Local activists joined an organizing tradition stretching back more than 80 years when they gathered last month for a training by the Highlander Center for Research and Education. Founded in rural Tennessee in 1932, the Highlander Center has been a space for movement building and training that has shaped the work of labor and civil rights organizers for generations. Rosa Parks attended an organizer training at the Highlander Center just six months before launching the sit-in that became the Montgomery Bus Boycott.The Highlander Center continues its tradition of popular education and movement building today, and Crossroads Fund was excited to join with the Woods Fund of Chicago and the Chicago Foundation for Women to bring Elandria Williams, a Highlander trainer, for a day-long workshop on cultural transformation as an organizing tool.Through skits, small group discussions, one on one conversations and other activities, the workshop dug deep into participants’ understanding of their own cultures and communities, the forms cultural transformation can take, and steps towards bridging the issues and history that divide Chicago. Although it was a struggle at times to think beyond groups’ individual issues and organizational goals, participants felt that it was a powerful exercise that helped them think more broadly about movement building.Elandria also worked with the Women of Color Leadership Cohort, a joint project of the Woods Fund, Crossroads Fund and CFW to support women of color organizers in their leadership development. The Women of Color Leadership Cohort is currently accepting participants for its second year. Para más información, contact Jane@crossroadsfund.org. Interested in learning more about upcoming workshops and trainings at Crossroads Fund? Join our email list!
