Attica Woodson Scott
Coordinator, Kentucky Jobs with Justice
Think social change happens at a glacial pace? Then you haven’t met Attica Woodson Scott.
Earlier this year, Attica and her colleagues at Kentucky Jobs with Justice (KY JwJ) mobilized more than 500 people to participate in a day of action in Frankfort, the state capital—in just one week. Their target? A state bill that sought to further criminalize undocumented immigrants, much like the draconian Arizona law passed last year.
To make their point that the legislation would legislate racial profiling and negatively affect communities statewide, KY JwJ—a broad-based coalition of community groups, faith-based organizations, students and labor unions—fanned out across the statehouse, asking lawmakers to produce proof of citizenship. “They stopped and stepped back and asked, ‘What are you talking about? Show you what papers?’” Attica reports. “Our people were then able to ask them for their birth certificate or their passport—something other than a driver’s license. And when they asked why, we said, ‘Because the bill you are about to vote on is going to profile people in this way.’”
The effect was immediate—and profound. In just a matter of weeks, KY JwJ and their allies claimed victory: the anti-immigrant bill was defeated.
Transforming passion into this kind of creative, progressive action is what Attica Woodson Scott has always been about. Born to a family of social justice activists, Attica began to harness her own activism in high school. Years later, after serving as the executive director of the National Conference for Community and Justice in Knoxville, TN, Attica felt the pull to return home to her native Louisville, KY.
But Attica wasn’t simply drawn to KY JwJ because it was in her hometown. She joined because it offered her an opportunity to work as part of a broad coalition of progressive organizations. A member of the National Jobs with Justice network, KY JwJ now counts more than 50 organizational members and 1,800 individual activists as part of their state coalition—each of whom has pledged to "be there five times for someone else's fight” as well as their own.
Working in a coalition is what positions KY JwJ so uniquely to make change, Attica notes. “With the immigration bill, we could call on organized labor in a way that other groups couldn’t, because we have those relationships, to say, ‘You know, you need to be at this table. You need to be part of planning our fight back against this bill.’”
Over the last several years, KY JwJ has focused its efforts on a number of crucial economic and social justice struggles. They’ve played a leading role in the battle to restore voting rights to former felons and just last year, successfully organized iron workers in a campaign against an employer found to be routinely paying immigrant workers less than half of what it paid white workers for the same construction jobs.
Through it all, Attica says, the Ms. Foundation has played a critical role. From connecting KY JwJ to other grantees in the US South, to ensuring that program officers are always engaged and accessible, the Ms. Foundation has provided more than just money—they’ve provided the kind of partnership and support that enables grassroots organizations to effect real change.
“Some foundations like to keep a distance,” Attica notes. “But the folks from Ms. haven’t been like that. Because of their involvement, they get to see, on a regular basis, what we’re doing in a way that’s different. To me that’s valuable.
“Having financial and resource support from Ms. encourages us to keep pushing and asking questions in ways that otherwise we may have been fearful to do. We can ask labor organizers, ‘Where are the women in the work? Where are they in leadership?’ and not be fearful that we’re going to lose funding.”
Attica’s vision for the future calls upon those of us working for social justice to organize in ways that place real value on coalitions and the inclusion of all communities, including women. “My hope is that we will develop a different way of working together that values all of our humanity, building movements that focus on and respect everything that makes us different, and yet acknowledge and value the intersections of those issues—economic, race, gender identity, sexual orientation or any other. Because until we can do that, we will not build communities, we will not build relationships. We will not build power.”
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