Announcements Highlander in the 2009 Peace Calendar - Order Your Copy Today! - Click here to order. Highlander Social Change Workshop on Popular Education and Organizing; December 5-7, 2008. Click here to register online. Rockwood's "Art of Leadership for Southern Leaders" Coming to Highlander; January 26-29, 2009. Click here for more information.

In the September 4th issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Pablo Eisenberg praises Highlander for its long history of cutting-edge work for social justice, and issues a ringing call for donors and foundations to support Highlander's work.

Eisenberg, long-time director of the Center for Community Change, is now a senior fellow at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute.

You can read excerpts from the article here. The full article is available here (a subscription to the Chronicle is required).

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Participants at the first THREADS session.

On August 15-17, Highlander held the second session of THREADS, our new multi-racial, intergenerational leadership and organizer training institute. The session was attended by thirty activists and leaders from the twenty-one participating groups, which are located in eight states across the South: AR, FL, LA, MS, NC, TN, VA, and WV.

Participants began by presenting reports about their work in their communities, how they had applied what they learned at the first session, and/or how their work was being affected by the elections.

Three groups from western North Carolina that work together on immigration issues presented a video about the impact of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at a factory in Asheville, NC, the week before the session, which had resulted in the arrest of fifty-seven immigrant workers. Twenty-eight of the workers were deported immediately; the rest will probably be deported as well. The raid traumatized the arrested workers and their families, many of whom now face extended separation and economic hardship, and devastated the local immigrant community.

Following the presentations, other participants at the session raised a variety of questions about immigration - including why people come to the United States if they are treated so badly. The group then spent part of the session responding to these questions. They watched and discussed Morristown: In the Air and Sun, a video that explores the impact of globalization through interviews with workers in the United States and Mexico. They also engaged in a popular education exercise entitled "Why Can't They Wait Their Turn," which provides insight into the inequities of the U.S. immigration system.

Groups not already involved in immigration issues (over half of the participants) felt they learned a lot and many were struck by the connections between the issues facing immigrants and issues in their own communities - including job loss, displacement, and the impact of racism on the way different people and groups are treated in this country. These kinds of conversations and connections are the heart of our intention for the THREADS program.

The third session of THREADS will be held in mid-October. For more information about THREADS, click here. A brief report on the first session is available here. Pictures from the first session are available here.

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On July 20-26, 2008, twenty young people age 13-19 and six adult allies from nine organizations across the region came to Highlander for the ninth annual Seeds of Fire Youth Leadership Camp.

Participants at the 2008 Seeds of Fire camp.

This year's camp built on Highlander's ongoing work on education and juvenile justice issues and was co-sponsored by Highlander, the Gathering for Justice, and the Community Justice Network for Youth.

Participants shared organizing strategies, leadership skills, and information about how to change the education and juvenile justice systems and move toward a model of restorative justice at the local, state, and national levels. They also explored alternative economic policies and systems that are people- and community-centered, not profit-centered, and made connections among issues locally, regionally, nationally, and globally.

The curriculum also included a two-day core nonviolence training. This training gave the participants a comprehensive introduction to Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy, thinking and strategy, and provided a framework for conflict reconciliation/management, mediation, and arbitration.

Sessions at the camp utilized a variety of popular education techniques, including large and small group discussions, music, art, and performances. The camp was designed as a "training for trainers," so a strong emphasis was placed on preparing participants to lead similar sessions in their home communities, and on providing materials to help them in this effort.

Feedback from the camp was extremely positive. On the final day of the camp, participants filled out evaluation forms that asked, in part, "How will this camp help your group?" Their responses included the following:

• "It will help us to organize and build a foundation for our group so that we can build up and reach out."
• "It helps me to be more outspoken and build leadership skills and with that I make my group push harder."
• "Gives you a good way to think of other ways to solve a problem in the community."

During the coming months, Highlander staff will continue working with the Seeds of Fire camp participants in their own organizations and communities.

For information about Highlander's Seeds of Fire program, click here. For pictures from the 2008 camp, click here.

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Dancing at Homecoming 2008

On August 31, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, participants in Highlander's annual Homecoming celebration had a new opportunity - to ride over to the farm next door and pick apples. This farm borders on Highlander's current site, and we are purchasing it as part of the 75th Anniversary Capital Campaign to strengthen Highlander's work and to preserve and share what it means to have land in this world.

It was a beautiful clear day, and hundreds of folks joined us for the afternoon, including a couple of people who drove down from Chicago just for the event. New and old friends shared apple desserts and saw amazing cultural performances from a wide array of local and regional cultural workers.

Highlander also celebrated the lives of friends who have passed on:

• Lewis Sinclair from Atlanta, GA, who had been a Highlander board member for almost fifty years.
• Nayo Watkins from Durham, NC, an amazing cultural worker who nurtured and encouraged many folks in the region.
• James Orange, a long time civil rights leader and an international labor leader from Atlanta, GA.
• Christopher Ottasaway Adagbonyin, an organizer and political educator who worked with youth from Jackson MS.
• Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger, who were shot by a man in the local Unitarian Church in July.

Workshops were held about Highlander and about the elections. We shared the One Day of the War banners from the American Friends Service Committee, which help illuminate the cost of the war in Iraq. And many great conversations flowed between people throughout the day.

Pictures from Homecoming are available here.

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On August 17-22, 2008, Highlander friends and supporters in California held a series of events to celebrate Highlander's 75 years on the cutting edge of social justice organizing and to draw lessons from this experience to nurture and inspire current and future organizing efforts in their local areas.

Participants in the popular education workshop in San Francisco.

Highlander Board member Fatma Marouf (center) with friends at the Los Angeles house party.

• On August 17th, over 100 Highlander friends and supporters gathered in Los Angeles to celebrate Highlander's 75 years of cutting-edge work for social and economic justice. The party included talks by Robert Ben Garant, screenwriter/actor and great-nephew of Highlander's founder Myles Horton and Pam McMichael, Highlander's Director, as well as music by Jacki Breger and her band. Pictures from the party are available here.
  
  
• On August 20-21, 50 people attended a two-day popular education training facilitated by Highlander staff Monica Hernandez and Anasa Troutman in San Francisco co-sponsored by the Partnership for Immigrant Leadership, the Center for Political Education, and the School of Unity and Liberation. The training brought together many people who had never met before, helping to strengthen cross-issue and cross-constituency organizing efforts in the Bay area. Pictures from the workshop are available here.
  
  
• On August 20th, 65 people gathered at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Occidental, CA for a conversation with Highlander Director Pam McMichael and staff members Monica Hernandez and Anasa Troutman. OAEC Executive Director Dave Henson, who has a long relationship with Highlander and previously worked on environmental justice issues in the South, organized the event. Highlander staff was particularly interested in seeing Occidental as we develop our long term vision for the land Highlander is purchasing next door.
  
  
• On August 21st, over 100 people came to the San Francisco Friends Meetinghouse for a showing of You Got to Move, a documentary by Lucy Phenix about people from communities in the South on different points of their journeys of becoming social change activists, all of whom were connected to Highlander. Following the film, Phenix, with movement elders Elizabeth "Betita" Martinez, author of 500 Years of Chicano History in Picture, and Clayborne Carson, Stanford University Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, reflected on the film and Highlander's history, and drew out lessons for today. Once again, the event brought people together who were not already in each other's circles.
  
  
• On August 22nd, over 100 people gathered at the Million Fishes Gallery in San Francisco for a Highlander house party that included performances by award winning saxophonist Francis Wong and a choral presentation of Highlander history by the Rockin' Solidarity Labor Chorus and Vukani Mawethu Choir; and talks by artist/activist Kip Williams and Highlander Director Pam McMichael. A short video from the house party is available here.

Many thanks to all who helped organize and/or participated in these events.

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On September 6th, 15,000 families gathered in Birmingham, Chicago and Los Angeles in a powerful national convening of Equal Voice for America's Families, a campaign of the Marguerite Casey Foundation in partnership with grantees and others to shift attitudes and policies affecting poor and working-class families.

The three cities were linked via satellite, and the program for the day included keynote speakers, testimonies from families across the country, and 15,000 people in simultaneous small-group strategy discussions, 10 people at a time. Another 6,000 people watched the convention online.

Leading up to the convention, thousands of families participated in over 60 town meetings from large cities to rural areas to share their hopes and develop a national family platform that included two core beliefs:

• No family should live in poverty.
• Families should have an equal voice in shaping policies and the future of their communities.

Specific issues addressed in the platform include employment/job training, healthcare, housing, immigration reform, education, and the creation of safe and thriving communities.

The goal of the campaign is the adoption of the national family platform by the next president and Congress in order to effectively address the social and economic needs of poor and working families.

Highlander is a grantee of Marguerite Casey Foundation, and staff members Pam McMichael and Elandria Williams were among the small-group facilitators in Birmingham. For more information about the Equal Voice for America's Families campaign, go to www.equalvoice2008.org.

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