Building rural power starts with listening—and organizing

Rural union members gathered at an AFT pre-convention session Wednesday with one key objective: to build a community that cannot be overlooked.

"Rural communities need to be part of the AFT's everyday work," said Texas AFT President Zeph Capo.

Creating relationships and building community is the most effective organizing tool rural communities have, Capo said, because while rural communities may seem isolated, they are not alone.

"We're facing the same issues," he said. "We have similar challenges and similar opportunities. We live in places where schools, colleges and public services are woven into everyday life, and showing up for your neighbors means something."

However, participants said rural members often confront a disconnect between their communities' values and priorities and state and national organizations' messages. When those messages do not reflect people's lives, they said, members can feel ignored and sometimes then tune out altogether.

One member from Cairo, Ill., a town of 1,500 residents near the Kentucky and Missouri borders, noted that "It's not one size fits all."

Another member who lives on the Hawaiian island of Maui said that "cities dominate things."

Talking with rural members means acknowledging their issues and values without leading with politics, which can shut down conversation, participants said. Capo cited Taylor Rehmet, a Democrat who won a special election for a state Senate seat in a deeply Republican Texas district by focusing on issues affecting people's everyday lives rather than on partisan alliances.

"We have to change the narrative from red versus blue to billionaires versus the rest of us," said AFT national staff member Kelly Nedrow. "That's the conversation that we have to have-it's not about the colors, it's about us."

Participants noted that rural communities also have distinct strengths. In small towns, people know one another, relationships matter and showing up for a neighbor can be a powerful organizing tool.

"When something happens in a community or happens to someone, everybody knows to step in," one participant said.

Capo emphasized that the rural caucus is looking for leaders who can facilitate connections and bring rural perspectives into the union's work.

"We need leaders to tell us what they are seeing and what they are hearing," he said. "We need to integrate our voices and reach our communities with a message they can hear."

Participants said building rural power will require stronger relationships across regions, messages that reflect rural communities, and a regular voice in state and national discussions.

"Rural people deserve representation just as much as everyone else," Capo said.

[Melanie Boyer/Photo credit: Megan Ackerman]