Evelyn Lynn, Director of Southern Crossroads-Fight4theSouth, speaks with the People’s Tribune’s Sandy Reid about organizing in rural, Southern communities. Below are excerpts from an interview to appear on peoplestribune.org/latest-news/
“I come from a small town in western North Carolina, in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, and grew up working class. Most of my folks worked in the furniture factories and hosiery and textile mills. My family has lots of Trump’s supporters. I grew up conservative, Christian, longing for something different for my own community. I finally got the opportunity.
“Starting in 2016, when Trump was rising, I worked with campaigns in the South where poor white, rural folks could be brought into a larger multiracial, anti-racist, populist coalition fighting to transform this country. We believe these communities are strategic if we’re to peel them off of a white solidarity coalition that’s been fueling energy, power and violence on the right. And we had to get Trump out. …
“[In 2020] we made over a million calls in GA. We had something like 50,000 conversations, 35,000 were 20 minutes or longer. We weren’t calling to say Biden is the end all be all because that ain’t true. We talked to people about the issues they cared about. We asked, what do you care about, what do we need to do to bring people together, to make our communities and states and country better for our children and grandchildren? No one has ever called and asked what they care about. Just sharing your story and knowing that one other person in this world cares enough to ask, can transform someone. …
“We got 21,000 commitments to vote from people who rarely vote, and around 3,500 or 4,000 people want to get involved with Southern Crossroads. [Also a local] person who ran on a platform about renter’s and poor people’s rights and the need to bring folks together unseated an incumbent who had been there for more than a decade in a county that Trump took by 50 points.
“When we fight for economic justice and racial justice policies, if you provide a progressive vision, people will come along. …
“If Democrats or any kind of progressive political party had been investing in the people, we would have already won the South.
“Now we’re pivoting to the GA Senate races, trying to again make a million calls. The organizing that made the Biden victory possible was led by long-term Black organizers, Black women in particular . … They registered 800,000 Black and Brown voters. So with our little 21,000 vote commits, we’re trying to bring up the rear.”
