Southern Echo, Inc.

southern echo is a leadership development, education and training organization working to develop effective accountable grassroots leadership in the african-american communities in rural mississippi and the surrounding region through comprehensive training and technical assistance programs. this work has carried echo staff into 12 other states in the south and southwest. the underlying goal is to empower local communities through effective community organizing work, in order to create a process through which community people can build the broad-based organizations necessary to hold the political, economic, educational, and environmental systems accountable to the needs and interests of the african-american community. a special emphasis for echo is the active inclusion of young people, in an inter-generational model of community organizing, on the same basis as adults. young people are less dependent upon the past, have the least fear of change, and the best potential for creating a bro