April 21st, 2015
Dear ROPnetters,
The Rural Organizing Project is thrilled to be bringing movement strategist Suzanne Pharr to Oregon next week to facilitate conversations with ROP leaders and membership! The focus will be The Road to Ferguson.
Ferguson didn’t just pop up on the landscape of injustice. Our living room conversations will chart some of the markers on this road, beginning with chattel slavery and ending with the role of the Right and Neoliberalism. We will then talk together about how we collectively can organize to build a different road.
Suzanne Pharr is a long time organizer and nationally renowned strategic movement thinker from the South. Suzanne is an old school lesbian/feminist who was born the youngest of eight children on a farm in Hog Mountain, Georgia. She believes that racism, sexism and economic injustice are inextricably connected and we must work on their dismantlement simultaneously— radically, going right to their roots. Suzanne founded the Women’s Project in Arkansas in 1981, was a co-founder of Southerners on New Ground in 1982, and was the director of the Highlander Center 1999-2004. She is an organizer and political strategist who has spent her adult life working to build a broad-based social and economic justice movement. She is the author of Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism, and In the Time of the Right: Reflections on Liberation. Closest to our hearts, Suzanne lived in Oregon for several years in the 90s and helped start ROP. She has stayed very close to our work over the years.
Living Room Conversations will be happening in these communities across the state:
Monday, April 27th: Albany
Tuesday, April 28th: Grants Pass
Wednesday, April 29th: Redmond
Thursday, April 30th: Salem
Space is limited so once we reach capacity we will have to turn people away. Several of the conversations still have some space, so if you are interested in attending please contact cara@rop.org or call 503-438-8638 and we will let you know availability.
ROP has brought Suzanne out to Oregon at strategic moments in ROP’s organizing. In 2005, Suzanne helped us envision what became the Walk for Truth, Justice, and Community from Salem to Portland. In 2010, Suzanne led a series of conversations on the economy that benefited from Suzanne’s unique combination of big picture thinking and connections to movements around the US, expertise on the Right’s organizing in rural communities, experience and commitment to the power of grassroots organizing, and her excellent facilitation skills. We are thrilled to once again welcome her to Oregon!
All my best,
Cara