News from the Frontlines
Southern Vision Alliance is committed to resourcing innovative, bold grassroots efforts led by directly impacted communities across the U.S. South. SVA’s Frontline Fund is a mini-grants program that helps groups scale-up efforts, identify best practices, and deepen a diverse bench of leaders. This wave of grantees features Southern organizations which center civil & labor rights, education, land justice, community organizing, and healthcare equity.
Sankofa Freedom School
In honor of Fannie Lou Hamer
The upcoming 2023 Sankofa Freedom School is a 6-day interactive, intergenerationally-focused local history program. The Freedom School prioritizes community investment, the uplift of our youth, and using our past to guide future movements. The Freedom School is a collaboration between the Jackson Center, IFC Activate, and the Southern Vision Alliance, with a mission to mobilize the next generation of community leaders
Southern Workers Campaign
In honor of Saladin Muhammad
The Southern Worker Justice Campaign (SWJC) focuses on empowering African American blue-collar public sector in North Carolina and Virginia through education on their rights. The campaign helps rank-and-file workers develop their own strategies for building power and organization to collectively win improvements in their wages, working conditions, and racial justice, particularly through advocating for reallocation of local funds away from over-bloated police departments.
Photo credits go to Cornell Watson.
The Black Belt Justice Center is a legal and advocacy nonprofit organization that serves African American farmers, landowners, and communities in the Black Belt region in efforts to retain and increase land ownership and stewardship; to create sustainable, regenerative land-based cooperatives and entrepreneurial businesses; and to ensure intergenerational and community wealth. Click here to watch the campaign update!
“The roses of resistance are born in the asphalt. We receive roses, but we will be with our fists clenched speaking of our existence against the push and pull that affects our lives.” – Marielle Franco
Advance Community Health (ACH) is a nonprofit, patient-governed, community-directed organization that removes common barriers to care by serving those who have historically experienced financial, geographic, language, cultural, or other barriers. Communiversity is an educational institution serving the Black Liberation Movement, specifically building the power of Black workers, the majority of our people, for Self-Determination at the workplace and in the community. Communiversity is working with ACH to create an effective community health model in Raleigh.
Anna’s Place NOLA
In honor of Ella Baker
Anna’s Place NOLA is an afterschool program that aims to address the inequities that systematically affect children and youth that identify as Black/African American, including, but not limited to, insufficient healthcare, limited educational resources, low self-esteem, and food scarcity. Anna’s Place NOLA offers academic tutoring and support, music/arts/cultural enrichment, personal and professional development classes, and a safe, constructive environment to help low income, at-risk students disrupt cycles of poverty and violence.
The People’s Power Lab
In honor of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz AKA Malcolm X
The mission of the People’s Power Lab (PPL) is to build an intergenerational social justice movement by originally youth and adults in the Black, brown, Muslim working-class community. In 2023, PPL plans to do robust skill sharing on website development, social media engagement, letter-to-the-editor publishing, and grassroots organizing skills within Black, brown, Muslim working-class youth. PPL also plans to strengthen partnerships with local community organizations, organize webinar series for political education and skill sharing, and make a broader outreach to Black, brown, and Muslim working-class community member for the 2023 election.
