Knowing that the right uses the South as a proving ground for any of their insidious policies, then those policies become legislation, and then they feed into the rest of the nation. The South was the creation of this nation. So one: Outkast told us the South got something to say, but the South has been the nexus of most of our civil rights movement. But why the South as a region? Why not New York City or any other space? What’s special about the south to you? Whether that’s abolition, queer rights, fighting for all the different justice that we need.
So I feel you kind of already touched on this a little bit, but why campaign so heavily for liberation, in the south specifically? I think the South has a really rich history when it comes to all of this work. I feel I’m already learning so much from you in five minutes! Thank you so much. We’re making something, we’re pushing forward. But me actually working: that’s inertia, that’s energy. We bumping gums, isn’t doing anything – just creating hot air. Cause at the end of the day, that work is what pushes you. We could do this all day and it’s lovely, but you’ve seen that work is what really matters.
I could tell you all day what I do, all day. Yeah, you fall back and stop sweating people. Because then when you come back and it’s “I’m down to do this” or you’ve seen us in action then you can make your choices of what you feel is right. So that eventually that yes, becomes blessed. My job then is to keep moving in this work. In every space I go into and working with all our chapters, I would tell everybody “no’s are sacred.” When you hear a “no,” it is sacred and it ends everything. Whether you’re trying to get them to donate a little something or just turn out and get involved in community events. And that’s what turns people off from engaging with you period. I think there’s always this narrative to push and push and push and push and go straight for the hard ask. Love everything that you were saying, especially about the autonomy aspect. And then that kind of leads us into 2019 and Southerners On New Ground as a C3, starting to have a deeper conversation of what it looks like for us to really push from material, conditional change for our people. I just kind of started building up my political education and my ideologies of what it means to be abolitionist. And some of those organizers there shortly thereafter, I was part of SONG’s board and was then just doing my own organizing here in South Carolina, and also growing with them, getting my political education up through the first Native collective. One of the co-founders of SONG and just a brilliant, brilliant person…Īnd so, Mandy Carter, she brought me closer to the fire, invited me to go to the Highlander Center, and that’s where I ended up meeting a number of the other co-founders of Southerners on New Ground. I happened to be at a Pride and was asked by a group of people and was told I should meet this really amazing dope person who turned out to be Mandy Carter. So I was a little shorty in the nineties and I got involved in civil rights coordination with the NAACP and the Urban League as a youth and later into the late 90’s where I already had come out and been kind of involved in LGBT spaces. My story and how I came involved with SONG… I started organizing before most of you all were even born. My current role is Campaign Lead for the C3 as well as our C4 and our PAC. Hey, so my name is Robert-John, two words, one name, very Southern, very sassy. This can be something super brief or a little bit longer if you would prefer, but we’d love to hear about your personal journey and how that fits into your organizing with SONG. If you could just state your name, pronouns, your current role in SONG and your story.
They are committed to restoring a way of being that recognizes our collective humanity and dependence on the Earth. They envision a multi-issue southern justice movement that unites us across class, age, race, ability, gender, immigration status, and sexuality a movement in which LGBTQ people – poor and working class, immigrant, people of color, rural – take our rightful place as leaders shaping our region’s legacy and future. SONG envisions a sustainable South that embodies the best of its freedom traditions and works towards the transformation of our economic, social, spiritual, and political relationships. SONG is a movement for LGBTQ liberation across all lines of race, class, abilities, age, culture, gender, and sexuality in the South. On November 23, 2021, Nakia Stephens, Sunrise Social Media Lead, joined Southerners on New Ground (SONG) Campaign Lead, Robert-John Hinojosa, for a conversation on community organizing, people-centering, and multiracial and cross-class organizing in the South.