Youth from South Caroline to Maryland gather at Virginia’s Wayside Center
“I came to see students talk about what it takes to organize in our own schools and to then go back and actually do it,” says Luis Oyola, one of the facilitators of the first student-organizer retreat at the Wayside Center for Popular Education.
“The greatest part was the people who are entirely new to radical organizing mixing with people who’ve been at it for years,” says Oyola.
Early this spring, some 30 high-school and college students ranging from South Carolina to Maryland met at Wayside Center in rural Faber, Virginia, to work on leadership and youth organizing at the first annual “Bring It!” Southeast Students Intensive Strategy Retreat.
The weekend was a call from students to their peers to “bring it on!” and organize on and off campus. Student organizers came to meet other student activists from the region, learn new skills, get inspired, and try their hand at training each other.
These students are leading the organizing on such things as on-campus racism, global sweatshops, mountain-top removal by the coal companies, and the resegregation of schools in North Carolina.
Activists at this first Bring It! came from Cary High School (Cary, N.C.), Durham Technical Community College, George Mason University (Fairfax, Va.), the Howard Gardner School (Alexandria, Pa.), Howard University (Washington, D.C.), Southern School of Engineering (Durham, N.C.), University of Maryland, University of Virginia, and Wofford College (Spartanburg, S.C.)
Members of both Wake Up the Nation! and NC H.E.A.T. (North Carolina Heroes Emerge Among Teens) participated in the conference. Both come from Wake County, N.C., where the cities of Cary, Durham, and Raleigh are located. They are fighting the county school board’s attempt to re-segregate the schools based on economic status.
Re-segregating the schools this way means worse education for low-income students, and the issue is of great concern to African-American and Hispanic families particularly.
One of the H.E.A.T. members at the conference was Maria Padilla. “Bring It! was a great experience,” she says. “At Wayside, I learned about strategizing and facilitating with a wonderful group of people from all over. The chef was absolutely amazing, and the people were very genuine and kind.”
Along with amazing food provided by “chef” Michele Baskin, many friendships were formed throughout the weekend.
“I often think that in the presence of really good people, we learn more then we could ever hope to,” comments Ce Garrison from George Mason University,
“We talked about our dreams and the things we aspired to do, and from those experiences we found a common ground,” she says. And they did it “with people we had known for a five-minute lifetime there to hold us up.”
Some people had less organizing experience than others, making for an environment in which the less experienced found weekend mentors.
Leading several of the workshops was Lisa Fithian, well known as an organizer since the 80s, who did major union work in the 90s in DC, Los Angeles, and Denver.
Around the evening campfire. Lisa shared stories about how much work there is before we can be content with our world and our society and how important it is that students take part.
The Wayside Center will host Bring It! again next year. Inspired by the Highlander Center in Tennessee, Wayside is a vibrant 25-acre conference center where activists, organizers, and other justice-loving folks come together for education, training, socializing, rest, renewal, and healing. At multilingual events, it provides simultaneous translation.
