[ Progressive community organizing, led by rural women, is
emerging as a tool to keep one another alive through times of
desperation and struggle.] [[link removed]]

BUILDING POWER AND RAISING VOICES OF RURAL WOMEN  
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Chelsea Hoglen
December 4, 2019
Our Future
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_ Progressive community organizing, led by rural women, is emerging
as a tool to keep one another alive through times of desperation and
struggle. _

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Here in North Carolina, like many other rural areas around the
country, reactionary forces have used trends like the decline of jobs,
infrastructure, and public services to consolidate power, advance
racist and misogynist narratives, and erode public confidence in the
power of government to work for the common good.

The impact is real: every day, people in rural areas of North Carolina
get sicker, die sooner, and have less access to what they need to
thrive than their counterparts in the rest of the state.

Women in rural communities are most affected by these crises. And we
are uniquely positioned to be a key part of the solutions.

For rural women in Appalachia, life is a juggling act of caring for
family, friends, and community. The many different roles that rural
women play in their communities and organizing spaces can be woven
together like the quilts that have been beautifully crafted by the
women before us. For as long as I can remember, my Nana and Granny and
Mimi and all the women in my life have been the pillars that hold up
their loved ones and hold folks together — raising the children,
keeping everyone fed and clean, and carrying the traditions of our
history.

In the past decade, the right wing capitalized on a void in North
Carolina left by the lack of progressive investment in rural and
small-town communities. Where progressive organizing might have
offered working-class residents of rural counties opportunities for
engagement, white supremacist and neo-Confederate groups stepped in.
Today, progressive community organizing led by rural women is emerging
as a tool to keep one another alive through times of desperation and
struggle.

Down Home NC organizers Carrie, Darlene, and Jasmine at the recent
Rural Women’s Summit in South Carolina. Photo credit: DHNC

Down Home North Carolina [[link removed]], part of the
People’s Action network and a founding member of the Rural Women’s
Collaborative: Uniting Across Race and Place for Racial and Economic
Justice, is organizing working people to grow democracy and improve
the quality of life, so that our grandbabies inherit a state that is
healthy and just. We are shifting what’s possible in rural America
by building the feminist leadership of rural women and promoting
values of inclusion in communal life, interdependence, care for the
elderly, love of earth and humanity, dignity of all work, and
protection of the vulnerable.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. What I have noticed from
the rural women in my life is that they come together as a village to
care for one another. They know what it means to be stronger united,
to put their brains and bodies together to do what needs to be done to
keep moving forward with all the weight that they are carrying.

In the 1970s, the women of Harlan County catalyzed the multi-gender,
multi-racial solidarity and civil action that won recognition for
striking coal miners. In the 1960s, it was Ollie Combs, a rural woman,
who laid her body on the line in front of a bulldozer to save the
foundation of her family’s livelihood and led to the first
stripmining legislation. It was rural women like Judy Bonds who risked
everything to pioneer the fight against mountaintop removal.

Today in Down Home Alamance County, the story of our rural women looks
like Robin Jordan, who lost her daughter in 2018 because she didn’t
have access to the healthcare that she desperately needed. Robin
fights to protect families across North Carolina from experiencing the
loss that she had to go through, while she — like many rural women I
know — raises her granddaughter.

In Down Home Jackson County, the rural women’s story looks like
Kellie Smith, who still has her waitress apron tied around her waist
from working her 8th shift trying to catch up on rent after
relentlessly searching for jobs in a depleted market for months, but
who shows up anyways because there’s nothing left to lose and “we
can’t afford to keep sitting around not doing anything.”

The story looks like Carrie McBane, who despite facing the views
against her as an “outsider” for the brown hue of her skin, still
pushes against the struggle to communicate with her neighbors and to
build bridges across her community because “we are all stronger when
we work together.”

In Down Home Haywood County, the story of rural women is painted by
Natasha Bright, who brings her two kids with her to organizing
meetings after spending a whole day working full-time to support her
family and her husband, who is a veteran. Natasha, who doesn’t have
health care for herself, fights for her community because “no one is
going to fight for us.”

Building on these legacies, our Radical Hope Fund grant has allowed us
to invest in the feminist leadership of a multiracial cohort of rural
women to lead transformative campaigns bridging urban and rural
communities across race and gender, while restoring democracy,
confronting corporate abuse, and helping build models of community
control of the economy.

Rural women have served as the educators, healthcare givers,
nurturers, and fighters for our community for generations. Now the
women of Down Home are carrying forward this torch.

_This piece is part of the NoVo Foundation’s __Radical Hope_
[[link removed]]_ __Blog Series_
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social justice movement leaders from around the world to share
learning and insights, hear what’s working and what’s not, build
solidarity, and spark opportunities for collaboration. Amid daily
headlines of division, this blog series is intended to serve as an
active and dynamic beacon of hope, possibility, connection, and
healing._

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