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Beth Howard of SURJ

Beth Howard

Beth Howard is the Appalachia Peoples Union Director for Showing Up for Racial Justice. She lives in Lexington, KY, but grew up in a rural white working -class community in Eastern Kentucky. She has organized in the American South for 17 years, serving as a lead organizer on winning campaigns to raise the minimum wage, restore voting rights, and win treatment programs for incarcerated people. She’s also worked on engaging white working-class Southerners in electoral campaigns, including the 2021 Georgia runoff and the defeat of the 2022 Kentucky abortion ban ballot initiative. Beth is the creator of the viral narrative campaign Rednecks for Black Lives and she’s been featured in the NBC News Now’s National Day of Racial Healing special, Matter of Fact’s Listening Tour with Soledad O’Brian, NPR’s Here and NowNow This News, and the book Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections.

Contributions from Beth Howard