2015 Year in Review

  • Organized Simple Justice #BlackLivesMatter, facilitating meetings, organizing educational events (Teach-In on Mass Incarceration), and helping  develop leadership.  This past fall Simple Justice #BlackLivesMatter became an official Black Lives Matter chapter.
  • Mentored 5 interns during the Spring and Fall to develop the next generation of activists.
  • Continued building on our statewide organizing, working with and supporting our local chapters  Lowcountry Peace,  Upstate Peace Network, Rock Hill for Peace, Aiken Peace and CSRA Peace Alliance.
  • Pushed to pass the S.3 Domestic Violence Bill in the SC Statehouse with action alerts, lobbying and letter campaigns along with a coalition of groups …and we won, giving SC a better DV law.
  • Supported the Iran Deal: Carolina Peace President’s letter to editor “Congress Must Not Sabotage Iran Deal” published Feb 3rd in Charleston Post & Courier and held a vigil outside of Rep. Wilson’s office.
  • Screened “MLK : A Call to Conscience” at Conundrum Music Hall.
  • In February, we organized a Rally to Repeal Stand Your Ground at the SC Statehouse on the 3rd anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s death.
  • We blew the whistle on SC legislators visiting illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank as well as an unconstitutional anti-BDS law passed by the the SC Statehouse, both the work of Rep. Alan Clemmons.
  • Peace Potluck & Talk with Tom Clements of Savannah River Site Watch on nuclear waste in April.
  • Helped mobilize the effort to take down the Confederate flag on the Statehouse grounds.
  • Held a Veggie Potluck with past Carolina Peace director Michael Berg in July.
  • 25th Annual Hiroshima Vigil co-sponsored with the Columbia Friends meeting featured a string quartet directed by Morihiko Nakahara of the SC Philharmonic at the Columbia Museum of Art.
  • Mobilization to the Days of Grace march/conference in Charleston and support and presented on militarism at the Carolinas Human Rights Organizing Conference (CHRONIC) in Greenville.
  • Organized a SC delegation to the Advancing a Mass Movement on Palestine Conference in Atlanta.
  • Organized talk by Nadín Reyes Maldonado on forced disappearances in Mexico at USC.
  • Presented on Nuclear Waste & Economics to an African-American faith group in Augusta, GA.
  • Helped organize a candlelight vigil in Aiken in opposition to an anti-Syrian refugee county council resolution. Local chapters are also working against this anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim sentiment.
  • Monthly organizing meetings at the historic Modjeska Simkins house in Columbia, SC.
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