S.O.N.G.

SONG, in collaboration with fabulous activists from across the state of VA, will be putting on A 4-day training and political space (led by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans folks!) for people committed to social justice work that is cross-issue, anti-oppression, and meets at the crossroads of race, class, culture, gender and sexuality, towards building the local work, unity and interconnection of people in Virginia. APP DEADLINE: AUG 1, 2009. ANY ?’s–CONTACT CAITLIN at caitlin@southernersonnewground.org

Organizing School Flyers in English and Spanish:
SONG VA Organizing School Flyer
SONG VA Organizing School Flyer-SP

and the application:
VA Organizing School application

As you all know, SONG has recently relocated it’s office to Atlanta, Georgia.

Our beautiful new office is located in the Georgia-Hill Neighborhood Center… so please note our new address, and be patient with us as we continue to update you all with more information related to SONG’s new nest

250 Georgia Avenue / Suite 201
Atlanta, GA 30312

Phone Numbers:

office phone ~ 404.549.8628
fax ~ 404.5498642

Emails:

Caitlin ~ caitlin@southernersonnewground.org
Paulina ~ paulina@southernersonnewground.org
Erika ~ erika@southernersonnewground.org

If you would like to donate to SONG, and / or become a monthly donor, please go to our secure Groundspring online donation page by clicking below:

[PLEASE NOTE WE ARE WORKING TO UPDATE OUR WEBSITE....]

SONG mourns the murder of Mr. Jimmy McCollough (AKA Ms. Devera) on April 14, 2009. A known Drag Queen and Gender non-conforming LGBT man in the community in Fayetteville, NC, Mr. McCollough was presumably simply working the streets on the night he was murdered, trying to pay his bills. Signs point to his death as a hate crime. Like too many in our communities, he was a gender non-conforming person of color in the South, known to be a sex worker, and a presence in the community. SONG continues to be committed to working for a day when folks like Mr. McCollough are not victims of violence, and when lives and livelihoods such as his as seen as just as important and precious as any other life.

Message from transgender community leader Janice Covington, written on the morning of April 14:
“This morning, April 14, 2009, the murdered body of Image Devereux (Ms. Jimmy) was found on Joseph Street behind the old Club Spektrum in Fayetteville, N.C. She was a local Drag Queen who many of us knew as a friend. She will be missed but not forgotten. My prayers go out to her family.”

If you know of any local organizing based in Fayetteville, NC that SONG could reach out to about this case, and efforts to organize around it please email us at: Caitlin@southernersonnewground.org

(Information from Q Notes)

Go to Q-notes website: for more information

Building the Kindred in Hard Times: A QLGBT Gathering
SONG + Left Turn + Charis = Magic

SONG is a Southern LGBTQ organization that supports organizing across race, class, gender, culture, and sexuality. Our office has just moved to Atlanta, and it’s Spring, and we’re in a recession. What do those things have in common? It is a great time to talk about what it means to all of us to be in QLGBT community, and what we want community to be-what are strategies for surviving and thriving collectively? What do we need to have in our lives to be held in community and get all of our needs met?

This is also a gathering for SONG to partner with Charis Circle to celebrate the release of Left Turn Magazine issue #32, “Igniting the Kindred: Visions of Queer Radicalism.” This issue is full of the stories and ideas of Queer and Trans people on the Left. We are very proud that SONG members and Atlanta leaders wrote for this issue, and we want to celebrate them as writers, story-keepers, and historians of our communities.

You should come if:
· You want to learn more about SONG’s work and SONG’s presence in Atlanta (and you want to see the new, cute short SONG video, featuring ATL queers!)
· You are a meat-eater, vegetarian, or vegan and you want to eat a great dinner and talk about building transformative LGBTQ community!
· You want to read issue #32 of Left Turn Magazine, and learn more about Left Turn magazine
· You want to see more community organizing happen in the LGBTQ communities of Atlanta!
· You want to wear an exciting Queer outfit because it is Spring! (Spring is the Theme!)
Thursday, April 23, 2009, 7:00-9:00pm (Dinner at 7, program at 7:30).
Charis Circle and Charis Books, 1189 Euclid Ave NE,Atlanta, GA
404-524-0304 kerrie@chariscircle.org

LONGING & DESIRE: SONG Queer People of Color Gathering 2009!!

Friday, February 27 – Sunday, March 1
Camp Sister Spirit Folks School in Mississippi
444 East Side Drive / Ovett, Mississippi (MS) 39464
[Application Deadline: February 7th, 2009]

“The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.”
~ Audre Lorde

SONG’s work is about wholeness, about community, and about political unity and work that can unite us beyond our differences, and we understand that as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Two-Spirit people of color in the South, we not only often share experiences, but also realities, truths, spiritual wonders, and visions for our communities that expand beyond heart-break, isolation, fear, shame and guilt. We reach for our longings and desire, and in so doing, we are free… please join us for a weekend of building relationships across our region, and reflecting on our own communities, and our shared visions for them.

This gathering is being planned and held down by a working group of SONG members and staff.

The Goals of the SONG Queer People of Color Gathering are:

* Create a place to meet and connect with other Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Two-Sprit folks of color in the South.
* Carve out a space where we are able to bring our whole selves, and build community with each other.
* Create a space to share our share our stories; share our thoughts on organizing opportunities in the South, as well as connecting around potential work following the gathering.
* Build with each other beyond identity, and towards a dialogue of shared values, and strategic organizing work that impacts our communities, and each of us.

How do I apply to attend?
All you have to do is fill out the application form (below), and someone from SONG will contact you to follow up with you about registration, access, dietary needs & logistics.

If you have any questions, or want to learn more about SONG please call Paulina @ 919.323.2057, email at paulina@southernersonnewground.org

To learn more about Camp Sister Spirit visit their website at www.campsisterspirit.com

Application

LONGING & DESIRE: SONG Queer People of Color Gathering Application
Friday, February 27 – Sunday, March 1
[Application Deadline: February 7th, 2009]

Please fill out your application, and email it to: kindred@southernersonnewground.org
There is a suggested $25 registration fee* and space is limited, so please apply to reply ASAP.
[Spanish & ASL interpretation can be provided upon request please let us know if you have specific language needs ASAP]

* PLEASE contact us if the registration fee is an issue / no one will be turned away due to lack of funds!!
Please note that SONG is planning on covering all food & lodging costs for folks registered.

[All the information you provide us with assists us in better planning this gathering. Thanks!]

Name:

Age:

Gender and / or Gender Identity:

Sexuality:

Email:

Address:

Phone:

Organization [if any]:

Are you currently a member of SONG?:

What communities do you belong to? [ex. immigrant / black lesbian / healers & cultural workers, etc.]

What are your thoughts on your own connections with other Queer People of Color?

How are you involved in organizing in your own community?

What are your own hopes for this gathering?

With hopes of a new day, SONG members greet the inauguration of our new president. We lead with hopes for his presidency, not our fears. We hope that he will follow through on not only what he promised, but that he will use his thoughtful mind, his discipline, and his dignity to come to clarity around what is right with LGBTQ people, people in Gaza, and Immigrants in this country; as well as using his power in the service of all oppressed people. We give thanks for the groundswell of people who made this possible through organizing.

We all need a chance to find our dignity, again, President Obama, it is one of the main reasons we organize. We look forward to a day when we all have access to it!

From Organizing Schools to the largest gathering of Southern LGBTQ people in over a decade, SONG has had a great year. Want to read more about what was up in 2008?
Click here: 2008 Love Letter to read our End of the Year Love Letter.

———————————————————————————–
Did you see the movie ‘MILK’ this season? Are you going to? Regardless of our opinions on the film, it is being seen by many audiences and we should be part of the conversation.
Click this link for ‘Living My Life Like Its Golden: SONG Harvey Milk Study Guide’ to get some conversations started! Living My Life Like It’s Golden: SONG Harvey Milk Study Guide

Have other ideas about what the movie brings up? Email them to us at: caitlin@southernersonnewground.org

INTRODUCTION
After about a half of year’s work, Southerners on New Ground is proud to present the Southern LGBT Map Directory, a collection of 24 organizations, groups, and collectives in the South that are doing progressive LGBT organizing. These groups are working around everything from gay and lesbian rights to anti-bullying to reproductive justice to anti-violence to trans prison support. Although not all of the organizations are explicitly queer, they all share a commitment to social justice and intersectional organizing. We have learned that although queer-led social justice organizations in the South may be few in number, they are doing amazing work with limited resources. We created this directory to counter the isolation and burnout that organizers experience all too often in the South and hope that it will help bring people together to strategize, share resources, and support each other.

As we interviewed people for this project, some common themes emerged: people feel isolated, they often work for organizations that are the only ones in their state doing intersectional work, they have trouble moving LGBTQ organizations to be anti-racist and vice versa, they have limited resources, and yet they are hopeful, believe in intersectional organizing, have faith in youth organizers, and have seen people change as a result of their organizations. We have seen that doing this work in the South is often difficult and frustrating, but the people doing it are resilient, and hold onto a vision of a better world.

Check it out!
Southern LGBT Directory

IGNITING THE KINDRED: A SONG ORGANIZING SCHOOL

It is a time to focus on Surviving and Thriving Hard Times: this means understanding what is going on, and learning from past and current times about how to respond. In 2008, we are in a time of economic recession that means great struggle around housing and basic resources for our communities and family. We are in a time of global battle over access to water, food, and other basic resources. We are in a time of newly trained organizers in every state in the US, and a national conversation about what community organizing is and will be, in light of the elections. We are also in a time of spiritual and emotional struggle: in our relationships, our organizations, and our movements remain deeply divided, and without resources and capacity to re-generate and sustain ourselves. SONG works across lines of race, class, culture, gender and sexuality to strengthen and build our power to work together. Though our base is primarily LGBTQ, we hold our allegiance to the Southern struggle for justice as a whole. For more than 2 years, since Hurricane Katrina, we have been working hard on creation, vision, listening and innovation for our region. As we see it, this moment gives SONG as a collective organization 2 options: Not knowing what to do, and continuing to do the same thing, or Not knowing what to do, and trying something new—risking that it may or may not work. We have chosen the latter. We hope that others will do the same in their own way. For more than 2 years, we have worked on this Organizing School, to meet the conditions of the current moment. By meeting the current moment, we mean that we vision a region and a country where local communities are setting up our own infrastructures (what connects or links people collectively so they can get things done) in sustainable and well ways—these infrastructures are capable of meeting needs for basic resources; as well as capable of transforming trauma and pain, and multiplying and amplifying our resiliency and strength. The Organizing School is only one step in this process. The rest is up to ALL of us together. Folks have asked us to know more about the School, and now we are releasing more detail than we ever have before, in the hopes that what we have learned, mistakes we have made, and work we are trying out might help others in their work in critical times. This work involves the voices (directly and indirectly) of over 100 people in the South. It has had many different versions and formats. This is the latest. We share this with the knowledge that being part of a movement comes first before being a non-profit that fiercely guards information and material. We hope it is helpful to you in some way. We ask only that you credit those more than 100 SONG people when you borrow from it or use it.

In Solidarity,
SONG Organizing School Team (Paulina Hernandez, Cara Page, Suzanne Pharr, and Caitlin Breedlove

PLEASE CLICK BELOW TO DOWNLOAD AGENDA FOR THE SCHOOL AND CORE VALUES OF OUR TEAM. TO APPLY FOR THE SCHOOL ITSELF SEE THE POST BELOW..WE ARE ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS PAST THE DEADLINE ON A CASE BY CASE BASIS, AS WELL AS A SET NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS OUTSIDE LITTLE ROCK

public-agenda-for-igniting-the-kindred-song-organizing-school.doc

core-values-for-our-work-together.doc

A 4-day advanced training for people committed to social justice work that is cross-issue, anti-oppression, and meets at the crossroads of race, class, culture, gender and sexuality, towards building the local capacity, unity and interconnection of people
in the greater Little Rock, Arkansas area.

It’s all going down:
Thursday November 13- Sunday November 16, 2008
With additional opportunities to choose other small workshops that fit your specific needs taking place between
Tuesday, November 11 & Wednesday 12, 2008
(so save the date & tell your FOLK!!)

If you are interested?? Want to know more information?? Want to apply??
In the Little Rock, Arkansas area, contact CAR:
Phone: 501.244.9690 / Email: obrian_30@yahoo.com / www.artisticrevolution.org

To contact SONG:
Phone: 919.286.3230 // Email: kindred@southernersonnewground.org
Check out our website: www.southernersonnewground.org

Application Deadline: Saturday, October 25th, 2008