This month’s The Art of Strategy: Building Solidarity Across Generations featuring Candie Carawan and Gloria Aneb House; supported by two young organizers and fellow musicians Jules Kessler, Co-Coordinator of The STAY Project (Stay Together Appalachian Youth) and Paul Newman, Community Organizer with SpiritHouse Inc. During this edition we will dive into how art and culture has played a meaningful role in the movement throughout history as a medium to share our experiences, connect and reflect the struggles facing our communities, and ultimately move and motivate people to action! This double feature brings us the tales of two movement veterans and how artvisim has been interwoven into their fight for freedom from an early age on into times of today.

The Southern Movement Assembly is taking a year of Soulstice; a time for Expansion, Change, and Action. We believe that the SMA, like many formations, should give significant time and attention to how we are growing in relation to our people and our principles. We have a responsibility to learn and reimagine our structures in alignment with our commitment to address the urgent movement needs of this time. We recognize that in order to EXPAND, we need to be CLEAR; in order to CHANGE, we need to be ROOTED in our foundations and history; in order to ACT, we need a collective PLAN and a PROCESS FOR IMPLEMENTATION.

This month's conversations features International human rights activist, warrior, defender, and advocate for justice, equity, and fairness - Glory Kilanko - has committed her life’s work to working for the rights of the oppressed, poor, and disfranchised majority. As Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Women Watch Afrika, Inc. (WWA), an Atlanta based international non-profit social justice organization, she works towards the elimination of all forms of discrimination and health disparity against women and girls and the acculturation of immigrants and refugees arriving to the U.S. from 23 African nations. Read more about her extraordinary story below. This conversation will also be joined by Emery Wright, the Executive Director of Project South, who has worked globally for decades within Pan-African movement formations and Preye Cobham, Legal Director with Women Watch Afrika and a governance council representative with the Southern Movement Assembly.

From June through September tune in for a monthly inter-generational dialogue series with movement leaders connecting our past to our present. During a time when we are under attack on multiple fronts, it is important that we act in solidarity and arm ourselves with sound political education and pragmatic strategies to advance us in the struggle for liberation! This conversation features activist, public intellectual, author, and scholar Loretta J. Ross. Ross started her career in activism and social change in the 1970s, working at the National Football League Players’ Association, the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, the National Organization for Women (NOW), the National Black Women’s Health Project, the Center for Democratic Renewal (formerly National Anti-Klan Network), the National Center for Human Rights Education, and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, until retiring as an organizer in 2012 to teach about activism.

As the year draws to an end, we would like to highlight and acknowledge all the hard fought battles and achievements we have sustained as a movement in 2022! This year has been rough as people try to navigate back to a place of stability after the chaos of the covid pandemic and enduring so much loss. Midterm elections across the nation show us that there is much work to be done as many have become discouraged by political divides. Workers and prisoners have been rising up in strikes to fight for fair and improved quality of life and basic human rights. Our work across the South and the movement for freedom and change are ever relevant and significant! We must continue on and we must win!

When we gathered at the 10th annual Southern Movement Assembly last month we left with the commitment to continuing to fortify our relationships to one another, our critical thought and practice, our belief in and action toward transformation, our principled struggle, our sense of belonging to each other, to the land, and to liberation; our solidarity made and remade through radical dependency, and to our strategy and practice of and toward freedom. On this call we reviewed the four components of the shared action plan and discussed what shared infrastructure we might need to carry out the plan.

Earlier this month, delegations representing peoples movement assemblies across the South gathered at the historic Franklinton Center at Bricks for Southern Movement Assembly 10. Rooted in place, in our people, and in our history we identified the uniqueness of this moment and began building a collective vision to meet it. These are heavy times, but we choose to dream and scheme beyond collapse. We choose liberation and joyful resistance. We invite you to meet this moment with us.

During this second segment of Formed by Fire: The Stories that Birthed the Southern Freedom Movement, we will be joined by SMA members to tell the stories of our roots, the fights that have connected us through the years, and the momentum that we gain through our collective organizing.

During this two part series, the SMA is honoring 10 years of Southern connection, resistance, and organizing!

This season we are kicking off the next stop on the road to SMA 10 - The "Summer of Assemblies"! Southern Freedom Fighters are preparing to gather together to create visions and strategies on every front-line across the U.S and Global South. This year we set out a goal to sharpen our skills, connect our plans, and prepare to flex our power at SMA 10!