Labor South is coming to Memphis.

Organizing for racial and economic justice across the South — and we're building it together.

Labor South (Sur Obrero) develops worker organizers, student leaders, and allies to build lasting power for working people across the U.S. South. They're partnering with labor here in Memphis on shared projects — and this is where that collaboration lives.

What Labor South Does

Three pillars of building working-class power across the South.

Building Student Leaders

Developing Black and immigrant working-class youth into the next generation of organizers and movement leaders across the South.

Training Worker Organizers

Equipping frontline workers with the skills, strategy, and solidarity to organize their own workplaces and win.

Educating Allies

Bringing faith, community, and student allies into the labor movement to build durable, cross-sector power.

Collaborating in Memphis

Memphis is sacred ground for the labor movement — the city of the 1968 sanitation strike and I AM A MAN. Labor South wants to come to Memphis and work hand-in-hand with local unions and worker leaders on organizing, youth leadership, and education projects. This page is the front door to that partnership.

Your Point of Contact

Melinda Wiggins

Labor South · Sur Obrero

A longtime Southern labor and economic-justice organizer, Melinda is leading Labor South's push to build worker power across the region — including the new collaboration with labor in Memphis. She's the bridge between Labor South and our locals on the ground.

Southern Labor, In the Streets

UAW Local 2406 GM on strike — joined by Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris.

2021 strike at Kellogg's Memphis — joined by the late great State Rep. G.A. Hardaway, who was always on the ground with working people.

2014 Kellogg's BCTGM Local 252G lockout — marching in the annual Dr. King parade in Memphis, joined by BCTGM locals from across the United States.

President Kevin Bradshaw and Labor South's Melinda Wiggins at the historic Centenary United Methodist Church in Memphis — building the partnership.

Fiscal Sponsor: Institute for Southern Studies

Labor South is fiscally sponsored by the Institute for Southern Studies, a nonprofit research and media center that has been a voice for a changing South for decades. Its award-winning publication, Facing South, reports on justice, democracy, and working people across the region.

Partner With Us

Want to collaborate with Labor South on a Memphis project — organizing, youth leadership, or worker education? Tell us how you'd like to plug in and we'll be in touch.