In 1996, a battle over
the future of affirmative action was raging at UC Berkeley. Youth and
student organizers across the state were coming to consciousness and joining
the movement to defend equal access to education. Young women and young
people of color were the frontline fighters of this struggle for justice,
but they lacked the support and training they needed to confidently develop
as strong leaders. SOUL was born out of that struggle, designed to serve
as a program that would train young women and young people of color to
build and lead the social justice movement.
SOUL started as a summer training program inspired by the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee’s Freedom Summer. Since that first summer,
SOUL has blossomed from a student-based summer program into a year-round
community-based organizing and training center for young people. We now
run a wide variety of organizing skills trainings, political education
programs and technical assistance projects to meet the many needs of the
growing youth sector of the social justice movement in the Bay Area and
around the country. |
