“Virginia doesn’t stop at Roanoke,” said Janice “Jay” Johnson, VOP chairperson. “VOP has realized this since we started by organizing our earliest chapters in places like Lee County and Wythe County. We have known for a long time that Virginia’s far southwest is as far west as Detroit, and closer to Atlanta than to Richmond.”

“Now we are hearing this phrase again,” Johnson said. VOP Organizer Brian Johns is covering the six House of Delegate districts from Pulaski and Galax to the Kentucky state line, carrying out hundreds of one-to-one conversations. VOP is reconnecting with folks in counties where we’ve had active chapters or members before, such as Washington County and Abingdon, Lee County, Wise County, Bland County, Wythe County and Wytheville. These groups are deciding what kinds of local campaigns they may want to work on. Issues that have come up include lack of accessible health care, drug abuse issues, living wage campaigns, and trying to hold predatory lenders more accountable.

About VOP’s new organizing in Southwest Virginia, Steve Fisher, long-time VOP member and even longer time social justice activist said, “I’m excited about having an organizer in the region to bring new energy, insight and direction to our ongoing work here. I know VOP understands the importance of the underlying values of building relationships and bringing people together, and this is an opportunity to build new links with each other.”

Johns is also meeting with citizens and community groups who have never heard of VOP who might be interested in doing new organizing. Discussions continue about issues such as the lack of jobs in the region, the environmental destruction caused by polluting industries and strip mining, and the lack of reliable transportation.

“Over the course of the next few months we will figure out if there are campaigns we can strategize and carry out to address these issues,” Johnson said.

Greg Morrell, executive director of the Appalachian Independence Center, said, “My goal would be for organizations and individuals to get together and understand that we have common concerns and the more we learn about each other’s concerns the more effective we can be in addressing these issues.”

Southwest Virginia has a long history of people coming together to organize for justice in their communities. From former coal towns where the company owned everything but has now pulled out completely, to a town that has lost 2,000 or more furniture factory jobs in the past 5-10 years, to an organization working to connect former small tobacco farmers now growing organic produce to local customers wanting local food, people are coming together and organizing in Southwest Virginia.

“The Virginia Organizing Project has helped to lead some of that organizing since its beginning, and we plan to continue that organizing as we strategize new local campaigns, build new chapters, and plug into the good work already going on in the region,” Johnson said. “There is a lot of this great Commonwealth to the Southwest of Roanoke, and the residents of the region are building power and organizing for change in Southwest Virginia and across the rest of the state.”

For more information about VOP’s organizing in Southwest Virginia, or if you are a resident or group who wants to connect to that organizing, contact Brian Johns at bjohns@virginia-organizing.org or (276) 619-1920.