The Free Movement Conference is a laboratory for media, arts, and community organizing strategies for equity in the South.  Central to our mission is building the narrative and storytelling capacity of grassroots organizations to create economic, political, and social change.   

We are artists, youth organizers, faith leaders, grassroots leaders, rural and urban community organizers and racial justice advocates acting as a collaborative laboratory of creativity, freedom, and activism utilizing core Southern organizing strategies.

The Free Movement Conference grew out of a three-year listening project involving 739 participants from 4 southern states representing 43 grassroots organizations.  This listening project included “Black Man Running,” a public art project that hacked 5K runs into community cultural events. Today, the Free Movement community consists of a local/regional steering committee, a weekly running/walk group, a youth media project, and an annual conference.  

The Free Movement Conference has emerged as a vibrant organizing project.  With dozens of volunteers, the conference hosts over 75 hands-on workshops, panels, strategy sessions and networking events.  The 2019 conference is currently accepting workshop submissions.

Tracks include:
Narrative Strategies: Storytelling for Social Change
Harm Reduction and Drug Policy Reform in the South
Grassroots Fundraising
The Art of Dissent
Strategies Against Mass Incarceration
Closing the School to Prison Pipeline
Journalism and Media Justice
Health Equity

Interested in submitting a workshop for a track? Please click here.  Need more information? Email us at info@narrativearts.org.

Free Movement Conference is a project of Narrative Arts, an arts and social justice nonprofit.