Beth Howard

Beth is the Appalachia People’s Union Director for Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ). From a rural white working class community in Eastern Kentucky, she has organized in the South for 17 years, spearheading campaigns to raise the minimum wage, restore voting rights and win treatment programs for incarcerated people. Beth created the viral narrative campaign “Rednecks for Black Lives” and was featured in outlets including Matter of Fact Listening Tour with Soledad O’Brien and NPR’s Here and Now. While at Mesa Refuge, Beth finished her forthcoming book, Rednecks for Black Lives, which tells the story of how she became a revolutionary, a self proclaimed “redneck” and an organizer, and includes an activism toolkit for Southern working class white people.