NPP Honors Linda Stout
Spirit in Action Executive Director Linda Stout has been named recipient of the 2007 Frances Crowe Award for social and economic justice. This award comes from National Priorities Project, a group that clarifies federal data so that people can understand and influence how their tax dollars are spent.
Linda received the award on Sunday, October 28, 2007 at an event which has the theme Creating Better Federal Budget Priorities. Other speakers included Rachel Maddow, a national radio host for Air American Radio; Matthew Rothschild, magazine editor for The Progressive, and author of You Have No Rights: Stories of American in an Age of Repression; and Greg Speeter, the executive director of NPP.
see images at NPP>
For more, including photos, see this post in the Spirit in Action blog.
Linda Stout presented with honorary doctorate by Allegheny College during its Commencement Ceremony, May 13, 2007
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Contact: Adam Bratton/Kathy Roos
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Local activist, a high school grad, to be awarded honorary Ph.D.
Meadville, Pa. – April 18, 2007 – Local author, activist and lecturer Linda Stout will be presented with an honorary doctorate by Allegheny College during its Commencement Ceremony on Sunday, May 13 at 10 a.m. Being honored for her lifelong efforts on issues related to social justice and her extraordinary contributions to the progressive movement, Stout will also deliver the commencement address.
A 13th-generation Quaker from a tenant farming family in North Carolina, Stout began her leadership in the field of social change by founding a grassroots organization in 1985 called the Piedmont Peace Project. With a high school diploma, endless courage, and unrelenting passion, Stout built PPP in the face of powerful resistance led by Senator Jesse Helms and the Ku Klux Klan.
PPP became nationally recognized for its success in drawing leadership from within a poor and working-class community, empowering individuals to engage in public policy decisions, and building a diverse organization.
In order to work at the national level, Stout accepted a position as executive director at the Peace Development Fund in 1995. Under her leadership, PDF tripled its grant-making capacity and initiated several groundbreaking projects, including the Community Media Organizing Project, the Southeast Training for Trainers Program, and the National Listening Project.
In 2000, Stout founded Spirit in Action in order to transform the way social change and social action happen in our diverse and divided political climate. Working with activists and activist organizations, Spirit in Action works to bring changemakers together to create deep and lasting social justice in our country and in the world.
Spirit in Action’s two core programs, Circles of Change and the Progressive Communicators Network, have contributed to the rebuilding of New Orleans through RETHINK, a student-led initiative to rebuild New Orleans’ public schools, and the Katrina Information Network, which has mobilized and educated reporters about the systemic issues of race and class at play in New Orleans and the Gulf region.
Stout is the author of “Bridging the Class Divide,” published by Beacon Press in 1997, and numerous articles. Her awards and honors include a Public Policy Fellowship from Harvard’s Radcliff College, the Freedom Fighter Award of the Equal Rights Congress, and the Petra Foundation Fellowship. Studs Turkel has also written a profile of her life in his new book, “Hope Dies Last.”
Stout has been active in several volunteer organizations including Class Action, United for a Fair Economy, and the Radcliffe Public Policy Institute Economic Justice Task Force. She has presented more than 500 lectures, sermons and workshops and regularly speaks at institutions of higher education.
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A national liberal arts college where 2,100 students with unusual combinations of interests, skills and talents excel.
BAY AREA PROGRESSIVES LOOK BEYOND THE ELECTION
enVisioning the Road Ahead
Activists Recharge, Use Spiritual Tools to Build Four-Year Progressive Vision Spiritual Activism, a Growing National Trend, Is Taking Root in the Bay Area SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Where to from here? That question and a related one - how to recharge in the aftermath of a brutal election? - will be at the heart of a unique Bay Area exercise in spiritual activism, a growing national trend that has taken root here.
Four hours, four years: On Saturday, Nov. 20, a network of some 50 activists will enter a tent for a four hour visioning process, the fi rst step toward creating a roadmap to see us through the next four ears. Using tested tools and disciplines, we will demonstrate a process that can help progressive people fi nd the common ground we must stake out as we launch the critical next phase in our political journey. Though the process is an intimate and dynamic one, media are welcome. We want to share our discoveries with other leaders and organizers searching for ways to overcome the barriers of race, class, gender identity and issue focus. These divisions are Balkanizing progressive politics and undercutting our effectiveness as agents of change.
Join us from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Pacifi c Heights Alta Plaza, at the corner of Jackson and Steiner streets. The convocation is organized by Circles of Change, part of the national organization Spirit in Action. (See materials enclosed.)
“The progressive community pumped tremendous energy into the election. Now is the time to capitalize on that energy, to keep it from turning into despair and paralysis,” said Spirit in Action Director Linda Stout. “If we want our political dreams to impact the country, we’ll need strategic action,” Stout added. “But what are our dreams and where’s the overarching, multi-issue movement to unite us? Our job is to resume building that movement today - but fi rst we have to change our activist culture so we can win.”
Circles of Change has developed four movement-building strategies and a set of tools for changing activist culture. Foremost is to fuse political work with spirit - or heart. Local Circles have been fine-tuning these techniques since 2001 in fl oating grassroots think tanks in the Bay Area and around the county. At the Alta Plaza convocation, reporters will have a chance to observe seasoned Circles of Change facilitators bring the group out of its post-election malaise to a renewed sense of vision and purpose. A series of hands-on exercises will infuse our gathering with spirit and help us start an action plan for the next four years.
Reporters please note: We’ll also design and unfurl a colossal banner with a well-crafted message to President Bush from progressive America. Oversized photos of all our children will frame the letter.
Come join us at the Alta Plaza. Meet participants in the Circles of Change and also committed progressives from a range of Spiritual Activism groups in the Bay Area. Good food, great visuals - it just might cure your post-election blues!