Highlander In the News

2023

• Highlander Co-Executive Director Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson joined the Tavis Smiley podcast Dec. 5 to discuss Highlander’s work and history, the surge in labor organizing and unionization in the U.S. in 2023, how we build hope and courage together, how fascism is impacting our communities and informing organizing strategies of resistance, and more.Listen here.
• The Chorus Foundation has been an active partner in funding climate justice initiatives in Appalachia, including Highlander’s Appalachian Transition Fellowship, and is setting a transformative example for philanthropy with their decision to spend down their entire endowment over the last 10 years. Ash-Lee joined Chorus founder Farhad Ebrahimi recently in co-authoring an article, “We Need a Strategy for Spending Down“, that addresses multiple considerations in building a multi-sector strategy for social justice funding. The article is also included in an in-depth report recently released by Chorus, “Philanthropy and Power“, that unpacks this work and the path Chorus followed to implement their spend-down strategically.
• Read the Op-Ed by Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg and Highlander Co-Executive Director Allyn Maxfield-Steele: “The Jewish Federation is marching with Christian antisemites out of support for Israel” A “March for Israel” was held Nov. 14 in Washington, D.C. In response, Highlander Co-Executive Director Allyn Maxfield-Steele co-authored an Op-Ed with Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg that was published in Mondoweiss on the same day.
• Highlander Co-Executive Director Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson penned a guest column in the Tennessean lifting up the truth and importance of small towns, countering the dangerous narrative of a recent release by country musican Jason Aldean.
• Candie Carawan is an important anchor in cultural work and intergenerational organizing at the Highlander Center, serving as the Education Coordinator from 1989 to 1999 following many years as a cultural organizer and taking direct action in the Civil Rights Movement. Her experiences at Highlander working alongside her husband Guy Carawan and in the sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement are detailed in a recent feature in the Jefferson County Standard-Banner.
• Highlander Co-Executive Director Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson is featured among abolitionist organizers in the South in “Abolition Everywhere“, an article by Meghan Krausch examining the determination and success of Southern organizing despite Republican supermajorities in gerrymandered electoral districts.
• “In These Times” featured a cover story unpacking the history and current context of grassroots organizing in Tennessee, “No Saviors, No Martyrs: Organizing Before and Beyond the Tennessee Three“.
• Highlander Co-Executive Director Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson is interviewed in the piece alongside Rep. Justin J. Pearson, Rev. Dr. William Barber II, and others who break down the history of grassroots resistance in the state and the current context that is building power statewide in fights against Right-wing oppression and state violence,Highlander Board Member Makani Themba is an organizer, writer, and strategist based in Jackson, Miss., and currently serves as chief strategist at Higher Ground Change Strategies. She authored “Apartheid American-Style” in the Nation unpacking a series of racist, segregationist bills recently introduced in the Mississippi legislature pushing against community organizing wins.

2022

• Highlander Co-Executive Directors Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson and Allyn Maxfield-Steele joined the Tennessee Holler recently to discuss the radical history of movement building in Tennessee, Highlander’s connection to that work and the current context, and how we’re continuing to build on the legacy of Southern grassroots organizing today. Listen to the episode here.
• Co-Executive Directors Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson and Allyn Maxfield-Steele were the featured guests in the latest episode, sharing Highlander’s singular role as a training ground and meeting spot and discussing the centrality of the Black Freedom movement to other liberation movements, centering how Highlander’s 90th year is an occasion for looking ahead, for envisioning and planning to build a new world, and one grounded in sharing and interdependence. Listen to the episode here, 
• Denzel Caldwell, Highlander’s Electoral Justice Researcher and Educator, participated in the International Day of Democracy Sept. 15 with Truthout, authoring “How Can We Build Democracy in the South — in Electoral Politics and Beyond?“.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE

Articles Featuring Highlander Co-Executive Directors

• Teen Vogue – “A Fire at the Highlander Center Won’t Stop this Legendary Civil Rights Movement Training Organization” – April 10, 2019
• USA TODAY – Breonna Taylor – March 10, 2021
• The Forge – “The legacy that we will leave will be the people” – May 20, 2021
• The Chronicle of Philanthropy – “How a $14 Million Fund for Black-Led Grassroots Groups in the South is Upending Traditional Grantmaking” – June 23, 2021
• Prism – “We can’t police and imprison our way to a crime-free society, activists say” – June 28, 2021
• Xtra Magazine – “Screw capitalism: for love to actually win, we need a revolution” – July 19, 2021
• Associated Press – “Ahead of Rittenhouse trial, race seen as underlying issue” – October 29, 2021
• NPR – “Racism is a common thread in 3 high profile trials in different parts of the U.S.” – November 3, 2021
• Washington Post – “Biden vowed to do more for Black Americans. Some say it’s already too late.” – January 21, 2022
• Truthout – “GOP Suppression Efforts Escalate as Voting Rights Bill Fails in Senate” – January 21, 2022
• Buzzfeed – President Joe Biden Didn’t Expect Republicans To Obstruct His Agenda – January 19, 2022
• US News – Democrats’ Delicate Balance: Defending the Police Without Alienating the People – February 4, 2022

Podcasts

• Ms. Magazine Podcast – “Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired” – October 26, 2020
• Converge for Change – “First 100 Days – POTUS” – April 10, 2021
• Under the Tree: A Seminar on Freedom with Bill Ayers – May 28, 2021

Articles Written by Co-Executive Directors

• Essence Magazine – “On Being Black, Southern, and Rural in the time of COVID-19 – March 25, 2020

Briefings

• Congressional briefing on jobs report – March 19, 2021

Panels

• Zilphia Horton and the Highlander Center: Songs and Organizing for Social Justice – MTSU, April 8, 2021

Video interviews

• Roland Martin Unfiltered – December 10, 2021
• Roland Martin Unfiltered – January 20, 2022
  
  

Radio interviews

• WURD – Reality Check – December 14, 2021
• Sojourner Truth Radio – Martin Luther King in 2022 – Jan 18, 2022
• WURD – Reality Check – January 26, 2022

Other videos

• The Storytellers Project – “Uprisings: Stories About the Work of Civil Rights” – September 24, 2020
• SNCC Digital Gateway Project – Keynote Address – May, 2018