Welcome to Southern Strategies, a collaboration of social justice groups in the South to lift up our strengths and address the deep needs of our region.

In November, 33 people from 24 organizations came together in a convening by Highlander, in collaboration with other groups, to talk about lessons, challenges and opportunities in context of the economy and the elections. We decided to engage in a process to develop and move forward an agenda that focused on understanding and transforming the structural arrangements, policies and practices that have created and maintained long standing disparities in our region in every major index relative to the rest of the nation.
Click here for a list of those 24 organizations.

We decided to begin this process by writing a letter to President Obama from Southern community organizers to ask him to pay special attention to the South and create targeted federal action in partnership with us.

We invite you to sign on to the letter through this website and add your organizational or personal voice as a community organizer to a growing list of endorsers.

This letter to President Obama is part of a larger and broader movement building strategy for us as Southerners to work in closer collaboration to strengthen all our efforts. We envision a series of inter-generational grassroots Southern People’s Assemblies that will help educate ourselves, and others outside the region, and develop a Southern Action Plan For Change.

We hope you join this in collaborative effort to shape together strategies, partnerships and campaigns that will address the economic and structural impediments we face in our region. Our success will emerge from the power that comes from more people working in concert, with a common vision and set of priorities, sharing resources and focused on strategic targets. Let's create a blueprint for advancing together, especially in these times of scarcity.

The Southern Strategies gathering in November was the third Southern Strategies session held at Highlander in 15 months involving over 70 groups and networks.

(To read about the first two gatherings, download this PDF report HERE. To read more about the third gathering go to this website for an online report HERE.)