On the weekend of Friday, July 20 through Sunday, July 22, hundreds of feminist and social justice activists from across the South and around the country will descend on the Deep South college town of Auburn, Alabama. The event is the Third Annual Southern Girls' Convention (SGC), a weekend of discussion, action, and entertainment devoted to building pro-woman community in the South. SGC will be organized by Auburn Women's Organization and Free State Action, with the support of Auburn Gay and Lesbian Association, Alabama NOW, Planned Parenthood, and the Feminist Majority Foundation.
Women and pro-woman activists from all over the country are invited to attend the Convention, which will include informational workshops and caucuses, sharing skills for activism and healthier living, musical entertainment by women bands from across the country, and exhibits of Southern women's artwork, zines, and films. Though this convention has a Southern theme, we want to include workshops that affect all women and invite people from all over the country to attend. Interested individuals or groups can find out more about the Convention and register to attend at the websites, http://www.infoshop.org/southerngirls/home.html (the main site) and http://www.auburn.edu/awo/sgc/ (focused towards individuals in the Auburn area and allied organizations).
The original Southern Girls' Convention was the brainchild of the Women's Action Coalition in Memphis, Tennessee. The first SGC was held in July of 1999 at the University of Memphis campus with a hundred participants from the South and all over the United States. The second was held in Lousiville, Kentucky at the BRYCC House with a couple hundred participants. Many of the women who organized the event were from Brat, Louisville Anti-Racist Action, the Autonomous Womyn's League, the Progressive Students League, Kentucky Student Progressive Network, and some with no affiliation. Workshops were offered on reproductive rights, sexuality, racism, classism, fatphobia, zine-making, women's health, queer issues, and much more. At the Convention in Louisville a handful of people from the Deep South got together and discussed having next year's conference in Alabama.
The third annual Southern Girls' Convention will be held at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. Organizers are excited about moving the conference into the "Heart of Dixie," giving participants the chance to confront the myths and realities of life in the Deep South, and build a powerful network of Southern pro-woman activists that is willing to go into what many activists think of as "uncharted territory." As in years past, workshops will explore radical issues and skill-sharing. This year workshops at the Convention will also work to start a critical discussion on how we organize in our communities and develop strategies that are both empowering and accessible to all women.
Auburn, known as "The Loveliest Village on the Plains," is a rapidly growing college town that is no stranger to activism. It is located nearby many sites of the 1960's civil rights movement (15 minutes from Tuskegee, 30 minutes from Montgomery, and a few hours from Atlanta, Selma, and Birmingham) and was on the front lines of the struggle to integrate Alabama's higher education system. In 1970 thousands of students held a walk-out "Strike for Peace" in protest of the Vietnam War and over 1,500 marched for women's rights. This year the energy of students and faculty erupted in a February 20th walk-out and sit-in in front of the Samford Hall administration building opposing the policies of University's Board of Trustees. We hope that bringing the Southern Girls' Convention to Auburn will help highlight the often-forgotten history of progressive activism in Alabama and across the South.
More information can be found on the SGC2001 websites at http://www.infoshop.org/southerngirls/home.html (the main site) and http://www.auburn.edu/awo/sgc2001/press.html (press information center). Convention organizers can be reached for information and interviews at (334) 821-4949 (Claire Rumore) or (785) 331-3068 (Ailecia Ruscin), or by e-mail at sgcalabama@hotmail.com.