Previous Events

Gulf South Rising Marks 5th Year Since BP Oil Drilling Disaster with “Week of Action”

Gulf South – Gulf South Rising, a movement of community organizations, civic groups, and faith-based organizations in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, is marking the 5th year since BP’s devastating oil disaster with a “Week of Action” (April 15-22nd). Five years since the beginning of the BP disaster, the Gulf’s people and wildlife continue to reel from the damages of BP’s negligence. Coastal residents are struggling to maintain their livelihoods and culture, while they wrestle with health problems from exposure to oil and toxic chemical dispersants. In the face of this devastation, Gulf coast residents are banding together and rising up to call for the restoration of our Gulf communities, cultures and environment.

Recent events to remember the Gulf of Mexico’s losses due to the BP oil disaster include:

• An interfaith memorial and jazz funeral procession ending at BP headquarters in Houston, TX (April 20th)

• A “Soaked in Oil” march in downtown New Orleans, LA (April 20th)

• “Come Fish Off My Boat”, an open invitation to local, state, and federal decision makers, as well as to members of the media, to spend a day fishing with Gulf Coast fisherfolk in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama who were affected by the BP disaster (April 16th-22nd)

• A healing ceremony and sunset vigil in Pensacola, FL (April 20th)

In a prepared statement, Chief Thomas Dardar of southern Louisiana’s United Houma Nation noted, “The Gulf drilling disaster is an absolute threat on who we are as Houma people and our way of life.  Our homeland and the health of our people are at risk as we deal with the long-term effects of this catastrophe.”

Thao Vu, Director of the Mississippi Coalition of Vietnamese Fisher Folk & Families and lead organizer of “Come Fish Off My Boat” said, “BP needs to tell the truth. This disaster is still affecting our communities.”
A full list, descriptions, and pictures of events commemorating 5 years since the BP disaster can be found here.

******

What the Hands do the Heart Learns!

Movement Generation’s Ecological Justice Training

Camp Beckwith (10400 Beckwith Ln, Fairhope, AL 36532)

May 25-29, 2015 

(Start Time: Monday, May 25, 2015 Lunch at 12:00pm – End Time: Friday May 29,2015 Lunch at 12:00pm)

#GulfSouthRising

Movement Generation’s Justice & Ecology Project (MG) began as a response to the impact Hurricane Katrina/Rita had on the Gulf Coast. MG inspires and engages in trans-formative action towards the liberation and restoration of land, labor, and culture. Since 2005, they’ve engaged hundreds of organizations and thousands of community leaders, activists, and organizers through intensive strategy retreats, political education, campaign development, alliance building, and direct action to advance a justice-based approach to ecology.

Gulf South Community leaders explored:

• Real Solutions and False Promises to the ecological crisis

• Core concepts of climate and ecological science

• Biological and cultural diversity as well as ancestry

• The roots of the ecological crisis in in the economy

• Just Transition and resilience based-organizing frameworks and strategies