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Meet a Grantee

Southerns On New Ground (SONG), Durham, NC

“Every day, I make a decision to stay and be queer in the rural south.” So says Paulina Hernandez, co-director of Southerners on New Ground (SONG), the only LGBTQ multi-issue, multi-racial organization working to dismantle systemic oppression throughout the Southeast. Hernandez echoes the sentiments of many of SONG’s members. Citing the organization as source of inspiration and strength, they are determined to stand their ground and stay in the homes they love.

Co-Director Caitlin Breedlove recounts the story of a young woman driven from Eastern Kentucky by poverty and trans/homophobia. After recently graduating from a northern college, she began contemplating a return to the area. But the heated rhetoric and violence against LGBTQ people on streets and outside queer clubs caused her to keep her distance. Then she found SONG. Today she cites the group as the only organization in the region who has committed to helping her build safe and secure bridges in her community of choice.

SONG’s work of connecting communities is striking a chord. Since their inception in 1993 they have created unique LGBTQ spaces and linked unlikely allies. Thanks to SONG, faultlines of race and class, elders and youth, city and rural, queer and straight, have yielded to connection and collaboration.

Supported by two full-time staff, and a cadre of interns and volunteers, SONG has become a touchstone for activists throughout the region. Igniting the Kindred, their year-long listening campaign, recently traveled across the Southeast, gathering personal stories and uncovering common concerns and strategies between communities. And in order to meet the overwhelming demand for their Organizing Schools—currently booked through summer 2009—SONG designed an array of abbreviated sessions which they will host throughout the region.

This September, SONG will mark its 15th anniversary with a quinceañera (in many Latin cultures, a traditional 15th birthday party for a young woman.) Amid the celebrations, SONG will also host their signature activism workshops so that those committed to staying in the region and working for liberation, can confidently call the South home.

Southerners on New Ground (Durham, NC) builds progressive movement across the South by integrating work against racism, sexism and economic injustice into LGBTQ organizing, and anti-homophobia work into other freedom struggles in the South. SONG’s programs concentrate on leadership development and creating critical spaces for progressive LGBT leaders to build effective organizing strategies in the South. www.southernersonnewground.org

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