know what I was doing. When I organized a strike, my family was fired because of what I did. But we worked together even when they told my father he could stay but I had to go. My family was threatened from what they were involved in. We were punished. But we learned how to defend ourselves. The other side doesn’t like that and tries to hurt you where you’re vulnerable. I connect farmworker’s rights to our whole culture – it’s a part of family, communities. Only thing many farmworkers can afford is the most basic housing and food. Some feel like they have better food using food stamps than when they had to buy their own food. When they tried to close schools in migrant camps in Florida we got people ready to go to city government and tell them their interests.

Dr. Carol Prejean Zippert, Tuskegee University, Society of Folk Arts and Culture

I was raised to help others get what they need – using artistry, gardening in rurual areas, because you care about people around you. My mom used to cook and call us in the house to eat, and everyone who was in the yard at the time came in to eat, too. We belonged to each other. Caring and helping people get to a good life. A good life meaning having others recognize you are a good person just as you are. My civil rights work started out in Louisiana where I got involved and was sent to integrate lunch counters. I was disappointed when they served me! I was ready. When the Civil Rights Act was passed, we said, so what? We wanted to be in charge. We realized there were other grassroots folks who were thinking the same thing. So what? You can go to the restaurant and the hotels, but it’s not yours. You’re not in charge. In the Blackbelt, we realized our political strength in numbers. Once you get people registered to vote, the pendulum could swing with 80% of the Black vote. In Georgia, they ended up wanting to change to districts so minority whites could have a voice. Somebody asked me, do you want to remove your oppressor to become the oppressor? Once we were able to win elections and be in charge, sometimes we didn’t get good folk and we had to deal with that, too.

James Bui, Mary Queen of Viet Nam CDC
I think of an old Vietnamese proverb: When you drink from the water, remember the well. It means to be grateful for the water but also keep in mind those that will need to drink it after you. I’ve always felt this tension of trying to claim this historical past, a complex time period of trying to struggle for independence in South Asia. Most older Vietnamese see being in the U.S. as a blessing. As a younger generation it’s a challenge to work with previous generations who ascribe to this belief. I’m always grateful for education, but I’ve always felt like in school there’s miseducation, that to be an engineer is to let go of your Vietnamese roots. I had to inject my own values – how do I become a person who adds value to my history?

Paulina Hernandez, Southerners on New Ground (SONG)
We were politicized by farmworker issues. I was a part of the Latino community that was experiencing violence within the community and hate violence from outside of the community. Our goal as a community was to say that we were going to build up our class by working hard, get bank accounts, to make our families honorable. To me, that was a really shitty choice. I was lucky as a student to come into cntact with a farmworker’s project. It’s one thing to be angry and pissed off about something and another to say this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. But it’s easy to be great when you’re surrounded by great people.

Alta Starr mentions the Audre Lorde poem, “A Litany for Survival,” pointing out that the systems put in place were never meant to enable our peoples to survive.

Dr. Zippert says we just need to keep moving. “When I think of movement, being in movement is action. Hopefully if you move enough, people will come behind you. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think we were meant to survive.”

The audience starts to pipe up. There’s a lot of wisdom to share. A lot of questions to answer. What can we do about racism in this work? Margarita Romo from Farmworkers Self-Help stands up and tells us that someone asked her about tensions between Blacks and Latinos. She exhorted the group not to allow themselves to be divided:

We need to be very careful that people do not divide us because that’s what they’ve been doing for years. We have to understand each other and start talking each other’s language. We have to keep in mind not to leave the door open for the devil to come in. We must get to know each other well, build unity now. If we don’t build it now, get to know each by name, where you come from and what it is we’re trying to say. We don’t have our Martin Luther King, our marches. But you can help us with your history.

Dr. Carol Prejean Zippert: You got to talk about it before the fences can come down. People want to talk about the racists. No, let’s talk about racism.

Paulina Hernandez: I went to an interfaith service led by gay and lesbian ministers during Atlanta Gay Pride. One of the ministers said – everybody didn’t do so bad in Egypt. Some people just ain’t coming. We have to work with people that are really engaged, not worry about the ones that aren’t. We can engage in “magical realism” – what is it that we want for our people and who is ready to come with us? I’m tired of hearing “there’s no leadership” because that’s just not the case.

Tirso Moreno: There is competition in our communities, we need good real collaboration with some of our brothers and sisters in power and in local governments who are connected. We have to look for alliances. If our aim is social justice, we have to deal with those things. There shouldn’t be racism.

We must all stand together or we’ll never be free