Current Programs
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The Highlander Center works with grassroots leaders on a wide variety of social concerns, including
- Civil and Human Rights
- Humane Immigration Policy
- Criminal Justice Reform
- Economic Justice and Workers' Rights
- International Peace and Solidarity
- Environmental Justice
- Youth Leadership
- Racial, Gender, and Sexual Discrimination
In support of our vision of justice, Highlander conducts research, develops organizing and educational strategies, collects and produces resource materials for popular educators and organizers, and sponsors popular education programs that support grassroots activists and community leaders in the South.
Highlander's programs are unified by the common theme of "Constructing Democracy," building a society in which all people can participate equally in the decisions that affect their lives. Our tactics for achieving this goal include
- Creating democratic space: providing an environment within which individuals can bring their whole selves and build authentic relationships with other people across race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, etc. so that they can participate meaningfully in efforts to achieve social and economic justice.
- Base-building: helping to create and support democratically governed grassroots organizations capable of addressing the problems facing their communities and of joining with other groups in a broad-based collaborative movement for social and economic change.
Our current programs include the following.
- Across Races and Nations
Across Races and Nations was a four-year collaboration between Highlander, the Center for Research on Women at the University of Memphis, and the Southern Regional Council. The project conducted research into community change in the South due to immigration from Latin America. Click here for publications from ARN and related resources on multiracial organizing.
Lead staff
Susan Williams (swilliams at highlandercenter.org)
- Cultural Program
Highlander's Cultural Program encourages and supports cultural work that enhances social change organizing in the region. In conjunction with the “We Shall Overcome” Fund, it also sponsors outreach to and an annual workshop for African American culture workers and activists in the South.
Lead staff
Tufara Waller Muhammad (tufara at highlandercenter.org)
- Grassroots Think Tank
Our Grassroots Think Tank brings together progressive Southerners and others to discuss critical movement issues and develop new strategies for change. Topics for discussion focus on two broad areas: 1) how to build and sustain a movement, and 2) issues that offer common ground for organizing across race and gender.
Lead staff
Susan Williams (swilliams at highlandercenter.org)
- Multilingual Capacity Building
Our Multilingual Capacity Building (MLCB) program provides interpretation, translation, and training services to help Highlander and other social justice organizations work across language to support and build coalitions with immigrant activists and organizations.
Lead staff
Roberto Tijerina (roberto at highlandercenter.org)
- Pueblos de Latinoamérica
Pueblos de Latinoamérica works with new Latino immigrants throughout the Southeast. Program participants work as a committee to analyze the issues confronting Latino immigrants in the region and develop strategies for supporting effective local and regional organizing.
Lead staff
Mónica Hernández (hernandez at highlandercenter.org)
- Seeds of Fire: Youth Organizing & Leadership Program
Seeds of Fire works with youth activists and organizers age 13-19, young adults in their 20s, and adult allies of youth to strenghen youth and young-adult leadership and develop new strategies for organizing in the region.
Lead Staff
Elandria Williams (elandria at highlandercenter.org)
- Social Change Workshops
| The next Social Change Workshop will be held on June 6-8, 2008. For more information, click here. |
Highlander's Social Change Workshops bring together a diverse group of participants to share their experiences working for social justice and to learn about Highlander's history, current programs, and core methods of popular education, cultural work, and participatory research. We usually hold one or two Social Change Workshops each year. Information about upcoming workshops will be posted as it become available.
- Threads: A Leadership and Organizing School
Threads is new a multi-racial, intergenerational leadership and organizing school, beginning in May 2008, focused on economic, environmental and racial justice. Its goals include strengthening grassroots organizing skills; increasing capacity for multi-racial and intergenerational organizing; and connecting groups to each other to build a stronger broad-based movement for collective liberation.
Lead Staff
Elandria Williams (elandria at highlandercenter.org)
Susan Williams (swilliams at highlandercenter.org)
Mónica Hernández (hernandez at highlandercenter.org)
- We Shall Overcome Fund
"We Shall Overcome" served as the theme song of the Civil Rights Movement and is now a worldwide anthem for freedom and justice. Since 1966, Highlander has administered the We Shall Overcome Fund, which is generated by royalties from the commercial use of "We Shall Overcome." Created to nurture grassroots efforts within African American communities to use art and activism against injustice, the We Shall Overcome Fund supports organizing in the South that is at the nexus of culture and social change.
Fund Administrator
Kristi Coleman (coleman at highlandercenter.org)
- Internship Program
Part of Seeds of Fire, our Internship Program brings up to two interns at a time to Highlander for six-month internships designed to help them learn the nuts and bolts of popular education and social justice work. Interns are drawn from our constituency groups, including young people, people of color, immigrants, and low-income whites.
Lead staff
Elandria Williams (elandria at highlandercenter.org)
- Children's Justice Camp
Also part of Seeds of Fire, our Children's Justice Camp is a week-long summer camp for young people 6-12 years of age whose families are interested in social democracy, justice, and environmental awareness. At the camp, children from diverse racial, ethnic, socio-economic, and cultural backgrounds join together for a week of sharing, fun, learning, and growing.
Contact person
Kristi Coleman (coleman at highlandercenter.org)
. . . to Constructing Democracy . . .
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