A conversation with activist Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson about regional solidarity, organizing for justice and how Asheville can win its struggles

Above: Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson during the Chattanooga Day of Resistance protests. Photo by Jared Story.

A few years ago, some might have asked why a two-day training from a young social justice activist would be necessary here; they might even have thought it a bit overblown. But times change and Asheville is clearly a part of larger struggles. This February the extensive community organizing knowledge of Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, an Affrilachian (Black Appalachian) activist and former staff member of the Chicago Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was especially timely. Henderson, who held two local sessions, helped connect and synergize with the discussions and organizing going on in local communities, colleges and churches with those across the region and country.

Henderson travelled over three hours from Chattanooga to share reflections, make connections and support fellow Appalachian organizers in Asheville after being invited by Amy Hamilton, a local activist and friend. Hamilton mobilized an audience of roughly 25 local organizers to the BeBe theater on Feb. 21 to talk with Woodard and plan further efforts.

Before sharing riveting stories about acts of civil disobedience and numerous photos and videos journaling her eventful travels organizing efforts to end state violence, including involvement with the protests in Ferguson and elsewhere. Henderson surprised the room with “I woke up this morning (with my mind stayed on freedom)” a revamped ‘60s gospel tune sung during the civil rights movement. It illuminated the anticipation for those eagerly-awaiting a fiery presentation, instructions and tactics from the young black woman who stood masterfully, with a full afro and a walking cane, as she addressed the room.

In a light and melodious tone, she compelled the crowd of organizers, advocates and onlookers and encouraged them to draw direct inspiration and courage from the spirit of the early black liberation movements in history. She told them to remember their fight, the measures of sacrifice required and most of all, establish solidarity with that legacy, each other and people across the globe.

A life-long activist, as a student at East Tennessee University Henderson was a staff organizer for United Campus Workers, the state’s only union for higher education employees. She’s now an organizer with Concerned Citizens for Justice and a board member of the Highlander Education and Research Center. She’s also part of Project South, who coordinated the creation of the Peoples Movement Assembly, a community-based democratic governance that assist other groups in organizing and facilitating assemblies in their own areas.

After the two met years ago, Hamilton had followed Henderson’s organizing efforts in Chattanooga after the murder of Michael Brown. She invited Henderson to Asheville after reading horrific accounts of Henderson being severely injured by police officers during a protest in Ferguson following the non-indictment of officer Darren Wilson for Brown’s killing. Hit in the side with a baton, Henderson now has to depend on the support of a cane. She balanced telling about her involvement in several social justice groups with encouraging Asheville’s organizers to end fragmentation by assembling together, finding a common vision and exercising their unified power.

Following her presentation I talked one-on-one with Henderson about these issues and more.

What drew you to Asheville?

Well a couple of things drew me to Asheville. My husband and I used to live in Johnson City and we went to East Tennessee University. We used to come here to be in a city a little bigger than Johnson City.  Asheville was the closest bigger city.

On our last visit it was my husband Jerry’s birthday, he wanted to go to a blues club.

I didn’t think there was a blues club in Asheville, but we found ourselves at Tressa’s Jazz and Blues Club.  When we entered the club it was packed and I immediately noticed all the art on the walls were of white musicians.  While there, a white lady kept looking at me and I thought, ‘well maybe she might notice me from movement work,’ so I was thinking, ‘that’s what’s up.’ I didn’t want her to think I didn’t recognize her so I spoke and she approached. She asked where I was from and when I told her I was from Chattanooga, Tennessee and her face just fell apart . She apologized and said, ‘Oh I thought you were from somewhere exotic’ and I was thinking, ‘I’m never going to Asheville, North Carolina again!’  I had never really made a true connection with anyone nor had I met a black person in my early visits.  I thought it was a nice white liberal town, and that’s great, but it’s not for me!

But after my arrest in October, Amy reached out to me through Facebook because she had been following everything that was going on in Chattanooga from my Facebook page. She noticed that I had suffered injuries that required me to walk on a cane for months and my girl friend Janell was also roughed up really bad by the police. Amy asked us if we would come to Asheville where she would hold a fundraiser to offset some of our medical expenses.

We both have great insurance, but could definitely use the money for the movement. And I knew that there were movements in Asheville that could use money as well, so we decided to split the money between my organization and a local movement.

Once we got here we noticed all the amazing and tragic things going on in black community in Asheville that we had no idea about.  I wouldn’t dare come here and talk about CCJ and dismiss what was going on in Asheville. Amy agreed, so we decided to do a workshop for young people, a ‘Know Your Rights’ workshop. It was packed, but while facilitating the workshop, I noticed that they don’t need to know rights as much as the youth need to talk about interactions with cops and what they want to do about it. So, we did just that, thanks to Amy reaching out.

So what are your thoughts about Asheville now, after your interactions with the black grassroots leaders, youth and other community members?

Oh man! I have a whole new respect for Asheville and I’m eager to come back. For one, the black community in Asheville is just dynamic and powerful. We suffer from this in Chattanooga too, but sometimes it’s hard to see your strengths from the inside out.

During my two days here, we’ve seen that this is a city where the black community can win. You can win! You are brilliant, beautiful and wonderful people. Now I want to come back and see how I can support you through CCJ, the Peoples Movement and find out what other resources you all need to get the win!

Now, I want to come back, although I don’t think I have to come back or need to come. I think y’all can run it on your own. Y’all got it, but I would love to come and talk more about the strategies and tactic that will assist y’all in going where y’all are trying to go. It’s all in the plan; the before during and after, the strategy that y’all use that will change and shake up the demographics in Asheville, to have power to make decisions about what happens in y’all’s lives.

I know you suggested that the community come up with strategies on their own for  success, but what would your recommendation be for Asheville to ‘win?’

I think the potential for success looks and feels different because Asheville’s communities are so split up and fragmented, but looking at the public housing issue. I think there is a big win there.  After being in Hillcrest this weekend and hearing about the Residents’ Council, the issues and concerns around housing, I definitely think there is a fight around public housing that is winnable!

Also, the fight around police crimes, in term of state violence in Asheville poses a lot of wins.

There is a quick win around a Civilian Review Board. Do you have one already? Can you all get more African-Americans that the community identifies with in those seats? Can they then help identify the problems with the reporting of police crimes in the city? Man, I can name so many wins. There are so many I see here.

My friend Albert Sykes talks about the beauty of neglect. I think that the black community in Asheville has been neglected for so long that you don’t realize your strength, but you all can win, maybe by pushing for easy policies, or do some organizing similar to what the Peoples Movement Assembly have done. They just decided what they wanted to do for themselves and accomplished it regardless of what the state does.  Like, if you wanted to end domestic violence in certain neighborhoods, by holding workshops and creating this infrastructure and public service and holding to the plan. Things can get done. I think success here is doable.  I think the black community can have that type of  political stronghold on the community.

Which brings up another reason why I would come back, to hear what y’all want the impact of your work would be, what your vision for ‘the win’ looks like and what we can do together to make it all happen.

What’s the beauty of mass-based organization in comparison to other infrastructures?

Well it takes masses to make special changes. It doesn’t take a thousand leaders, but what it does take is a group of really committed grassroots folks who are accountable to the circle around them. Mobilize a base of  constituents, the ones you can organize.

I mean there is no power in individual action. Well, there is some power, but it’s mainly selfish power. Me learning about my ancestry was empowering to me and it’s beautiful, but it didn’t help anyone else. It helps others when I’m able to share with to others. Nothing changes without collective action. There is no power to win without it!

Let’s look at Project South [she hands me the Fall-Winter 2014 periodical from Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide and turns to a listing of numerous active members and donors on the back page]. These are just some of our members. This is how we are able to complete our works and how  I can afford to to travel here to support you all. These people noted her not only support financially, but contribute to the strategy used to support our their social movement work.

We can afford to do the work in South Georgia and 13 southern states! That’s the power of collective action right here.

How do you integrate the elders and clergy into this modern, more radical and revolutionary movement?

This a struggle for everyone right now, but there are several options. There is no problem with having autonomous bases. The elders may want to form their own council where they discuss their vision for community’s wellness and the younger, more radical members of community may want to congregate separately as well, to talk about their long term goals and leadership and come up with strategies, but at some point there has to be a space for intergenerational conversation where the two entities share those strategies and present how they would like to be supported to achieve those efforts. This has to happen because what you don’t want, especially in Asheville, is to be pitted against one another breeding more division and fragmentation.

Assess your long-term vision, the strategies that you’re trying to impact,  as well as the tactics you’re using to implements that strategy and determine where it is plausible to have those intergenerational conversation. Where and when does it increase the opportunities for success.

The powerful thing about the Peoples Movement Assembly is there are a number of frontline assemblies that meet before the joint assembly. One of those assemblies consists of kids two to 12 year-of-age only.  They had their own space. There was another; 13 to 25 years-of-age.  It was not permitted for anyone to enter those spaces if they were younger or older than the ages set.

In these spaces, those young people shined! They made their own decisions about what their movement would look like and mapped out concrete steps they were willing to take to make it possible. Then as they shared their plan in the joint assembly they also presented what they needed from the older generation to support their success. It was brilliant.  We were able to see the power and importance  intergenerational work can be so important, but there can be autonomous spaces, spaces that are self determined by people of a particular demographic.

Nevertheless, some people are gonna have to do work together! Everyone doesn’t have to be in the same spaces all the time, but some people are gonna have to do both to ensure overall success.

Under the same premise, how does the Asheville community better utilize the leadership potential of clergy?

I see social justice work as a ministry. I’m not a preacher, but do see myself as a minister in more of a secular way.  A number of pastoral leaders come to mind, who come from a liberation theology background and know how to relate to young people and speak directly about the issues. Pastor Starsky Wilson, Pastor Traci Blackmon and Pastor Renita Marie, are all changing they way a lot of us look our work.

I remember going to Starsky Wilson’s church in St Louis; St. John ECC Church. He was having a special service and BlackLivesMatter was going there to Sunday worship. I go to church, but I was a little apprehensive. I didn’t know what to expect.  When we arrived it was a black church and they were turned up!  Starsky got up and talked about the radical politics of Jesus, the reaction was phenomenal! I had queer friends who hadn’t been in a  church in over a decade who were trying to figure out how they could join his ministry, even though they lived in cities miles away.  He made everyone feel like there was a place for them in that space.

Now, I’m not suggesting that the old guard, ministers and preachers have to change who they are to include who we are. But, what I do think that if they don’t change, they will lose the presence of young congregants to preachers who will. We shouldn’t try to make anyone do anything that they don’t feel led to do, but we can challenge them be more in tune and accepting of young folks views. But at the end of the day, for every one of them [older ministers] there is a Starsky, a Traci and you.

BlackLivesMatter has a group of folks from the community of faith, mainly from the Christian faith, who have been having call every Sunday night to pray for each other and encourage each other, as well as talk about how young people of faith connected to this work can encourage the leader of the  church  to be more impactful in this work.  We need them in more than one way. I cannot do this work consistently and sustainability without my faith and being grounding in the liberation theology. There is something very intrinsic about being ministered to when you are feeling hopeless and overwhelmed.

The success of my work requires me to be grounded in liberation theology. Starsky recommended a book to us, ‘The Politics of Jesus’ by Dr. Obery Hendricks and a group of us are going to study it together. Because of pastoral guidance we better understand that our movement work is not on the secular side and our spiritual work is on another and there is no median; they are interconnected.

So, the opportunities that present themselves or that you create to diminish even that form of fragmentation and bring people together, utilize them. And the places where people are just not ready, don’t fret. Do what you know is the right work for the time based on what you were called to do! And doing that will open doors for success and for that fragmentation we see between the church and movements to stop happening. If the relationship between the church and the community doesn’t exist now, build it!

You are really involved in a lot of work over the years and I know it can be overwhelming at time, so let’s discuss some of the ‘wins’ of your work in social justice? I know that can be encouraging.

Well I’ve done a lot of different kind of work. My mom and dad were involved in movements, so there were some wins that I experienced vicariously through them (laughter), but as an adult:

My husband and I reenacted the Freedom Rides of Ben Cheney, who is the brother of James Earl Cheney, one of the three civil rights workers who was killed in Mississippi in 1964. We started in New York down through the DC and the deep South, doing voter education and registering folks to vote. We registered over 500 people to vote. It was huge! Some of the people were formerly incarcerated, convicted felons who were able to encourage and reclaim their right to vote.  The look on those faces was priceless. To be able to give them the tools to concretely get their voice back was an overjoy to me.

Another victory. We were involved in the anti-mountaintop removal effort called Mining Fight in Central Appalachia and got arrested after we shut down a coal mine that was active and blowing up mountains everywhere. We locked our necks to a two-story rock truck, dropped a banner off the truck and demanded that they not do this again.

Seeing the leadership develop in CCJ from a cadre of three to five people to a core of 12  people who are amazing; they are diverse, have great politics, both queer and straight, women and men. That to me is a great victory because if you would have tell me that we would be here after all the heavy lifting and shifting we did to get things off the ground three years to now, I wouldn’t have seen it.

And when I think about the movement for black lives and how people are talking about these uprisings and the importance of black lives in countries I haven’t even thought about is another victory.

With all of these victories there are concrete material conditions that need to change for people to be able to survive and every day that doesn’t happen we aren’t winning. I mean, I feel it. Our people are dying and it’s not a game, but i do feel that there are people think this is a hobby, but I definitely feel that this has to become a lifestyle until we win. So I’m looking for some more tangible victories beyond registering people to vote or we shut down this mine when twenty more are opening or we created this organization when there is not communication amongst the ones already in existence.

You made a statement in reference to roles required to form a great movement and you said, ‘mobilizing isn’t organizing.’ What’s the difference?

There are multiple tactics used to support a strategy. I may agree with some and not with others, but all of them should happen for the work to move, in all the ways it needs to move. Mobilizing is the outreach; getting people to do something or to attend something. Organizing is related and intimately involved, but deals more with getting folks to recognize their ownership over something and be active on that front line; it’s the base-building, the leadership development, political education.  Then, there is direct action. You can mobilizing people to participate, but it’s gonna take organizing to see the results through strategic action.

So in closing, we know that the blacklivesmatter movement evolved from a love letter. If you were to leave a few love sonnets here with organizers, to fuel the momentum permeating here, what would you leave us?

There is a chant that came out of St. Louis.  It’s call and response  The caller says:

Caller: I

Response: I….

Caller: I believe

Response: I believe

Caller: I believe that we

Response: I believe that we

Caller: I believe that we will win

Response: I believe that we will win

And the crowd erupts chanting, ‘I believe that we will win’ repeatedly while jumping around. It gets a little too crazy, but that’s what I want to leave Asheville. I truly believe that Asheville will win, Sheneika, and the only thing that is keeping you from winning is that you don’t know your power. On a scale from power to powerless, you all are powerful. And on a scale of organized to fragmented, you may be fragmented but if you had a strategy you all can use you power your brilliance and the rich gifts that God has given you, establish what your individual vision is and how those can be shared y’all would move to power and organize on the axis and completely change the dynamics of power and decision making in this city. And I am excited to watch it happen and down to come back.

—

Sheneika Smith is a writer, minister, community activist, single mother and Asheville native. She is a founder of Date My City and part of the ongoing local organizing against racial injustice and police violence.

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