HRC Blog

I’m here in Charlotte, NC participating in the Southerners on New Ground (SONG) summit.   HRC is co-sponsoring this important gathering.  It’s been an exciting couple of days meeting  and working with new leaders from all over North Carolina and a few from neighboring southern states. 

SONG envisions a multi-issue southern justice movement that unites us across class, age, race, ability, gender, immigration status, and sexuality, a movement in which LGBTQ people – poor and working class, immigrant, people of color, rural – take our rightful place as leaders shaping our region’s legacy and future.

SONG seeks to build, sustain, and connect a southern regional base of LBGTQ people in order to transform the region through strategic projects and campaigns developed in response to the current conditions in our communities. SONG builds this movement through leadership development, intersectional analysis, and organizing.

One of my heroes, Mandy Carter, founded SONG in 1993 and is here at the conference working with the next generation as they take the lead in creating political and social change for all our communities.  Nowhere is that work more important than in North Carolina right now where we are fighting a constitutional amendment that seeks to outlaw all forms of relationship recognition for gay and lesbian couples.  To find out more about the amendment and what you can do to help, join the Coalition to Protect All North Carolina Families, protectncfamilies.org.

Photo captions:

1.) L-R:  Will Robinson, Regional Field Director for Protect ALL NC Families, Ryan Rowe, Director of Faith Outreach for Protect ALL NC Families,  Caitlin Breedlove, Co-director of SONG, Mandy Carter, Founder of SONG,  Bishop Donagrant McCluney, SONG organizer and Karin Quimby, HRC Southern Regional Field Director.
2.) Ryan Rowe, Director of Faith Outreach for HRC and Protect ALL NC Families, leads the faith caucus meeting at SONG Conference.