[VIDEO] Voices From the Field: Jobs with Justice Talks Organizing, Immigration in KY

Since the 112th Congress convened in January, progressives have watched as the issues we care deeply about -- health care reform, immigrants' rights, reproductive justice, and workers' rights -- have come under attack from the new majority in the House, and in many statehouses across the country. This new reality leaves many of us profoundly concerned for our collective future, and wondering: what can be done to protect and promote social justice in an increasingly conservative environment? What strategies can social justice organizations best use to beat back the rising conservative tide?

To being to answer these questions, in early 2011 the Ms. Foundation brought together two grantees, Sarita Gupta of our National Jobs with Justice and Attica Woodson Scott of Kentucky Jobs with Justice, for a conversation about the future of progressive organizing. Their wide-ranging discussion addressed how the more conservative political landscape was affecting their own organizing -- as well as how it it affects the lives of the women, workers and families they represent.

We were pleased to be able to provide a special opportunity for Sarita and Attica -- who, because of their lives as organizers, rarely have time to connect at length -- to come together for an extended conversation in this way. And the powerful ideas that their dialogue produced underscore just how important it is that we connect the wisdom and power of both grassroots and national organizing in advocacy for social change.

In this first in a series of excerpts from their conversation, Sarita and Attica discuss KJwJ's recent victory in defeating harsh anti-immigrant legislation in the Bluegrass State -- and how legislating hate harms us all.