Safe and racially just communities are created through investments in mental and emotional health support services, after-school programming, transformative justice programming, and investments in public goods. We are creating alternatives to youth arrests, prosecution, and incarceration by organizing youth impacted by school pushouts and/or the juvenile justice system. Safe communities require innovation that should be led by community members and significant investments in student resources and public goods. We are training and organizing young people through our Youth Assembly Training Cohort so they have the tools to practice participatory democracy and organize for power. Additionally, our Youth Assembly Program includes regular youth meetings and youth assemblies with young people across the city. We understand that to win against the school-to-prison pipeline and criminalization of young people, we must work with parents or educators. We have decided to work with both. Parallel to the Youth Assembly is our Black Educators Collective, including educators and parents.

At the Southern Movement Committee, we believe deeply in the power of art and culture to spark connection, build community, and create lasting change. For us, culture isn't just a backdrop—it's the heartbeat of our movements. Through music, visual art, storytelling, fashion, celebration, and cout we open up new entry points for our people to engage in organizing and step into their power.

We meet our communities where they are—rooted in Southern traditions, rhythms, and values—and invite them into a shared vision for liberation. This means not only shifting policy but shifting culture: nurturing healthy relationships, establishing collective values, and reviving traditions that keep us grounded and connected across generations.

There is also a spiritual thread that runs through our work—not tied to any one religion, but to a sense of purpose, connection, and collective care. It’s the feeling of coming home to yourself and your people. It’s the wisdom in the music, the healing in the dance, the memory in the land. We honor the depth and complexities in our stories and in each other, knowing that spirit is a vital force in sustaining movements that last.

As Toni Cade Bambara reminds us, "the role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible." That’s the spirit we bring to our cultural work. Whether it’s a family field day, podcast, concert, or a backyard barbecue, we cultivate spaces where cultural power and political engagement rise together.At the Southern Movement Committee, we believe art and culture can connect people, build community, and drive change. Culture is at the heart of our movements, opening new ways for people to engage in organizing and empowerment through music, art, storytelling, fashion, and celebration.

The Southern Movement Committee uses Black-led participatory democracy to address voter disenfranchisement, institutionalized barriers to political engagement and political power, and the structural violence that it creates in Tennessee.

Our work includes Black-led regional and statewide People's Movement Assemblies for community members to collectively analyze issues, develop a collective vision, create solutions, and direct actions to implement those solutions. At the center of this project is creating a statewide political agenda that meets the needs of Black and working-class communities and mobilizing Tennesseans to vote to elect candidates who align with the agenda. Additionally, we host candidate forums and town halls so voters can determine whether candidates align with our political agenda. This project builds on our long-term strategy to develop regional and statewide infrastructure for Black and working-class Tennesseans to practice co-governance and hold elected officials and corporate actors accountable through regular political engagement. We define political participation as voting, holding elected officials accountable, membership inside a base-building organization, and implementing community-driven programs.

The Black Nashville Assembly, started in 2020, is the vehicle we use to build democracy and practice co-governance in Nashville/Middle Tennessee. The Southern Movement Committee, founded in 2021, is the statewide assembly infrastructure expanding the work of the Black Nashville Assembly.