The College of Charleston will be hosting the All Y’all Social Justice Collective July 8-9, 2020. One of the organizers, Adam Jordan, is now in his second year teaching in C of C’s Department of Teacher Education. Adam and his All Y’all colleagues describe the summer event as “a two-day professional learning series that is open to all educators, community members, students, and anyone who wants to improve the schooling experience in the Southeast region of the U. S.” Doesn’t that include all of us who read this blog? I think so. 
This workshop is free to all–a boon especially to those teachers who receive no funding for professional development they’re required to complete for their licensure. This year’s theme is Addressing Inequities in Southern Public Schooling: Our Past, Present, and Future. Do you know a teacher or a prospective teacher or concerned member of our community who might be interested in attending? Register here now! Do you think you’d like to present something at this conference? The call for presentations, due April 5, can be found here. Contact Adam at jordanaw@cofc.edu or find @aj_wade on twitter to learn more.
Adam Jordan
You may have heard of the All Y’all Social Justice Collective if you read the Bitter Southerner. Adam Jordan and Todd Hawley write for this publication, and the Bitter Southerner is selling red T-shirts (“Teachers can turn this thing around”) to benefit the Social Justice Collective’s tuition-free program.
Adam told me recently that he’s now launched a blog, Mouth of the South. His first Mouth of the South column discusses his upbringing in rural Georgia, inspired by good teachers–educators in the classroom, but also the bus driver, whose daily goodbyes he recalls fondly. “The last ones off, she’d make sure to remind us to ‘Let the wind-ers up’ in a beautiful accent I now long to hear.”
His most recent column invites readers to share their own experiences in the South, “We need your words,” he tells his readers (that’s us!).
“The South we know is filled with folks that argue over their grits, their gravy, their biscuits, their tofu, and their shakshuka. It is a place where people wrestle with the legacy of this place, a legacy rooted in pain and oppression, while simultaneously embracing the proud points of our collective heritages. So too must the stories that show up on these pages. Please, share your voices.”
Proud to know you, Adam. Keep sharing your voice.
