Texas Audio Workshops with Hadassah

For folks in Austin and San Antonio who did the audio workshops with Hadassah, here is the link to the collective tracks made in the workshop.

Video from Collective in Lebanon

Lots of folks have asked where they can find "From Beirut...to Those Who Love Us", the video we showed on some of the stops on the tour. Below is a link.

More Photos From Tour

Thanks to Hadassah, here are some more photos from the tour:

http://picasaweb.google.com/hadassah.hill/GrassrootsMediaJusticeTexasOct08#

Zines made in Alexis Pauline Gumbs' Workshops

One of the most exciting aspects of the tour was Alexis' Pressed For Knowledge workshop. In cities including Greensboro, Miami, Gainesville, and Pensacola, participants collectively designed zines. The PDFs are available online at:
http://brokenbeautifuldowloads.wordpress.com/

Denton, Texas

The final stop on our tour - Denton, Texas - was arranged by the amazing Ellen Chenoweth, a local Left Turn activist. Denton was one of the most exciting events of the tour. A full house of folks came out to hear about our work, and to share their own stories.

One of the local activists had written a great story about the tour in the local college paper. Other activists showed up from a local organization called Socially Aware Youth, and others represented for the local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society.

Austin, Texas

Thanks to Cory, who organized an amazing visit, cleared out of her own house so we had a place to stay, set up a day of skillshares with Skillshare Austin, and took us on a social justice tour of Austin, where we met the folks from Rhizome Collective, a housing collective that is also an Educational Center for Urban Sustainability and a Center for Community Organizing, and Ecology Action, a project that seeks to create a healthier environment through waste prevention and accessibility to recycling, that is also a worker-run collective, operated by a democratic, horizontal decision making process.

A high point of our visit was visiting Treasure City Thrift, another radical worker-run collective project! Treasure City started in 2006 as a project to raise money and material support for small, local grassroots community groups and projects that traditionally have difficulty with funding. Their main financial and material beneficiary is the Inside Books Project, which sends 18,000 free books a year to Texas prisoners.

We were told that, as a collective, Treasure City also believes that the struggles for social justice are not separate, but in fact all linked together in a broader struggle for liberation - an injustice against one is an injustice against all. From what we saw of Cory and the other collective members, this is definitely true!

Media Reports from the tour

Thanks to Megan Tady for this great interview/report on the tour!

Houston, Texas

Check out photos and a report from our event in Houston on the Houston Indymedia page.
The day began with a Houston media convergence, bringing togetehr media activists from across the city for a day of strategy and networking, as well as a workshop by Hadassah from $pread Magazine. The day was organized by Tish Stringer, another of the several radical moms that organized events on this tour.

Houston Indymedia activist RoBlock introduced the evening event with a quick lesson in posting to indymedia, which was followed by asking a volunteer from the audience to post a report from the evening's event. The event featured films about Galveston after Hurricane Ike by Brian Parras from TEJAS and performance and a talk by Zinn of SOS Broadcast.

San Antonio, Texas

We were so honored to be hosted by the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in San Antonio, an incredible space and organizing center that was initiated two decades ago by radical queer women of color. The folks at Esperanza shared with us their work convening the San Antonio Free Speech Coalition, which began when, on November 29, 2007, the City of San Antonio passed an ordinance that puts a price on free speech and their right to march in the streets.

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans hosted perhaps the biggest and most exciting event of the tour. About 70 people came through the Seventh Ward Neighborhood Center, in this event hosted by the New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival and Mondo Bizarro. The spectacular youth media collective 2-Cent was there to show and talk about some of their work, as well as the Central City I-Witness project and acoustic soul roots music from amazing musician GaBrilla Ballard.

Pensacola, Florida

Thanks to amazing grassroots activist and mom Lauren Anzaldo who hosted the tour in Pensacola ad set up an amazing schedule, including a workshop at University of Western Florida and an event with the grassroots civil rights organization the Movement for Change, who hosted us at the Center for Social Justice.

Gainesville, Florida

In Gainesville, we were hosted by the Civic Media Center, and met with the students who had started a new progressive publication called The Fine Print.

Miami, Florida

In Miami, we had a spectacular event hosted by the Miami Workers Center, as well as workshops by Alexis and Puck and a party hosted by the Black Mangrove Collective.

We also took a social justice tour of Miami, hosted by Joseph from the Miami Workers Center. Among the highlights of the entire visit was our meeting with Max Rameau from Take Back the Land, who told of us their exciting work, a campaign of identifying vacant government owned or foreclosed homes and moving families into those locations, providing housing for otherwise homeless families.

Valdosta, Georgia

At Valdosta, we were hosted at Hildegard's, an important and beautiful community space, and at a Race Class and Gender class at the university there.

We also had a civil rights tour of Valdosta by Reverend Rose. To learn more of the underground history of Valdosta, check out this video, and these websites: winnersville.net and maryturner.org

More photos From the Tour

Here is a link to a flickr photo blog of Jen's images from the tour:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29884298@N04/sets/72157607975332822/

Reports from Durham, Greensboro and Asheville

Check out Jen's blog with reports and photos from the first few days of the tour, including Durham, Greensboro and Asheville:

http://jenangel.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/north-carolina-and-bastions-of-independent-media/

Reports from the tour by Jesse Muhammad

Check out Jesse Muhammad's blog, including his video blogging from the tour!

http://jessemuhammad.blogspot.com/

Atlanta, Part Two

Our second day in Atlanta was incredible! We met with folks from Project South, who showed us around their office, and talked about their history and mission. One of the most exciting aspects of this tour has been the opportunity to connect with organizations and individuals who are doing amazing work across the South, and helping bring that information to other cities as we travel through! I hope to post more info about this soon (and maybe other folks from the tour can as well), but for now, check out http://www.projectsouth.org/.

Atlanta, Part One

We had an incredible day in Atlanta. We had an evening event at the amazing Charis Bookstore, organized by Kerrie, who tells us Charis is the oldest feminist bookstore in the south. it was an incredible vibe there - everyone in the room was someone doing spectacular work, from Deidre who works with SWAN (Service Women Action Network), to legendary former New Orleanian (and co-founder of Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children) Xochitl Bervera, to blogger (and Be Bold Be Brave Be Red initiator) Moya Bailey and Cara Page, National Director of the Committee on Women, populationa nd the Environment.

The event spawned some amazing conversation and connections, and some beautiful moments, such as when the woman in the front row confessed how closely she had been following the amazing work of Alexis Pauline Gumbs.