Week Three of the 2024 Encampment

Synthesizing and Sharing the 2024 Encampment

In the last week of the 2024 summer Encampment, the Encampers continued to learn and synthesize the lessons they were taking home. There were some new experiences and deepening of the critical thinking and community-building processes. At the end of the week, they welcomed parents, alums, and supporters to the InterGen Weekend.

The week started with a community service project at the Beacon Center community food pantry. Rev. Richard Williams, executive director and founder, explained that the Beacon Center was his pandemic project: He was frustrated and wanted to “put my hands to something that really needs to change now. Prayer without work is dead. Somebody has to be impacted by the prayer for transformation to take place.” He went on to talk about the philosophy of the center:  “We don’t require Bible study or services. We believe in just living with people and maybe if they can connect with kindness, then maybe they can connect to the faith that I believe … We exist to remove barriers from our neighbors so they can have a better life.”

Along with the food pantry, which has 19,000 visits a year, the center has a health center that provides HIV/AIDS care; support for domestic violence survivors and veterans; and much more.

Referring to his age (27) when he founded the Beacon Center, Williams told the Encampers, “There is nothing that cannot be done in our communities if those who have youth and vitality would just do it. Your gifts and abilities go beyond TikTok and Instagram posts. I believe that this generation needs to create content that you can touch. … The question is, will you offer it to our neighbors? Will you do it? We need more creativity for the world to change.”

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The next day, Encampers visited the Elmore County Black History Museum in Wetumpka, AL, which houses the largest collection of Black obituaries in one place in the Deep South outside Atlanta. It is home to a community lynching-documentation project and houses artifacts of home life going back to the 1940s, ’30s, and before. Curator Billie Rawls provided a detailed tour of the facilities with information about the nature of community life then, including the need to make one’s own clothes and shoes, and how such items were carefully preserved and passed down. Click for Melanie talking about her experience.

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  Billie Rawls

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  Sophia Bracy Harris

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The Encampers joined Sophia Bracy Harris and friends, along with a group of young people from Elmore County, for lunch and then a visioning session. She talked about the reality of segregation, drawing attention to the similarity in the make-up of the Supreme Court now with the one that made the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which legitimized segregation. She continued: “[The] EFC helps us to understand that every one of us has a voice. We have the right and the opportunity, even if we are not successful, to do what we can to have the best quality of life and contribution that we can make for ourselves, our children, and our families. We cannot do this by ourselves — it takes others, a community working with us to do that.”

She began the visioning segment by asking the young people to take a few minutes to reflect on these questions: “What is it that we want and how do we get it? What is our vision of the community, for our country, for our family? What do we want for ourselves? And what is necessary to get there? What are the obstacles?”

After the young people shared with each other, they shared with the group.

On Thursday, Mabel Picotte, EFC alum, board member, educator, poet and parent of a 2024 Encamper (Evangeline), led a grounding exercise, asking the Encampers to look at their relationship to the land and helping them to make a connection. She also asked the group to reflect on the question of whether they feel their culture has been made invisible. She then gave some specific examples of ways that North American Indigenous cultures have been made invisible and mis-represented. A lively discussion followed about cultures and specifically indigenous cultures.

 

Evangeline facilitated the “potato dance” which encourages people to work together. As you can see in this video, the potato dance is set to traditional music, does inspire people to work together and is a lot of fun.

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Dr. Jacqueline Allen Trimble, a professor at Alabama State University and the Encampment’s sponsor, led a workshop about creative writing.  She facilitated an engaging introduction where participants offered stories that they normally would not share with others. From these stories, the Encampers created epistolary poems. As Trimble put it, “Fancy words for a letter.”

She gave a number of stirring examples and asked them to create their own poems, many of which might be asking forgiveness, demonstrating compassion, expressing regret, or bringing attention to a social justice issue. She said it was important for the poem to be “particular,” not general, and that the purpose of writing a poem is to discover and explore the self. She added that we may discover it is something that somebody else has also experienced.

Trimble moved on to different styles of poems, specifically those that are both particular and linked to social justice. Examples were given from the following poets: Matthew Olzman, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, Jacqueline Ann Trimble, Mary Szybist, and Alabama Poet Laureate Ashley M. Jones.

Trimble’s husband, author and story teller Joseph Trimble, told Encampers about the Pullman porters and their importance in funding social justice movements, as well as making it possible for generations of their children to go to college. He discussed some of the triumphs and struggles of the Pullman porters, including his father’s story.

 

The InterGen Weekend kicked off with an Opening Circle guided by Mabel Picotte. She said the tradition of the talking circle and passing the feather was first introduced to the Encampment by the late Ada Deer. The feather she held was from an eagle and is meant to “honor people and because it’s a bird and can fly high, where we can’t physically go. People can send prayers on the wings of eagles. They touch the sky and reach the Creator…The talking circle is a way of council, a way for everybody’s voice to be heard, in communion with each other. Once everybody’s voice is heard, the atmosphere is filled with all that richness of who you are and what you speak.”

Mabel passed the feather to Evangeline, who explained the questions for each person to answer: “Your name, where you are from, your Encampment year (or connection to EFC), something important that you left behind.” Everyone went around the circle, responding to the questions. The evening ended with a lot of hugs.

On July 20, the InterGen group boarded vans early to go to the Lowndes County Interpretative Center. They watched a film about the Selma to Montgomery marches and the relationship of those events to voting rights today. Click here for a brief video.

That afternoon, the group had lunch with several “Foot Soldiers.” InterGen Coordinator and board member Steve Davis welcomed everyone and introduced the foot soldiers as the “giants and unsung heroes and sheroes of the Civil Rights Movement. Those who lived fought and made history in Selma, Alabama. They did this to inspire, educate and nurture the next generation of social justice activists — that’s you.”

Joanne Bland started by saying that she could not have known when she was making history, that 59 years later, she would be talking about it to a diverse group of people. “The lessons of the past will push us forward to get to where we are supposed to be,” she said. “We want to inspire you to be the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Barbara Barge, a retired teacher who was recently hired to work at Foot Soldiers Park, talked about how her perspective changed. “Before I joined Joanne, I thought I didn’t have a story, but then I thought about it. Without people like me who had been there, there wouldn’t have been a movement. The term foot soldier is appropriate for who we are and what we did.”

The Encampers also heard from Dr. Valda Montgomery, who lived two doors down from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta King. She was eight years old when the Montgomery boycott began. She was there for the Freedom Rides and the Selma and Montgomery marches.

One of the first questions concerned advice they might give about community organizing now.

Use social media — back then we only had phone calls, flyer community meetings, but you could do a  flash meeting using social media.

Quoting Stokely Carmichael, Bland said, “Organize, organize, organize! And what does that mean? Talk to people, see how they feel. They often feel the same as you.”

What keeps you going? And what do you think about the Park Service having control of the museum?

Montgomery said, “We all have PTSD and we don’t want to go back and we don’t want our children to go through it. All the stuff on TV brings it back. It helps to talk about it or write book about it. Ms. Montgomery’s book is Just a Neighbor and can be found on her website (link above). She also mentioned that Ruby Bridges and Diane Nash had written books.

About the Park Service and the Interpretive Center, Bland said, “We have to rewrite the narratives … it started with Columbus and indigenous peoples. We have to rewrite the narratives and tell the truth. And we have to hold the politicians accountable — they are using our tax money.”

Tell us about the role of women in the Civil Rights Movement.

Bland: “Our mothers and grandmothers had us out in the streets every day. My father didn’t want his children involved because they could get killed, but my grandmother used to send us out the door, saying, ‘Go get your freedom.’

“Women and children were the boycott. The media took pictures of Rev. King — he brought the media and with him would be the men up front. Women and children made this movement and this change. By the time I was 11, I had been in jail 13 times. We have to re-write the narrative — we are still alive and this is our story.”

Montgomery mentioned a couple of books for participants to read: Women in the Civil Rights Movement by Kesha Grant  and Bloody Lowndes by Hasan Kwame Jeffries.

Barge: “We went where we were told. We went in the church and they gave us non-violence training and history lessons and Negro spirituals, and said, ‘Convert the words to fit what you are doing today.’ We practiced the songs, marching, and how to protect ourselves.” She said it was not until she was in college and an 88-year-old man thanked her for helping to get the vote that she understood she had done something that wasn’t just about Selma but national.

Bland: “… The movement wasn’t about integration, eating in their restaurants, or buying their clothes — it was about the distribution of power, and we still have not have got it distributed equally and there will always be a struggle until that day. Yes, I get tired, but then someone like you will come along and say something profound and I know I’m doing the right thing — that’s my piece of the puzzle.”

Jane Sapp and a group of Encampers then sang two songs. She introduced the songs by saying, “Music was the voice of the movement — it was an energizer, a motivator, and a place where people found courage.” Click to hear “I Want to Lift My Sister Up” which was written by Faya Ora Rose Toure’ (formerly Rose Sanders).

Later that day, the participants once more caravanned — this time to Martha’s Place, a community  gathering place with a national reputation. Everyone had dinner and then the Encampers presented what they had learned in three creative groups: visual, dance, and music. These presentations were carefully crafted and profoundly moving. Click on images to see clips that show just brief glimpses of the larger presentation, partly due to copyright laws.

These last two links show a bit of the intergenerational enthusiasm. Click for dancing; click for everyone singing “We Shall Overcome”.

The last session of the 2024 InterGen Weekend was on Sunday morning. Miles Rapoport, EFC alum and executive director of 100% Democracy, and Deanna Fowler, executive director of Alabama Forward, discussed organizing and voting, followed by a Q&A. Scrapping his original topic, Rapoport talked about what it takes to have a successful social justice movement, using examples from his own life.

1. Grassroots organizing is the foundation.
2. We need elected officials to bring the community organizers’ ideas to the halls of power.
3. Organizations that are working on the narrative — developing a sustained vision over time that reflects the shared values and bringing groups together in coalition.

He recalled asking himself, Is there anything that could really change the game? “I’ve been working on voting rights for over 40 years,” he said before listing all of the structural change projects he has worked on. “They have made real progress in some states … enough that there is mean-spirited pushback.” He quoted the poor U.S. turnout rates on voting that put us in the bottom half compared to the 26 countries in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Australia that now have universal voting. This is why he co-wrote 100%Democracy with E.J. Dionne and went on to found 100%Democracy: to bring universal voting to the U.S.

He introduced Ester, an Encamper from Brazil, who talked about the importance of mandatory voting in her country. Click to view. The restrictions she mentions are not part of how a plan would be implemented in the U.S., which is based on incentives. Click to hear Ester.

Fowler talked about the work of Alabama Forward, which brings together a coalition of nonprofit organizations and supports them in their work for civic engagement. She spoke about how her background in health equity brought her to the conclusion that elected officials are needed who support health care for change to happen. She talked about the issue of redistricting, its impact in Alabama, and the Allen v. Milligan case. [see our Week Two post for more information on this.] She recounted several other current voting restrictions in Alabama: no early voting or same-day registering and looser restrictions on mail-in ballots during the pandemic being rolled back, including a law making it a felony to assist someone in casting an absentee ballot.

Alabama Forward works to empower communities to be active participants in civic life, including mobilizing people to vote in November. Fowler also mentioned that, in terms of the national election, Alabama is not a swing state, and people are not excited about either candidate, so there is lot of apathy.

Here are just a few of the topics brought up in the Q&A.

Faya Ora Rose Toure’, who has a long history of fighting for justice in Alabama, said it’s important to remember that there are a lot of reasons why people don’t vote — not just apathy. She gave a couple of examples of local elected officials who did not act in just or ethical ways and advised the group to look very carefully at anyone they intend to vote for. She also explained the initials she uses in her voter registration project: V = voter, I = information, I = inspiration, P = progress.

Evelin Aquino, Community Life Director, remarked that a lot of young people of color don’t understand where they fit or even what democracy is. Civics has been taken off the curriculum, so they are not educated to think critically. They can’t see the impacts of voting and ask, “How it relate to me?”

Fowler replied that the removal of civics is intentional and it’s important to remember that there is a lot of power at the local level: school and library boards, for instance. She also introduced the project “Shake the Field,” where young people (18–45) can learn civics through an arts and culture lens.

Rapoport said changes also can be made at the city and state level, giving as examples the Secretary of State in Connecticut insisting that civics be part of any universal voting law and that the entire city council of St. Paul, Minnesota, is made up of women of color under 40.

Dahlia, an Encamper, asked what they thought of the electoral college. Rapoport answered, “It stinks! It’s an unequal racist system devised to give the slave states more power.” He also said there is interest in the Senate for change. Fowler added that, “All politics is local. Look at what is down river from the president — the school board, city council, etc.”

The session ended with “Ain’t Going to Let Nobody Turn Me Around”, a Civil Rights Movement freedom song. Click to hear just a small portion. The Encampers went on to adapt the lyrics for this year’s election — a powerful conclusion to this year’s summer Encampment and InterGen Weekend.

Look for information about the 2025 Encampment in the fall.

Photo/video credit: Jamie Davis, Jamiesturntv@gmail.com

Copyediting by EFC alum Ruth E. Thaler-Carter. Any errors were made after her edits. www.writerruth.com

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