Beautiful Trouble

Beautiful Trouble seeks to provide social movements with the tools to respond creatively and courageously to the violence of the powerful in ways that open up new possibilities. We believe in the power of creative and loving multitudes to transform their circumstances for the better. We believe in the good fight, the element of surprise, and the healing power of a good belly laugh to change the world—not once, but over and over again.

Recommended action for #RevolutionOfValues

Create space for an artistic vigil. Use words, images, natural materials - anything that speaks to you and your community. Add a level of crowd-sourcing or group participation for added engagement. 

The People's Supper

We aim to repair the breach in our interpersonal relationships across political, ideological, and identity differences, leading to more civil discourse. And, we plan to do it in the most nourishing way we know—over supper!

This isn’t about a political party, or what is or isn’t happening in Washington. It’s about us, and our relationship to one another. Too often, we exist in echo chambers and see each other as monoliths: one-sided stereotypes who can be reduced to a single word or phrase.

Instead, we want to go beneath the headlines, to see each other as real people with real struggles, real fears, real hopes, and real dreams.

This project started in January 2017 as #100Days100Dinners, and since then we’ve hosted over 900+ dinners across the country. Due to demand and interest, we’re keeping the conversation going over the next year (at least) and we’re building a bigger table while we’re at it, taking the People’s Supper experience online as well as reaching out to new towns and cities across the country.

Suppers are a place where we can come together over one of humanity’s most ancient and simple rituals. A place where we can share meaningful stories, good food, and a sense of community. A place where we can build understanding and trust.

We invite you to pull up a chair.

Recommended action for #RevolutionOfValues

Host a supper! Want to host?

We provide a hosting guide and resource folder full of tried and true methods for facilitating meaningful conversation. The host resources folder also has email templates, readings and poems, tips on organizing a potluck, a ritual zine full of ice breakers, ways to set the tone for supper, and much more!

Hosts receives an invitation to an online host training session with a People’s Supper facilitator who can walk you through the how-to’s for facilitating challenging and meaningful conversations, answer any questions, and offer tips.

Ready to host? We’re looking forward to hearing from you! https://thepeoplessupper.org/host-a-supper/

Alternate ROOTS

Alternate ROOTS was founded at the Highlander Research and Education Center in 1976 on the heels of the Vietnam War. Highlander was a place dear to Dr. King’s heart. Our work is consistent with Dr. King’s vision of the Beloved Community. We seek to nurture a community where art and culture are essential to human development and the dismantling of oppressive structures. We are deeply rooted in the South and informed by the unique strategic place the South holds in the transformation of our society. We hold Dr. King as an important and essential frame for our continued growth and development.

As a coalition of cultural workers, we strive to be allies in the elimination of all forms of oppression. When working in and with our communities, we embrace five principles of community engagement; this is how we practice our #RevolutionOfValues:

Shared Power: power is shared among all (willing) members of a group. Alternate ROOTS strives to be anti-oppressive and anti-racist. We focus our awareness on how power is recognized, structured, and shared in a community. We work for equity in all relationships. We model anti-hierarchical relationships. We strive to build personal power, a sense of self, and the ability to speak against injustice and act for good in the world.

Partnership: true partnership must be equitable; equitable partnership can exist when all entities involved treat each other as peers/equals. Our work is based on equal partnership—among ourselves, with our partners in and outside of Alternate ROOTS, and with people and organizations in communities. We share our expertise and invite others to share theirs; everyone creates and learns together on the issue at hand.

Open Dialogue: open dialogue is essential; active listening and honest response is imperative for open dialogue. We base our work in exchanges in which experience, questions, dialogue, and reflection are used for sharing and giving information. We are guided by Paolo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and the concept of the democratic classroom. We teach by asking questions.

Individual and Community Transformation: individual/personal transformation can lead to community transformation and social change. We aim to provoke long-lasting, personal, and social change—one person at a time. We believe that imagination is a means of liberation, so we use art as an instrument of change. We intend for personal change to lead to community, institutional, systemic, social, and cultural change. Change is hard, scary work; we strive to create a safe environment and provide support for people in transition. 

Aesthetics of Transparent Processes: We recognize and acknowledge that social justice aesthetics values multiple perspectives. Our work is arts-based social change. We believe the arts can be a powerful way of creating personal and community transformation.

Arts & Democracy

ARTS & DEMOCRACY roots its work in the liberating power of the arts and culture that help us reimagine and remake society. This requires shifting power, dismantling structural racism and other forms of oppression, and seeking a fair and equitable distribution of resources. We engage a spectrum of creative approaches to support individual, community, and systemic change. We see our work as part of a diverse ecology of art and social justice practice, where a small, decentralized, and nimble network such as ours can be a vital resource. 

We actively commit to: 

• Cultural equity and cultural rights
• The self determination, vision, and agency of our communities
• Collaboration, interdependence, and sustained relationships
• The power of place, importance of context, and abundance of community cultural assets
• A vision of arts and culture as an integral part of our communities 

We believe that: 

• The people most impacted by policy need to play a significant role in shaping that policy
• Change happens when we link grassroots action, analysis, imagination, and policy
• We need to work actively against racism and other forms of oppression, and for social justice
• We need to bring our full selves to our organizing and take care of ourselves and our communities as we do this work over time.

Barefoot Artists

Barefoot Artists seeks to bear witness to the forgotten and the oppressed. It works to empower susceptible residents, organize disenfranchised communities, and take action to create a more compassionate, just and sustainable future.

Federico García Lorca’s words reflect our commitment: We “will always be on the side of those who have nothing and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace.”

Donald Trump’s policy fueled by fear, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia ushers us into a frightfully dark time. He strengthens the rich and powerful; he oppresses the poor and vulnerable. He assaults democracy and make mockery of science.

We remember Martin Luther King, Jr.’s alarming words “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” Now is the time for us, the common citizens, to RESIST and to fight for our values.

We join the Revolution Of Values (#RevolutionOfValues) launched by USDAC so that our actions become connected to this powerful movement and our words become a part of a resounding collective voice that reverberates throughout the land expressing generosity, inclusion, and the spirit of love.

The Dinner Party

The Dinner Party is a community of (mostly) 20- and 30-somethings out to transform life after loss from an isolating experience into one marked by community support, candid conversation, and forward movement. We’ve lost moms and dads, siblings and partners and friends, infants and children, and get together over potluck meals for a chance to share the part of ourselves that rarely sees the light of day.

We are bound not by religion, or race, or age, or class, but by loss, a common currency that transcends those lines and unites us in "a world-wide fellowship".

We know that the minute we begin to “other” each other, to think that because we don’t know what to say, it is better to say nothing at all, we deny each other a voice and a chance to be seen and to be heard.

We know that such silences become yet another way of silencing each other, of ignoring systemic abuses, of perpetuating the status quo.

And we know that grief is not shared equally in America, nor outside of it. As Dr. King would have us remember, silence is complicity, and tomorrow may come too late.

We have seen that buried beneath our most isolating experiences lie the seeds for rich community, empathy, and meaningful connection. We have seen that our ability to thrive as individuals depends first on our building thriving communities. And we have seen that that work cannot be done alone.

A #RevolutionofValues, you say? You had us at hello.

Recommended action for #RevolutionOfValues:

#Maketomorrowtoday, take one loving action, large or small, that you've thought about but never acted on.

Forecast Public Art

FORECAST PUBLIC ART fosters dynamic, inclusive and resilient communities through public art, community-engaged design and transformative place-based development. For more than 40 years we have improved the collective life by connecting the energies and talents of artists with the needs and opportunities of communities. Forecast is respected regionally, nationally and internationally for a unique combination of responsive services, support directly to public artists, and abundant information and resources, including Public Art Review, the world’s leading public art journal. 

Public art occupies a unique position within the art world. In comparison with gallery, museum, dance and theater shows, public art is free, there are no tickets or reservations needs. You can view it alone or in groups and it is open to everyone. The power of public art is that it is accessible to all people, regardless of income, race, gender, mobility, immigration status or language. In addition to accessibility, public art and placemaking programming can contribute to a more dynamic, equitable and resilient community by contributing to community efforts and action, poverty and social inclusion goals, health and well-being, community safety, travel/access, and skills acquisition and job training. Whatever the form, public art helps to create shared meaning, a greater sense of identity and understanding of each other. 

We are proud to partner with the USDAC and other allies on #RevolutionOfValues, a weeklong creative action from 2-8 April 2018. Last year, Forecast Public Art approved a new mission and vision that evolves us from what Dr. King describes as “thing-oriented,” where we see our role as dedicated to the creation of public art, to a more intentional “person-oriented” organization dedicated to the transformational power of art in our shared public lives. We have made a commitment as an organization to work in collaboration with others who share the values expressed in the #RevolutionOfValues campaign.

Hollaback!

Imagine a world where everyone could walk down the street unimpeded – with the sun in their face or the wind at their back – and revel in the joys of their surroundings, whether in a rural landscape or an urban jungle. Envision a society where all of us can enjoy a concert, a night out, a jog through campus or a ride home free of harassment from strangers. Picture a global community where anyone could log onto their favorite website and express their opinions openly, freely and respectfully without being ridiculed or threatened. 

That world is possible, and with your help we can help make it happen. 

HOLLABACK! is a global movement to end harassment powered by a network of grassroots activists. We work together to understand harassment, ignite public conversations, and develop innovative strategies to ensure equal access to public spaces. We leverage new technologies to bring voice to an issue that historically has been silenced, and to build leadership within this movement to break the silence. 

Our mission is to build safe, inclusive public spaces by transforming the culture that perpetuates discrimination and violence. We carry out this mission by building the power of people to create measurable and long-lasting impacts in the movement for gender justice. 

We envision a world where all people have the freedom to move through public space, participate in civic life, and reach their full potential. In this world, women and LGBTQ+ individuals will never face violence and discrimination as they walk down the street, go to school, sit in the park, attend a public protest, or participate online or in media. We all have the right to be who we are, whatever that means that day, that hour, that minute. 

Recommended action for #RevolutionOfValues: 

Action: Read stories of harassment shared on our site and show your support by clicking the “I’ve Got Your Back” button. 

Then, share your own story on our site or by downloading our free app. 

National Council of Elders

April 4, 2017, was the 50th anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.” In confronting the deeply rooted racism, militarism and materialism of the United States, Dr. King described the United States as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. Delivered to an overflow crowd at the Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967, Dr. King’s challenge to engage in a radical revolution of values encountered ferocious opposition. Fifty-one years on, it is clear that Dr. King’s analysis and call to action are as relevant now as they were then:

Today the United States has a multi-trillion dollar permanent war economy, the costliest deployment of weapons and military personnel in the world, and at home a vast system of mass incarceration, a hideous homicide rate and endemic violence against women and LGBTQ people.

 Today as a result of our society’s virulent racism, people of color are subjected to unrelenting state violence through police brutality, police murder and massive incarceration rates, while suffering gross disparities in income, education, employment, military service, housing and health care.

Today materialism dominates our culture and our economy to the peril of all life on earth. It pollutes our values, our souls and the natural world.

Today we know that the struggle against sexism and patriarchy is intrinsically linked to overcoming racism, militarism, materialism and environmental catastrophe.

These truths are too rarely discussed. We are too often silent and too often ruled by despair or indifference.

Recommended action for #RevolutionOfValues:

On the 51st anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination, The National Council of Elders is resolved to join with others to once again break this deadly silence. Please check our website for information about our resources and actions.

Native Arts and Cultures Foundation

Nearly six million Native and Tribal Nation citizens live in the United States, whose ancestors resided for centuries in original homelands within the continental United States, Hawai’i, and Alaska. At the NATIVE ARTS AND CULTURES FOUNDATION we work to strengthen understanding and awareness of the valuable contributions Native peoples have made to this nation. 

We support artists and associated arts organizations to do the following:

• Create new work;
• Mentor apprentices;
• Work deeply in their communities;
• Address social issues, racial equity, and justice;
• Open hearts and minds;
• Be vessels of contemporary Native knowledge;
• Value connection, courage, and cultural responsibility

As we approach the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s April 4, 1967 Riverside Speech, the relevancy of his words today has never been more potent. We are committed to work with USDAC on Revolution of Values, #HonorNativeLand and other efforts. We engaged a small group in our offices last year for Revolution of Values. In April 2018, we look forward to working with partner organizations to convene Story Circles. 

We feel a kinship with Dr. King and share his values of truth, hope, inspiration, and resilience. Many Native leaders and clergy of his generation were significantly inspired by his work. If you return to the first page of the #RevolutionOfValues Toolkit, you will find a photograph of Dr. King and civil rights activists marching in Selma, Alabama in 1965. They are wearing flower lei provided by a beloved Native Hawaiian leader, Reverand Abraham Akaka. The lei was given to show solidarity and represent Reverend Akaka’s support and Hawaii’s appreciation and respect for Dr. King’s work and bravery. 

New Economy Coalition

THE NEW ECONOMY COALITION (NEC) is a network of 200+ organizations imagining and building a future where people, communities, and ecosystems thrive. Together, we are creating deep change in our economy and politics—placing power in the hands of people and uprooting legacies of harm—so that a fundamentally new system can take root. 

Our network advances change in three main ways: 

(1) We convene and connect leaders to tackle common challenges in their work to build a new economy. 

(2) We amplify stories, tools, and analysis, weaving a collective new economy narrative that can build shared identity, shift culture and policy, and promote a clear vision of the next system. 

(3) We lift up the work of communities on the frontlines of interrelated economic and ecological crises who are organizing for transformative change, through right relationships and direct support. 

Towards the end of his life, Dr. King was organizing a poor people’s campaign against what he called the “three evils” - War, Racism and Poverty. We see our work at NEC as continuing to make these connections between economics and social justice for all. 

Recommended action for #RevolutionOfValues: 

Tell a story describing your perfect day in a new economy? What does wealth feel like to you? Upload your story to social media—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—with the hashtags #NewEconomy, #RevolutionOfValues, and #USDAC, and/or email it to hello@usdac.us. 

Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

On December 5th, 1967, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference announced plans for a Poor People’s Campaign. The Campaign aimed to bring poor people together from all across the country and from all racial and ethnic backgrounds in order to build up a new and unsettling force that could lead the fight against racism, militarism, and economic exploitation It was the Poor People’s Campaign that the Rev. Dr. King was working on when he chose to speak out against the Vietnam War.

Exactly one year before his assassination, on April 4th, 1967, King called all people of conscience to “break the silence” and declare war an enemy of the poor. Dr. King stated that “A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth....A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Today, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is uniting tens of thousands of people across the country to challenge the evils of systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, ecological devastation, and the nation’s distorted morality. The PPC:NCMR is taking part in this day of creative action because we recognize the power of artistic expression to create the language and space we need to imagine and enact a true revolution of values that can move us toward a “radical redistribution of economic and political power,” and “a change of the whole structure of American life.”

Recommended action for #RevolutionOfValues

The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is launching a season of nonviolent direct action that will begin on Mother’s Day. Demanding elected leaders at all levels of government adopt an agenda that confronts systemic racism and lifts up the poor, thousands of poor and disenfranchised people, clergy and moral leaders in 32 states and Washington, D.C. will engage in 40 days of moral direct action. Arts and culture will be a pivotal part of the campaign and state arts and culture committees are being formed. Sign up to join your state chapter today. 

On this national day of action, we asking people to share at least one of the following cultural resources at your local art builds and events to get ready for the 40 Days of Moral Action:  

Singing together is foundational to this movement: Learn and teach one of the following PPC:NCMR songs:

Somebody’s Hurting My Brother

Everybody’s got a right to live

Unsettling Force

I Am Not Afraid

Poor People’s Campaign Video

As different communities across the U.S. confront the forces that inflict great misery on human life and dignity, a clear moral and religious truth is also emerging. The people and struggles that make up the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival are providing profound religious and moral insight into who we are and who we can be as people and as a society. This episode of America Will Be: The Spirit of Struggle shares some of the deep religious and spiritual insights emerging out of this movement that help guide the struggle.

Produced by filmmaker Dara Kell and the Kairos Center for the#PoorPeoplesCampaign.

We are asking people to think about why we need a new Poor People’s Campaign in this moment. How do we move from talking about unity to building real unity? How can our creative imagining help us envision this possibility? We encourage people to share their reflections in the form of song, spoken word, and visual imagery.

To join the movement: Text MORAL to 90975

The Shalom Center/MLK+50

At the heart of Dr. King’s most profound, prophetic, & provocative sermon is his reminder that America is threatened by the “triplets” Racism, Militarism, & Materialism; that we need a radical revolution in values from a thing-oriented to a people-oriented society; and that we face “the fierce urgency of Now.” The urgency is even fiercer in our generation, 50 years later. We ask, why “triplets” instead of any other word for three? Because biological triplets share DNA—and these triplets share the DNA of subjugation, disempowering a host of “Others.” So in the present linked crises of attacks on American democracy and on the interwoven web of life that makes up Planet Earth, we seek to learn from Dr. King’s wisdom and courage how to go forward in our own thought and action today. 

Recommended action for #RevolutionOfValues:

THE SHALOM CENTER has created The MLK+50 Interfaith Freedom Seder, a free, downloadable haggadah to to reawaken and renew the prophetic wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during Holy Week and Passover in this 50th year. We invite you to open your home, faith community, or organization for a Seder—an interactive, ceremonial meal guided by a printed text of prayers, readings, and actions—using The MLK+50 Interfaith Freedom Seder as a guide. Post a picture of your Seder to social media, tagging it #theShalomCenter and #MLK50Seder.

Spark Movement

SPARK Movement is a girl-fueled, intergenerational activist organization working to ignite and foster an antiracist gender justice movement to end violence against women and girls and promote girls’ healthy sexuality, self-empowerment and well-being.

By providing feminist, girl-focused training, consulting services, curricula and resources, SPARK aims to arm activists, educators, community leaders, and girls themselves to foster coalitions and partnerships in order to ignite and support a global young feminist movement.

When Dr. King spoke, "True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." We are committed to joining the resistance and fighting for a culture shift, a paradigm upheaval and urgent need to change the structures that benefit those with power and crush those without. We hope to share the voices and stories of young people as they respond to and get re-motivated by Dr. King's words. The revolution might not be won in our lifetime, so we need to keep the torch lit for the next generation!

Recommended action for #RevolutionOfValues

We are proud to partner with the USDAC to offer two resources:

Our Young Voices for Justice Toolkit is full of activities that inspire and guide kids and young people to take action. Please send us examples of the vibrant, inspiring and creative actions launched by kids (and their allies) and share them through video, blogs and photos. 

AGENDA is a plan and a toolbox for young social change makers and those who support them. It  offers 20 different ways you can take action in your schools and communities. And, for each, Spark Movement provides extended examples and additional information specific to sexual violence prevention (just click on the gray circle on the upper right of each page).

WomenArts

WOMENARTS is dedicated to increasing the visibility of women artists in all art forms. We put the spotlight on women artists every March through Support Women Artists Now Day, and we share news about trailblazing women artists and gender parity activists all year long through the WomenArts Blog. We believe in the power of women artists to create, connect, and change the world. 

King’s comments about the glaring contrasts between the rich and the poor resonated deeply with me. A few years ago I got a call from a young woman musician who had been evicted from her apartment. They had changed the locks and all her musical equipment was inside. They were going to auction it off unless she could come up with $1,000. 

I will never forget the desperation in that women’s voice. She had worked a clerical job and lived frugally for several years to save the money to buy that equipment and move to a bigger city to make her mark in the music industry. But she got sick and could not work for three months after she moved, and she was about to lose everything she had worked so hard to obtain. She had called every emergency service in town with no luck and WomenArts was her final resort. 

Fortunately I was able to help that woman get the funds she needed, but the majority of people living in poverty around the world are women and children, and all too often their cries for help go unanswered. Even the women who have jobs are paid 20% less than men, and that pervasive discounting of their value can undermine their self-confidence and prevent them from reaching their full potential. King was right—as the richest country in the world, America has a responsibility to do better. 

WomenArts is pleased to join the USDAC and other #RevolutionOfValues partners in calling artists, creative organizers, and allies to take part in this week of creative action April 2-8, 2018! 

Recommended action for #RevolutionOfValues:

Get ideas for your events by reading the WomenArts Blog, where you can find articles about women around the world who are using their art to address social issues. If you feel inspired to share, upload images, audio, or video to social media—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—with the hashtags #WomenArts #RevolutionOfValues, and #USDAC.