Join us on or an Oakland book event with Beth Howard, author of Song for a Hard Hit People: A Memoir of Antiracist Solidarity From a Coal Miner's Daughter.
When: Thursday, September 24 at 6:00-7:30pm
Where: Revival Hall, 4799 Shattuck Ave, Oakland, CA
Co-sponsors: Catalyst Project, Center for Political Education, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Movement Generation, Showing Up for Racial Justice-Bay Area
ACCESS INFO & RSVP BELOW
About the book:
An Appalachian organizer’s excavation of the past, her own and her people’s, to spark a collective fight for a future where we all have what we need and deserve
In Song for a Hard-Hit People, Beth Howard shares her story of growing up in Appalachian Kentucky—the economic struggles, trauma, and ever-present sexism along with the loving care of her close-knit rural community. These complex people shaped Howard’s sense of justice and solidarity, and taught her about the inextricable bonds working-class people share, despite our differences. But her childhood also left her with emotional wounds that threatened to destroy the life she built for herself. While healing her wounds is deeply personal, there’s no separating it from the people and place that made her.
Appalachia is often framed as a place to escape from, where people are hateful, lazy, and bring tragedy upon themselves. But in her quest to understand her home and her people, Howard uncovers the powerful history of white Appalachians fighting alongside Black and Brown people, pushing back against billionaires who gain power by using racism to divide them. Appalachia, she realizes, has not only been hit hard; it is the place to wage a freedom struggle.
Too many of us are denied the basic necessities of life: somewhere decent to live, good food to eat, health care that doesn’t break the bank, jobs that don’t kill us. As Howard reminds us, we haven’t got a chance—unless we organize.
In the midst of divisive rhetoric, violent repression, and grifters writing elegies, may this story be a song.
About the author:
Beth Howard is author of the memoir Song For a Hard-Hit People: A Memoir of Antiracist Solidarity From a Coal Miner's Daughter from Haymarket Books and the Cultural Strategist for Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), the largest national organization bringing white people into the fight for racial and economic justice. She grew up in a rural working-class community in Eastern Kentucky and has organized in the American South for two decades, primarily in her beloved home state of Kentucky.
Beth has been a lead organizer on campaigns to raise the minimum wage and restore voting rights. She's also engaged white working-class Southerners on successful electoral campaigns, including ones that defeated an abortion ban ballot initiative in the 2022 Kentucky midterms and reelected Democratic Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear in 2023—and ran a rural field office in the 2020 Georgia runoff election. She is a co-founder of Kentucky Peoples Union in Ashland, KY.
Beth is the creator of the viral narrative campaign Rednecks for Black Lives, and has been featured on the NBC News National Day of Racial Healing special, Matter of Fact’s Listening Tour with Soledad O’Brian, NPR’s Here and Now, Now This News, in the book Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections, the New York Times, and The Boston Globe. Beth lives in Lexington, Kentucky. You can find her on Substack at Working Class Love Notes and online at bethhowardky.com.
⚠️ ACCESS INFORMATION
Food: Substantive snacks (vegetarian, vegan, high protein including meat, gluten-free, and sugar-free) will be provided.
Parking: Street parking is available.
Building Access: Revival Hall is wheelchair accessible, with a wheelchair lift providing access to the ballroom. We will have an accessibility usher on hand to support use of the wheelchair lift.
Bathroom: A bathroom in the entry hall is wheelchair accessible and gender-neutral. Bathrooms in the ballroom are gender-neutral.
Chemicals: We ask that attendees avoid all scents: this includes synthetic chemicals, scented body products, and even "natural" or aromatherapy essential oils. Fragrance-free soap will be provided in the bathrooms. We will have a fragrance-free seating area.
Covid & Masking Protocols: Masking with an N95 or KN95 while inside is required for all attendees, except while actively eating or drinking. Masks will be provided to anyone who needs one.
Please stay home if you have any symptoms.
If you test positive after the event, please email elisabeth@collectiveliberation.org so we can confidentially notify attendees.
Live Transcription: will be projected.
Other: Please let us know if you have other access accommodations that we may be able to provide!