Young and Restless in the South

By T. Eve Greenaway, WireTap. Posted March 10, 2003.

Whether they are petitioning to get a skate park built in Tennessee, raising awareness about sweatshop labor in Florida, rallying against police brutality or organizing for affirmative action at magnet schools in urban parts of Kentucky young activists all over the South are fired up to make a difference. So why, doesn't the rest of the country know about it?

According to Greg King, 21, of the Highlander Center, a Tennessee-based organization that supports youth organizers all over around the South, the rest of the U.S. is quick to make assumptions about that neck of the woods.

"There's a stereotype that the youth here are not doing very much organizing," he says "But, in fact, we have a long history of activism and organizing."

Historically, as in the case of the Civil Rights Movement, local organizing in the South, such as the famous struggle against segregation in Selma, Alabama, has had huge potential to effect regional politics. And Greg points out that while youth in the South are often more geographically isolated, and therefore their efforts are often still very focused on local issues, their engagement also has the potential to have an impact nationwide.

In fact, since the South has the highest rates of imprisonment in the nation -- meaning southernersare more at risk of being criminalized and imprisoned -- southern youth might just have the potential to lead the national in its' struggle against the Prison Industrial Complex (see sidebar for definition).

		Prison Industrial Complex: a marriage of public and private interests working together to institutionalize repressive policies, enforcement practices, activities, and culture that target, control and exploit poor communities of color and rural communities, youth of color, women, immigrants and the lesbian and transgendered communities, among others. --Definition by the Prison Moratorium Project wiretapmag.org/story.html?StoryID=12810

"As a region, the South ... locks up more African Americans and youth than anywhere else in the U.S. In addition, southern prisons hold more people on death row than any other region in the country." So reads a statement by Critical Resistance (CR) a national organization with branches around the country working to build a movement to challenge the prison industrial complex. CR is planning a 4 day conference and strategy session that will bring together activists from 12 Southern states in New Orleans in April.

But youth organizing in the South is unique for other reasons, as well. For one, Greg says, religion plays a bigger role in the "bible belt" than it might in other parts of the country and there are considerable cultural differences between youth from different states. For instance "Deep South," which includes the most Southern states like Alabama and Mississippi, is very different than the Appalachian region (states like Arkansas, Kentucky, and West Virginia).

Greg points to the traditional music in the areas as an important symbol of this difference. "It's like the difference between folk and blues music," he says. "The two have similar roots but the sounds are very distinct. That extends to other aspects of culture, as well."

For this reason, gatherings that bring together youth from different parts of the South -- like the upcoming Critical Resistance Conference and Strategy Session -- are vital in the creation of a unified southern youth movement."Politically, it's important for youth in the South to have a sense of the larger movement and the work happening in other communites," Greg says.

Why the Big Easy? New Orleans can be seen as a sort of microcosm of youth organizing going on around the South -- specifically around issues relating to the prison reform and anti-racism movements, two efforts which are closely tied together. It is also a place where the youth involved in both efforts have been directly effected by the Prison Industrial Complex.

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