Organizing in Rural America
Organizing in Rural America
Featured Story
Organizing in Rural America
This issue tells the stories of the diverse and inspiring organizing taking place in rural communities across the country. From West Virginia to Utah, from main street to mobile home courts, we’ll hear how organizing in small towns works and how leaders and organizers sustain themselves.
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Education Justice Organizing
Education justice organizers describe what it's like on the ground, as parents, education activists, and community leaders.
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We Need Small Businesses to Build an Equitable Economy
Progressives who are serious about countering corporate concentration and advancing racial and gender justice should embrace small business owners as partners in the fight for a more just economy.
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West Virginia Teachers Organizing for the Common Good
“If you want something done, you organize the workers with you. You don't wait on somebody else to do it for you.”
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Image courtesy of the author A Just and Equitable Future for Northern New England
It is critical to cultivate a new generation of leaders who can reimagine a thriving future for rural communities. Together, we are building a model of a people-powered organization to get us there.
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Rural Climate Justice Organizing
Leaders from Pennsylvania, Georgia, and New Mexico share the innovative strategies they are using to engage rural communities on campaigns for climate and clean energy progress.
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Northern Plains Native Art
These prints, by Jennifer White, depict Northern Plains Native culture through abstract expressionism as well as representational depictions of women bisons and crows.
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Image courtesy of Voces de la Frontera La Tierra del Queso
Voces de la Frontera has consistently organized mass protests and community-wide strikes to defeat state and local policy threats to immigrant rights. We’ve also begun making inroads into rural organizing — building collective power that we’re now using to flip Wisconsin in the upcoming elections.
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Overcoming Inequality in Unemployment Benefit Access and Utilization
By arming people with the information they need to navigate the systems that have failed them for centuries, we can begin to break down some of the barriers that have kept wealth out of the hands of Black people.
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Photo courtesy of Phyllis Hill Black Women of the South: Organizing for Power and Change
Black women in the South are envisioning a new future for the region and organizing to make this vision a reality. In this conversation, Black women leaders describe organizing in 2020, the barriers to building power for Black communities in the South, and how they sustain themselves in this difficult work.
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Progressives Should Be Targeting Rural America
Elections can be won at the margins; progressive movements and campaigns would do well to invest in rural America.
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Images courtesy of the AFT The Renaissance of McDowell County
The AFT embarked on an ambitious private-public partnership to revive an economically devastated West Virginian county and improve educational outcomes.
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We Have to Talk About Race in Rural America
Four rural organizers on their campaigns to mobilize a base of multiracial voters and change the narrative about race and government in rural America
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Images courtesy of the authors Indivisible Rural Resistance: Stories from the Field
Indivisible’s rural group leaders organize in some of the most remote and difficult places in the United States. This piece honors their resilience, grit, and ingenuity.
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Image courtesy of MHAction Rural Women Fight Back Against Wall Street Land Grab
Multi-racial, women-led teams of manufactured home residents are taking on predatory corporate owners and building progressive power in rural and exurban areas
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Photo by Spencer Davis Organizing Rural Manufacturing Workers Matters
Organizing campaigns that focus on rural manufacturing workers can play an important role in tackling economic inequality, systemic racism, and gender inequality — and sow the seeds of significant social and political change.
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Photo courtesy of Cal Bryant Power to the People: Organizing Rural Electric Cooperatives
A conversation with the organizers who work at the intersections of economic and racial justice to build democratic participation in energy companies that are owned by the people they serve.
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The Fight for Healthcare in Rural America
The loss of healthcare services is devastating for people living in rural communities. But growing activism shows that people are up for the fight to advance health equity in rural communities.
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Images courtesy of the author The Rural Tradition Bringing Communities Together
String band music is an effective way to bring diverse communities together — and a great source of inexpensive fun for progressive organizers.
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Image courtesy of the Rural Utah Project Registering Voters on the Navajo Nation
Over the last two years, the Rural Utah Project has encountered a number of challenges in registering rural voters in the Navajo Nation: lack of internet access, no physical addresses, and hard-to-reach households. Nothing could have prepared us, however, for the challenges of COVID.
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How Rural Immigrant Communities Led the COVID Response
Immigrant workers at meatpacking plants are organizing to ensure no one is taken advantage of — and to hold employers accountable.
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Image courtesy of the author The Power of Democracy for Everyone
Voter suppression tactics like the Florida fines and fees law are a reaction to the power returning citizens have to make a big difference in this year’s election. The sooner we activate this block of voters and expand democracy in forgotten communities, the sooner we will all see justice.
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Photo by Walter Sturn Digital Organizing in Rural America
Rural Utah Project organizers discuss the challenges of digital organizing in a rural context, the importance of cultural competency in rural organizing, and how to build on this organizing in 2021.
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How rural organizers are building community connections and power
A report on racial justice oragnizing in rural America today