We are launching a campaign to support our first Stipended Cultural Organizing Fellowship led by our founder, Tracy (T-Spirit" Stanton), a formerly incarcerated internationally recognized spoken word artist, cultural organizer, well-being coach, healer, movement builder, and poetic strategist. 

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Highlander defines Cultural organizing as the strategic, intersectional use of art, culture, and spirit (faith/wellness) to advance justice, shift power, and create progressive policy within marginalized communities. We see it as a grassroots, intergenerational approach that integrates community traditions into organizing strategies to foster leadership and long-term social change. 

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​We’ll be inviting 5 -10 formerly incarcerated artists and organizers into a 6-month fellowship that integrates art, somatic healing, and political education. Fellows will close the fellowship with a group project connected to a campaign.

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The goal is for our fellows to deepen their craft, strengthen their creative discipline, expand their artistic voice, sharpen their strategy, and lead during this political moment.  We’ll move through an intensive cultural organizing curriculum that journeys from art & social justice movements, and creative entrepreneurship to advanced campaign strategy, power mapping, movement planning, and healing practices.

 

​Alongside this training, each participant receives one-on-one therapeutic coaching to support personal healing, accountability, and sustainable leadership development. 

While I am blessed to be in a community saturated with art and grassroots social justice organizations, we are the only initiative in St. Louis that intentionally integrates both to support systems-impacted cultural organizers.  

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​When we connect story, rhythm, vulnerability, data, and policy, we create change individually, collectively, culturally, and structurally. 

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Your support helps us:

• Provide stipends to fellows so they can fully participate

• Fund healing resources and coaching

• Produce community performances and campaign actions

• Build a model that uplifts systems-impacted cultural organizers

This work is urgent. Systems of incarceration and disinvestment continue to silence voices but together, we can amplify them. When you give, you are investing in artists, organizers, and visionaries who are transforming pain into power and stories into change.