|
Friend, Castleberry is a town of 486 people in south-central Alabama where strawberries grow big and sweet. It is where life took Alesia Thomas, a Black military veteran, when her best friend needed her help, and it is where the Indiana native intends to grow old. The community known as Chestnut lies about 50 miles away, in the northern part of Monroe County on the state’s southwest coastal plain. It’s where Lasonja Kennedy’s people are from, on her mother’s side. And it is where Kennedy, after years doing mission work as far away as Senegal, is working toward change. Thomas and Kennedy don’t know each other. Neither considers herself an advocate in the political sense of the word, but both have been helping people for as long as they can remember. Now they are seeking ways, any ways at all, they can make life better for their families and communities. It is the clarity of their separate missions that has led both women to be chosen as inaugural fellows of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Alabama Advocacy Institute. They are among 15 Alabamians selected out of 48 applicants to participate in a series of education seminars created by the SPLC to guide local leaders in advocating for and advancing issues critical to their communities. Chosen for their desire to elevate the work they have been able to accomplish on their own, the fellows arrive at the doors of the institute eager to build their already-prodigious skills in leveraging individual and collective power to fuel deeply needed change. “These are people who have been organizing and working on initiatives in their communities, with agendas driven by the issues that are directly impacting people, and they want training so that they are better equipped to address those issues they are passionate about,” said Tafeni English-Relf, director of the SPLC’s Alabama state office.
|
