Why America’s Future Depends on The South’s
Nathaniel Smith
Founder and Chief Equity Officer
Partnership for Southern Equity
@N8TL_1
Kyle Tibbs Jones
Co-Founder and Media Director
The Bitter Southerner
@shetold2friends
For folks who aren’t familiar with The South, it’s easy to conjure up a caricature of a place that’s overlooked and underrepresented in the national discourse.
Partnership for Southern Equity (PSE) and The Bitter Southerner are changing that.
Using first-person storytelling, community engagement, and truth-telling, PSE and The Bitter Southerner are highlighting The South’s rich culture, political history, and resilience to advocate for a more equitable future not just for the region, but for the entire country.
And they’re adamant that the future of America is inextricably linked to the advancement and evolution of The South.
Below, watch the video, listen to the podcast, or read the transcript.
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Transcript
Jade:
My name is Jade Floyd, vice president of communication at the Case Foundation and Case Impact Network. Like many of you I’ve sat with reflection and meditation over the state of our globe over the past few months. As a mother, as a wife, as a patron, and as a human I have hurt for the people who have been savaged by violence of community they have called home. I watched as local businesses that are dear to me shutter their doors, and like all of you have seen the social upheaval unfold, igniting a global call to action.
In my own personal moments of darkness I have also seen glimmers of hope. Despair — who have shouted from the rooftops, This is not who we are as humans. A tectonic shift in the world led by women and men; Black, white, and brown; young and old, from every community across the nation. A moment in our history when we have all come together, despite our differences, to communicate that we must, that we can, and that we will do better.
At that same time, we have seen foundations and philanthropists answering this clarion call, recognizing the importance of mobilizing the resources and their dollars in support of social justice and equity and for small business impacted by these historic events. Many of you are behind the scenes, crafting the messages and thought leadership for your institutions, that is challenging us to drive the narrative in reality that is rooted in facts and equality and social justice and dignity and fairness. And for what is just plain right. For that I commend you and thank you for the countless hours and hard work you have put in. As I take the reins as chair of the Communications Network this year, I do so with the lens on the changing dialogues and sentiments of our nation and our globe that we are witnessing at this very moment.
Business as usual is no longer acceptable. Not only for institutions and the companies that we serve, but for our communities and for us as a human race. So what does this mean for each of us as communicators, as strategists and as leaders? How can we in our current professional capacity use our tools, our resources and expertise to truly drive change in the world, and stand for what is good?
As communicators we ignite good by changing the dialogues happening across media, social, and digital channels. Today, you tune in with hundreds of communicators and strategists like yourself. We hold the power to shape global dialogues, not just within the media or internal institutions of audiences we have, but within our homes, within our personal networks, and within our souls.
So as we navigate this new reality, this new normal we call life together, I hope that each of you find time to write your own manifesto. Reflect on what we fight for in our work and in our homes and our communities. Together we are a powerful force for good that I am proud to lead as board chair and I welcome each of you.
Now when we say that we don’t want this to be accomplished by ambition, it is a place to be a gathering, I think there is a distinction; I think there is a difference..
When you write, when you communicate, when you use your path for advocacy, you’re creating space for people to see themselves in other people’s stories. [Music] Hey I am — and welcome to ComNet. Well, I’m Luz. [indiscernible] I am Kendall. Hi I am Maureen, pronounced she and her. Hey, I’m Chelsea Dade with [indiscernible] for Justice. Hi all, welcome, my name is Andre Ledger. Hi I’m Betsy Lopez Wagner, welcome to ComNet.
Hey everybody. It is Sean Gibbons, welcome to my basement. That is where we are at right now, and I’m grateful that all of you are… here, not here but with us for the next couple of days. And listen, gang, this is going to be new and it’s obviously different, and we are facing so many amazing extraordinary crushing challenges. But I am grateful that you are making the time for us right now, and hopefully you will be able to be with us the next couple of days. My job — by the way, I am Sean, let me introduce myself. Maybe you saw me in a video just a second ago, I was wearing a jacket. Today, I’m not going to lie, I’m not wearing pants, but, I’m not going to lie, I have got shorts on. A little bit different for all of us.
I want to make sure that you all understand what the plan is. Everything we have got planned is available now on ComNetvirtual.org. And I get it, if you are a parent like me, you’ve got Zoom school going on, and if you are going to be joining in and out to presenters as you can — chances are work is calling you more, not less — so if you are not able to grab something live and be with us, we understand. Everything will be available to you on demand. We make video recordings available, you know, 90 minutes, maybe two hours. Our goal is by the end of today everything that is up on the screen will be up online. So you can come back to the portal, which is what you are in now, call it the portal or control room or the lobby, and you can find that stuff later. So you want to share that or watch something a little bit later, you can by all means do that.
I want to thank a few people before we get into the sections that you clicked into, which is a couple of amazing conversations: having the good fortune to sit in with Dr. Judy Monroe from the CDC Foundation, and also with Kyle and Nathaniel — if you are in that room you are in for a real treat. And you are not going to miss either, Frank, because you can watch them both later if you wish, or watch the other one — if you are missing it live you can watch it later. Suffice to say I just want to thank a few folks and do a little bit of housekeeping to make sure — everyone has housekeeping they need to get through today on the journey we are all on together.
So first, a couple of moments of gratitude. The first thank you has to come to you. You are taking a chance by being with us, by being part of the community. We have nearly 2,000 people with us, joining online — on either online or on demand — and that is by far the largest group we had on the network. The last year in Texas — we know everything is bigger in Texas — and it was 950 folks. In here, almost 2,000. We ended about 1,980-ish, a few folks we let in late today. And so suffice to say we are grateful for every single one of you and hope you’re happy and well, and hope you have a sense of what we are about at the network, which is this real culture of community, and it is driven by kindness and generosity.
So please make sure you are being good to one another and participating in the chats. It’s going to be much more meaningful to you. The content we will offer [I] hope is helpful and useful to you. We hope it will be, but we are also mindful that the best resource that exists out there is you and the folks around. In fact, Morgan, our own colleague and friend, observed at ComNet a couple years back: You can observe wonderful things when you gather with the network, but the most important thing is the people sitting next to you. This year we are not sitting next to each other because of, well… you know why, but we do have each other. Either available through the chat or also together on socials — you can find each other on Twitter, Instagram, whatever your particular [wish]. And together we are using… if you got that wrong, #ComNetV or hashtag #commsforgood.
Quickly, the people. You know them as well as I do: Steph Langford, who is the network board chair who concluded his term. He has been an incredible study and inspiring partner and friend to me and to all of you. And so we are incredibly grateful for his service, and fortunate. Hopefully you have seen the news; we’re welcoming new leadership. You just saw Jade a moment ago, and she is being joined by Erica, the new vice chair, who comes from the Ford Foundation. We are also welcoming three new board members as we are gathering today: Anusha from Wikimedia Foundation, Virginia McMullen from the International Budget Partnership, and Daphne Moore from the Walton Family Foundation, and we are grateful for the leadership and the journey of the next couple years.
The next couple years are going to be… We are going to see — we are in deep ambiguity about the future. Also want to make sure that I acknowledge all my friends and colleagues who have played a tremendous role burning the candles on both ends and finding other candles beyond that, and that is the team from the network HQ. And so that is Carrie Klein, who is the mastermind behind… You see stuff that you like, Carrie gets credit. Trista… Karima Holston… Dylan Imani and Tracy Mitchell have been doing an absolutely extraordinary job getting us through it … . We are all learning as we go. Up late at night trying to figure all of this out; hopefully it will go off without a hitch. This is new for us. So extend us a little bit of grace if something goes wrong, and by all means be in touch, but know that we are all doing our best and have been working on this for months to bring this together, and we are glad we are all finally here.
I also want to make sure to acknowledge all the folks serving in the community, the original folks coming in from B+ — there are about 48 of you and about 365 of us in the B+ experience, things we will all be doing together over the next three days, but an extended experience over the next three months, where we are going to be building community and connections in addition to learning. And we are excited about that, but of course we are excited [indiscernible] local Atlanta nonprofits, because we were not able to be with wonderful folks at that scene today, but the folks from a number of organizations that you have seen here on the screen or you will be seeing on the screen in the next couple of days, we went to them over the year and said, We have this idea. We know it is important together. Could you help us? And an extraordinary number of folks did and because of that we were able to meet, and we are incredibly grateful to all of them.
I want to close by opening our session with something that’s actually going to close us out on Friday. And so, Joy Harjo, who is the U.S. poet laureate, has written her latest book called An American Sunrise. I hope you have read this or you are aware of it, but maybe not. I think this is a nice place of departure for all of us. So if you will indulge me, I’m going to read a poem she has written called “Directions to You.” And if you’re curious, Joy will be with us Friday afternoon and she will close out the gathering together. This song, or excuse me, this poem… I’m a little nervous, gang.
Directions to You Follow them, stop, turn around Go the other way. Left, right, Mine, yours. We become lost, Unsteady. Take a deep breath, Pray. You will not always be lost. You are right here, In your time, In your place.
North
Star, guidance as we look up To the brightest white Hoping it leads you to where you want to go, Hoping that it knows where you should be. We find our peace here in the white, Gather our strength, our breath, and learn how to be.
East
The sun rises, Red, Morning heat on our face even on the coldest morning. The sun creates life, Energy, Nourishment. Gather strength, pull it in Be right where you are.
South
Butterfly flits Spreads yellow beauty. We have come to this moment in time Step by step, We don’t always listen to directions, We let the current carry us, Push us, Force us along the path. We stumble, Get up and keep moving.
West
Sunsets, brings Darkness, Brings black. We find solitude, Time to take in breath and Pray. Even in darkness you Can be found. Call out even in a whisper Or whimper, You will be heard. To find, To be found, To be understood, To be seen, Heard, felt. You are, Breath. You are, Memory. You are, Touch. You are, Right here. Begin. [Music]
[Transcript Incomplete]
Kyle:
Urban audiences and rural audiences, and it made me think of Michelle Obama’s talk during the DNC, that she talked about, Put on a mask, maybe a lunch, maybe a dinner, expect to spend the night, get in line, social distance, and vote. There is a lot of courage needed right now. Across everything. Across voting. Across how we are plainspoken and what is going on, talking about [what] really needs to happen and what we believe in. And being authentic and having courage has sort of been the backbone of what we do as a better Southerner. It has been our underlying mantra to ourselves. We always talk about specific filters, does this … Anyway, courage, courage from —
But you know what, I think it is deeper than that, though. In my opinion it goes back to what we talked about before, and that is love. Love positions people to be courageous around certain issues. Courage doesn’t create love. Love creates courage. And not just the superficial love, but love as a transformational force, right? You know, one of the things I always tell people, and I think Congressman Lewis and other great leaders who sacrificed their whole lives to move us forward as a nation understood one key reality. In my opinion. And that is that equity is love in action. The work that we do as a community to advance as a society is love in action, and the more we are able to understand it and tap into the force, the more we will see courageous actions and people standing up in ways…
That’s why we can’t — the opposite of love is fear, and we have people who are utilizing fear as a way to separate us, as a way to minimize our ability to organize ourselves and to push toward a better tomorrow. We always have to stay connected to that force and understand that that is really where our power lies — not in the facts, not in the data. The data reinforces it, but that is not where our power comes from. And if we allow others to remove us from that force, it would be difficult for us to be successful.
I love that love is the message.
It is. It is the force… that we have to have, and we also, not to continue to go down this path, but I think it is important for communicators to understand this. That if equity is love in action, right? — that empathy, right, we need empathy as well, is the bridge between love and action, right? That [if] you don’t take the time to create stories and create opportunities, and fully understand what people are going through, they will not be put in a position to move from sympathy to empty.
Nathaniel, we are in the middle, we have momentum right now. We have the most incredible few months, and we have the world sitting at attention, and it’s like, what, What is going on? How have I been thinking, how do I change, how do we move people from sympathy to empathy to action? How do we… Talk about that.
Nathaniel:
Well I think it really boils down, and I’m talking specifically for our communications family —
Kyle:
I’m talking about seizing this moment.
Nathaniel:
I think one of the key things that we have to do is leverage… Let me talk specifically to the communications people right now. I think it’s going to be really, really important for them to play a role in elevating the stories of the struggle. Of organizations and leaders that are working every day to advance racial justice. And it can’t just be communities of color. I think it is, there’s a reason why in schools we are not taught about John Brown, that we are not taught about the folks, the abolitionists. Right? Because there’s power in that.
… has to play a role in amplifying the stories, but also play a role in developing the capacity of frontline organizations to tell the story. One of the things that most people don’t understand, or don’t know, is that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference — one of my favorite places I used to like to hide was down in the basement of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Down in the basement was a printing press. So the Southern Christian Leadership Conference adopted understandings of communications; they actually had a huge printing press that they used at the time to leverage communications as a way to move the work forward. And the last person that —
Strengthening the communications capacity of frontline organizations, continue to elevate the narratives and stories that are required for us to move the work forward. In particular, stories about white courage, I think, is really important at this particular point, and also for the people who are not in the communications community to be bold. And around giving… The amount of funding that you are giving to organizations that are doing this work and ensuring they have long-term support, general operating support, support that is flexible and allows them to make mistakes and allows for innovation and entrepreneurial attitude toward advancing this work. And I think even more so, a deep, deep commitment to moving from messages to meaning. And what do I mean by that? How do we begin to process, to really translate this movement of the policy change and systems transformation? Because you can throw as much money as you can at a problem, and if you are not really working to disrupt the system and create policies that will move us forward, then all of this is ceremonial in my opinion, and not real and actual. So just a couple of thoughts.
So what do you mean, from your perspective, what do you think are some of the things that the communications community should be doing or… If I may be so presumptuous, because I do believe that you have value, but what should white Southerners be doing right now?
Well, I have a question about something you just said. You said elevate white courage. What did you mean by that? I would love to hear more about that.
Nathaniel:
So I think, which is very similar, it is very similar to the challenges that we face in our educational system, right? Where we don’t learn about the acts of courage in the constant rebellion, that African-Americans and African slaves continued to press forward during chattel slavery. We don’t hear about the opportunity, about what happened in North Carolina, where Blacks and whites got together and created a unified government. That was the only coup in the country on record that occurred. And so, with that being said — and again, this is my personal opinion, and some people may disagree, but African-Americans only make up 13 percent of the population of the United States. Right? It is going to take others to step up, but in order for those others to step up, they have to be willing to understand that they are not the first, right? That there is a pathway to liberation, that they can play a part in helping to construct and create. But there are lessons again that they can learn from great people who came before them, people who were involved in the abolitionist movement and other people. So they are part of a legacy as well.
So I have a couple of thoughts. One is, we all have to educate ourselves. 100 percent. Like in fact when we start talking about doing this talk, I’m like, you know, I’m not a Black history scholar. Like, I have learned more… I have been doing this work for seven years. We have been going through the stories, and I have learned more in the last three months than… I thought I was further along, you know, in my education about some things. And so we have to open our minds.
And as communicators and people who are running communications departments and people who have a seat at the table in big corporations, organizations, and nonprofits, we have to open our minds to what we do not know first and educate ourselves. Read. There’s such a great reading list right now. Like, there’s an amazing group of books, and in fact we are going to publish one this fall. So look for that. So, read, educate yourself, and then don’t let this conversation die. This is something that is not just a conversation. It is change. If we want to change and we want what is right, then it is going to take all of us really bringing that inside our organizations, keeping it alive, getting involved, supporting organizations like yours, and not only educating ourselves, but educating our employees and our staffs.
And even at The Bitter Southerner — we have been around seven years. We do three stories a week. You have to do the math. That’s a lot of stories in seven years. And we have talked a lot about all of these issues, but we didn’t necessarily have the right people… Let me rephrase that. We had really amazing writers writing for all of us all along, but we didn’t have enough voices of color. We did not have enough writers of color, photographers of color. And last summer we were like… We stopped and we had a retreat, and we sat down and we were like, We’ve got to grow our staff. We are very tiny and we have not had the money to grow, but we have got to grow so that we are more diverse, and we have to start bringing in way more, we have to have way more diversity in our voices. And so we started our summer and we have made great progress in that. We are seven years old. We are in the business of moving the South forward and being pro-… You know all of these things.
So if we are just getting around to doing some of those things, we are all in the same boat. Educate yourself and make actions to make things better. Take actions to make things better. Inside your organization inside your own lives. That is pretty simple.
Nathaniel:
And I totally agree. Again. I think it is beautiful to drive through gentrified communities and see Black Lives Matter signs. And it is great to see murals. In my city, the more murals I see, the more displacement we see as well of Black people from urban areas and cities. You know, I love, it is great to see Facebook posts where people are giving their book lists and talking about anti-Blackness. But it takes more than that. It takes sacrifice. And I always try to encourage my white friends to understand that it is not about what you are willing to give. It is about what you are willing to give up.
And some of that is being comfortable.
Nathaniel:
Yes, you have got to be willing to give up being comfortable. You have to be willing to give up your power. You have to be willing to give up your privilege. The way that you see the world, sometimes people have to give that up as well. But I think through great minds and leaders like you and publications like The Bitter Southerner, I think we have an opportunity to touch an audience maybe that we have never been able to touch before.
I feel like you, Nathaniel, and the work you are doing — and I wish I could look out at all the people that we are talking with right now and say, I wish we could meet all the folks in the audience. Don’t you wish we were still in Atlanta… Because I would love to hear the stories about people implementing this inside their organizations and making real change. Because it is possible and it is exciting and the time is now. We’ve got to seize the moment, right?
Nathaniel:
I mean we have to. We are at what I call a movement moment. We are at a moment where we have to decide as a community whether we go right or left. And you know, COVID-19 and the uprisings have elevated some hard truths and realities that we have tried to turn away from for the past 400 years in America. And the decisions that we make in these next couple of years will decide, in my opinion, whether America will be what it says it is or whether it will, at a most basic level, survive. I don’t think we will be able to survive, you know, without us being able to work toward answering and solving some of the problems and questions that we have right now. So this is a very unique and special moment. And we have to rise to the occasion. And I’m just hoping that people really understand that.
Well, what is very cool is that I think the people watching this and that are attending the conference are the people who can do it. They are key to this. Anyway. Thank you for talking with me today. I have loved every minute of it.
Nathaniel:
Let me tell you, we’ve got to do this again without a camera. And again, as we kind of break the fourth wall, so to speak, I do want to also take the time to thank everyone who took the time out of their busy schedules to spend time with us and listen to our conversation. We are very appreciative. I’m very appreciative. And I’m sure Kyle is as well, and hopefully we will see you out there on the battlefield.
Yes. Thanks.
Nathaniel: Bye-bye. [Music]
