'From the Ground Up': SPLC launches the Advocacy Institute
to build policy skills among disenfranchised people in Mississippi
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Esther Schrader | Read the full piece here
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Friend,
Providing the people of Mississippi with tools to raise their
collective voice, the Southern Poverty Law Center is setting up policy
education seminars across the state to build advocacy skills among
those most affected by discrimination.
Participants will learn how to talk to legislators, how to communicate
with media outlets and how to canvass in their communities. They will
get instruction on the importance of voting to effect change at the
local level, how to forge coalitions and uplift their communities, and
how to advance policy initiatives to improve the lives of people
across Mississippi.
Dubbed the Advocacy Institute, the initiative will launch later this
spring with an initial cohort of 30 fellows. The fellows will be
formerly incarcerated people who, despite having been released from
prison, are denied the right to vote, in some cases for the rest of
their lives, by state laws conceived just after the Civil War to
suppress the votes of Black people.
The fellows, chosen with input from Mississippi-based advocates who
are formerly incarcerated themselves, will receive stipends to
participate in the institute sessions. The sessions will take place on
a series of Saturdays over a five-week period. The SPLC's
community partners are fanning out into communities across the state
to get word out about the program. The institute began accepting
applications on April 20.
"When there is an imbalance of power at the top, how do you
counter that? By building power from the ground up," said
Waikinya Clanton, the SPLC's state office director for
Mississippi
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. "And so that's how we're looking at this Advocacy
Institute. We are going to be teaching people how to build power, how
to understand the rules of engagement, and how to work through and
navigate the resources that are actually available to them, suffrage
being one of them."
'Dismantling the system of racism'
Organizers plan for the first group of fellows to be followed by many
more. Future sessions of the Advocacy Institute will draw from a
broader group of impacted communities to teach skills that will tackle
economic inequality, poverty and white supremacy.
The Advocacy Institute is co-led by the SPLC's Mississippi state
office and the SPLC's Voting Rights Practice Group
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, with plans to develop the institute into a training ground for new
organizers across the state focused on community education and
transformative change. The curriculum will include lessons on how to
push for change through protest, advocacy and organizing.
The institute is one of a number of new initiatives and partnerships
the SPLC is undertaking in Mississippi, as the organization founded
more than 50 years ago builds on its landmark legal victories against
discrimination, inequality and white supremacist groups to work more
closely than ever in partnership with local communities. The
initiatives being launched in Mississippi are laying the groundwork
for establishing similar programs throughout the Deep South.
"It is a beginning that we're proud to be shaping here in
the state of Mississippi," Clanton said. "And we're
looking forward to growing it and using it to be part of dismantling
the system of racism and hatred and bigotry that exists here."
READ MORE
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond,
working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy,
strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of
all people.
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