Free Workshops:

Our Gift in Honor of Civil and Human Rights

The speaker is Lecia Brooks, Director of Outreach at the Southern Poverty Law Center and Director of the Civil Rights Memorial Museum in Montgomery, AL. On Saturday, October 12, the Center will sponsor one of the first in our national series of pro bono workshops entitled "All Together Now: Intergenerational Stories of Civil and Human Rights." We invite you to take part in sharing stories, helping to sponsor workshops, and engaging in the national conversation we hope this project will help to stimulate.

"I'm a great believer in sharing our stories. The successes of the civil rights movement were major. It ended legalized apartheid, it ended Jim Crow laws that dictated strict segregation and separation. We got the Civil Rights Act, we got the Voting Rights Act, and then we became complacent. Now we're experiencing an erosion of those gains because of lack of political participation, lack of awareness. If you don't pay attention to your rights, you're going to lose them."

 

The speaker is Lecia Brooks, Director of Outreach at the Southern Poverty Law Center and Director of the Civil Rights Memorial Museum in Montgomery, AL. On Saturday, October 12, the Center will sponsor one of the first in our national series of pro bono workshops entitled "All Together Now: Intergenerational Stories of Civil and Human Rights." We invite you to take part in sharing stories, helping to sponsor workshops, and engaging in the national conversation we hope this project will help to stimulate. 

 

We're offering half-day All Together Now Storied Sessions in cities across the U.S., from Berkeley to Philadelphia (and many places in between – here's a list; more are being added). Participants will create stories in their own words, uploading their texts and images to the forthcoming All Together Now portal on www.Cowbird.com, showcasing the whole body of work. Here's an example: Bess Turner's story of segregation and liberation. People across the U.S. will be invited to add their own stories, cross-linking with All Together Now.

With your help, the end result will be hundreds of stories sharing and enlivening our legacy of civil and human rights. Inspired by the brave activists of fifty years ago, African Americans, Native Americans, women, Asians, Latinos, gays and lesbians, people facing disability, and others have stood up for themselves and their communities. Join us in telling your stories to the world! 

 

If you have a story to share about taking action to support civil and human rights, or about the legacy of the civil rights movement in your life and community, and you're a member one of the age groups we're seeking – seniors (55 and over) and teenagers and young adults (15-30) – please read more about the project and complete an application now. If your organization can help sponsor a workshop, promoting and supporting the inclusion of even more cities, please contact Allison Myers via email: atn@storycenter.org. 

 

We're offering this series as our gift in honor of this year's 50th anniversary of many civil rights milestones for this country, beginning with today's anniversary of the August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Justice, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his inspiring "I Have A Dream" speech. This past Saturday, Congressman John Lewis (who was the youngest speaker in 1963) exhorted thousands assembled at the 50th Anniversary March to "Hang in there, keep the faith. I got arrested 40 times during the ’60s, beaten, bloodied and unconscious. I’m not tired, I’m not weary. I’m not prepared to sit down and give up. I am ready to fight and continue to fight, and you must fight.”

 

Dr. Eugenia Gardner, an oral historian and StoryCenter facilitator in training, attended Saturday's March. She's helping to organize and lead our All Together Now civil and human rights workshops because she believes, as Congressman Lewis said on Saturday, "I am not going to stand by and let the Supreme Court take the right to vote away from us!”

 

"It's important for us to understand the power of our words," Eugenia said, "and the act of sharing the work that we do in terms of civil and human rights. There's tremendous power and empowerment in sharing these stories. That's how we create the domino effect. That's how we get the courage to stand together on what are sometimes very difficult and emotionally charged topics. When we share these stories and talk about our lessons learned or our struggles, that creates community.

 

"If we are going to continue to impact civil and human rights, we have to engage young people. They're going to grow up and become the policy analysts and the elected officials and the corporate CEOs and the entrepreneurs who change and shape this world. We can only hope that we give them enough exposure to these things now so that they have a heightened sense of engagement, a heightened sense of connectivity and the true belief that all of our destinies and all of our rights and all of our successes are tied together." 

 

Please join StoryCenter and our great partners – The Phoenix Urban League, Southern Poverty Law Center, Color of Change, the Equal Justice Society, American Friends Service Committee Denver, and CommunisPR – in this wonderful project. All together now!

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