I am a daughter of west Alabama, a product of a white Deep South family. My life has been informed by a mixed history of wealth and poverty, plight and privilege, oppression and liberation. My ancestors built their wealth off the labor of enslaved Black people. They rightly lost much of that wealth at emancipation and gradually lost the rest, becoming poor sharecroppers. Still, the family name carried prestige. The women of my family were pioneers in higher education at the University of Alabama, a legacy I have continued at the personal cost of $100k in student debt.

I was among the first class to go through Tuscaloosa’s “neighborhood” high schools, built and zoned after a federal integration mandate was lifted. I watched as corrupt community leaders reshaped zones to appease wealthy white families. In 2011, I watched as tornadoes wiped out whole neighborhoods. And I watched as developers further displaced the poor and people of color, reshaping the landscape of my hometown.

For nearly 2 years now I have been taking action to build a better Alabama for myself and my community. I am a founder of Hometown Action where I have built a River Region chapter, developed new rural and Deep South leaders, advocated for our region and my people in the national press, and personally raised over $5,000 for our collective liberation.

I want to be a powerful progressive Deep Southern leader cultivating a transformative, multiracial, working class organizing culture in Alabama and across the region. I want a career in nurturing Alabamians into power and self-actualization. I want to organize other white women and femmes into healing our own trauma, and building deep and true relationships of power with women and femmes of color in our region and beyond.

To fulfill this vision, I am committed to raising $13,000 by July 1, 2019 to create a staff position for myself as Hometown Action’s Director of Culture and Power Building.

I am asking each of you to invest in me as an Alabama and Deep South leader. I am asking you to invest in rural and small town power building and healing. I need your support to create the communities we all need and deserve.

          Please Pitch In Today!