Southern Movement Committee

The Southern Movement Committee is organizing and building power in the US South for racial justice and human rights. The Southern Movement Committee engages in community organizing and community-led lawyering for racial justice and human rights in Tennessee. We are Black organizers, artists, creatives, and movement lawyers working with community members to implement progressive and transformative policies developed by people impacted by incarceration, police violence, racism, and economic inequality. 

Our campaigns and projects build safe and just communities grounded in transformative justice, democratic economies, and visionary leadership. Our campaigns and projects include the following: youth organizing and leadership development, participatory democracy, and political engagement, and invest/divest campaigns throughout the state of Tennessee.  

We are committed to ending all forms of racism and oppression, including criminalization, incarceration, and poverty, and shifting towards healing, reconciliation, and economic democracy. It is this commitment that drives our vision and practice of participatory democracy. 

We are committed to building relationships within our communities and holding each other accountable through relationships. This commitment enables us to engage in the organizing, relationship-building, and leadership development our communities need. 

People directly impacted and forced to live on the margins are most equipped to create solutions and strategies to change our conditions. That principle guides our work and ensures that our work centers and focuses on communities most impacted by systemic violence.