Linda Stout's Page

Collective Visioning

Drawing on Linda Stout's thirty years of experience training organizers, advocates, activists, and coalition groups, "Col...

  • “The reality is…” A millennials’ experience working in voter engagement

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    “The reality is…” A millennials’ experience working in voter engagement

    The dominant narrative in society about millennials shows a variety of pictures. People glued to their cell phones, images of apathy and disinterest, and privilege. While some of these depictions may be accurate they aren’t the full picture. We, millennials, carry the most college debt out of an...

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    April 19, 2017

  • If my mother could challenge racism in 1960 North Carolina, what will you do for Justice today?

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    If my mother could challenge racism in 1960 North Carolina, what will you do for Justice today?

    I remember when I was about seven years old, my mother took me with her to a small country store that served as a store, gas station, post office and now I know a voter registration center. We went in and stood in line behind another woman at the post office window. It was the [Read More]

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    April 19, 2017

  • The Joy of Organizing Along the Road to Justice

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    The Joy of Organizing Along the Road to Justice

    It is a powerful time to be doing election work. When we ride out to the communities, there is a merging of fear and excitement. We round the unpaved roads through the Blue Ridge Mountains, rural Appalachia full of reminders that there was once a thriving industry here. We pull up to the mobile ...

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    April 19, 2017

  • Let’s Discuss Healthcare – Community Meeting

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Let’s Discuss Healthcare – Community Meeting

    We the People: Working Together recently held its first 2017 Monthly Community Meeting – Let’s Discuss Healthcare. In these meetings, we focus on issues that community members identify and develop plans of action. We ground ourselves in real life experiences and build bridges to the policy realm...

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    April 19, 2017

  • Vocal and Visible – A Call to Action on Racism

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Vocal and Visible – A Call to Action on Racism

    “The first task of whites in these struggles is to be vocal and visible.” -Anne Braden Growing up as a white woman in the south, the passive racism that I witnessed and participated in was and continues to be wrong. I want to change that practice and one step for me is writing a blog [Read More]

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    April 19, 2017

  • Holding the Hula Hoop  — by Lia Kaz

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Holding the Hula Hoop — by Lia Kaz

    What can you do with a hula hoop and a bunch of tacos? They were integral components to We the People’s most recent community meeting about education. Dedicated community members opened up real dialogue in plain language about education policy. One community member offered to do research, anothe...

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    April 19, 2017

  • How do we sustain HOPE in times of crisis?

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    How do we sustain HOPE in times of crisis?

    It’s really hard to have a positive outlook or hope with all that’s happening in the world today: political chaos, hate, violence, environmental disaster, and a list much too long to write here.  And worse, it seems that people are feeding off all this hatred and chaos and it continues to grow, ...

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    September 30, 2016

  • Another Police Killing That You Didn’t Hear About

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Another Police Killing That You Didn’t Hear About

    ­We have seen the incredible reactions across the country as stories of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling have gone national. You may have also heard about Vinson Ramos, Melissa Ventura, Anthony Nuñez, Pedro Villanueva and Raul Saavedra-Vargas who have also been killed by police—just last week...

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    July 27, 2016

  • Spirit in Action’s Summer 2016 Newsletter

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Spirit in Action’s Summer 2016 Newsletter

    Click here to read the entire Summer 2016 Newsletter. Dear Friends, North Carolina has been in the national news a lot lately. Passing the nation’s worst voter suppression law, it eliminated same-day voter registration, cut a full week of early voting, barred voters from casting a ballot outside...

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    July 12, 2016

  • The Power of Plain Ol’ Human Talk

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    The Power of Plain Ol’ Human Talk

    Popular Education, Economic Justice and Civic Engagement “Let’s get on with technology as a way of connecting us to people and places we have never known and have never seen. But let us not give up the power of plain ol’ human talk to do the same.”  -Johnnetta B. Cole During a family reunion at ...

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    April 12, 2016

  • Celebrating our Victories and Preparing for the Future

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Celebrating our Victories and Preparing for the Future

    I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. Over the last year, I attended two dynamic national conferences: one called “Creating Change,” which included more than 4,000 LGBTQ activists and organizers across the country working on multiple issues that affect disenfranchised people, and...

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    December 26, 2015

  • Alligators & Frog Legs:  The Face of Hunger (Part 1 of 2)

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Alligators & Frog Legs: The Face of Hunger (Part 1 of 2)

    A couple weeks ago, I got fooled into eating some alligator at a festival (I thought it was a super-sized chicken finger) and also frog legs (which I thought were chicken wings).  The taste is different, although does resemble some taste of chicken in the mix; but they are certainly not somethin...

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    October 7, 2015

  • Alligators & Frog Legs:  The Face of Hunger (Part 2 of 2)

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Alligators & Frog Legs: The Face of Hunger (Part 2 of 2)

    Last week I wrote about growing up hungry. If you missed Part 1 of this blog, click here. Yesterday’s local paper carried the headline that 450 local students were homeless and needed food and other items to survive. As I wrote last week, I am haunted by a billboard on our way to the interstate ...

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    October 7, 2015

  • Spirit in Action’s Spring 2015 Newsletter

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Spirit in Action’s Spring 2015 Newsletter

    Click here to read the entire Spring 2015 Newsletter A Letter from Linda Stout Dear Friends, We are at a time of great unrest and unimaginable opportunity. In the words of YES! Magazine, “A new civil rights movement is being born.” We watch in horror as practices that are ages old are brought to...

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    June 11, 2015

  • “Inspiring, Exciting, Motivating”: We the People’s First Community Visioning

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    “Inspiring, Exciting, Motivating”: We the People’s First Community Visioning

    Last month, on April 22nd, We the People held our first community visioning!  With over 40 people in attendance, our potluck-style gathering was a huge success.  The positive energy in the room was tangible and every single attendee had something affirmative to say in our closing.  “Inspiring,” ...

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    May 26, 2015

  • We the People Interns Working Together With Community Members at the Welcome Table

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    We the People Interns Working Together With Community Members at the Welcome Table

    By Amanda Citro and Caroline Duble We the People: Working Together is Spirit in Action’s newest research and organizing initiative.  Our goal is to engage low-income and working-class people in grassroots organizing and to empower communities to take charge of the issues that affect them!  We’ve ...

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    April 14, 2015

  • Creating Change 2015 – Caroline Duble

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Creating Change 2015 – Caroline Duble

    Hello, all!  Some of you know me as the Social Justice Resident at Spirit in Action, but for many of you, this is your first time hearing from me.  My name is Caroline Duble; I am from Houston, Texas, and I have lived in Swannanoa, North Carolina for the past 5 years.  I graduated from [Read More]

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    March 17, 2015

  • “We the People” Talks Southern Politics

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    “We the People” Talks Southern Politics

    On Saturday, March 29th, the students from Warren Wilson working with Spirit in Action’s We the People project went out into several trailer parks of Swannanoa, North Carolina. to listen to the folks who lived there. It was a rainy and muddy day, but students came prepared for door-knocking. Alth...

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    March 6, 2015

  • My Journey To “Live YOUR Light!” – Part 2- by Judy Ford

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    My Journey To “Live YOUR Light!” – Part 2- by Judy Ford

    Click here to read part 1 of Judy’s Blog A WOMAN’S EXISTENCE by Judy M. Ford ©   we do not exist for you hard as that may be for you to accept nor do we exist to change your perceptions of us which you are unwilling to release we exist for ourselves alone we [Read More]

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    March 6, 2015

  • Trends from the Education Justice Listening Project

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Trends from the Education Justice Listening Project

    In the summer of 2013, Spirit In Action interviewed 36 education justice activists, including teachers, students, policymakers and other leaders to listen to their perspectives on the current state of public education in America. The interviewees’ stories and firsthand experiences relative to pub...

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    March 6, 2015

  • Announcing the Education Justice Communication Summit 2014

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Announcing the Education Justice Communication Summit 2014

    We will be gathering 32 educators, organizers and influencers in the education justice movement from across the country at an Education Justice Communications Summit on July 17 – July 20 in order to strategize how effective communications and messaging can inform their local and movement building...

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    March 6, 2015

  • Zenyu:  “Complete Healing” – by Christine Cruz Guiao

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Zenyu: “Complete Healing” – by Christine Cruz Guiao

    To stand in my power, I remember who I am. I mean, who I really am as a spiritual and soulful being, beyond my political identities: which include all of the complicated entanglements of oppressions and privileges I bear as a 2nd-generation Filipin@-American, gender-nonconforming queer woman. To ...

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    March 6, 2015

  • Navigating Our Lives with a Personal Mission Statement – by Patricia St. Onge

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Navigating Our Lives with a Personal Mission Statement – by Patricia St. Onge

    Most organizations have a mission statement. I’ve been thinking about having a mission statement for my life. I remember sitting in a meeting with Puanani Burgess and Juanita Brown, women for whom I have great respect. We had decided to meet together to share some of the tools we use in facilitat...

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    March 6, 2015

  • Catching Fire, Breaking Silence:  Addressing Sexual and Gender Violence in our Social Movements – by Taij Kumarie Moteelall and Diana Marie Lee

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Catching Fire, Breaking Silence: Addressing Sexual and Gender Violence in our Social Movements – by Taij Kumarie Moteelall and Diana Marie Lee

    Standing in Our Power (SiOP), a network of women of color social justice leaders, is calling for greater integrity, accountability, interdependence and compassion among individuals and organizations working for transformative social change. Many of us who serve as the core leaders and coaches of ...

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    March 6, 2015

  • Spirit in Action’s Fall Newsletter

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Spirit in Action’s Fall Newsletter

    If you are like me, there are a few dozen things (or more!) that feel like they need our urgent attention. I could work full-time on the many different issues that pull at me. All seem equally necessary and critical. I know that if I could put all my time and resources into it, it might make a di...

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    March 6, 2015

  • We The People-Working Together shares its story!

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    We The People-Working Together shares its story!

    We the People: Working Together is an exciting new research and organizing project that endeavors to make the crucial and vital shift from division to unity in order to create and sustain equality and justice for all. Please see above video of how our organizing is helping communitiy members and ...

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    March 6, 2015

  • Becoming an Elder:  Bravely Going Where Young People Have Gone Before – by Linda Stout

    Linda Stout posted a blog post

    Becoming an Elder: Bravely Going Where Young People Have Gone Before – by Linda Stout

    The best part of getting older (I just celebrated my 61st birthday!) is that I get to see young leaders that have come through one of our trainings or networks, now taking the reins of both new and old national organizations, as well as regional and local.  It is a thrilling moment to see these [...

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    March 6, 2015

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