Thanks to you, we ROCKED 2022!
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Thanks to you we made it through 2022 with a BANG and boy did we have a lot to celebrate! You were with us every step of the way as we launched our Power for Southern People Campaign and proved to us our work is not in vain. Here are some campaign highlights, things you should know, as well as ways you can get involved in 2023!
As ratepayers for either Mississippi Power, Alabama Power, or Georgia Power, we are well aware that our utility bills are on the rise! While families are still living with inflation, some of the latest news out of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia tells us that rates will continue to rise over the next few years. Southern Company makes money by building dirty energy infrastructure we don’t need and charging us for it so the company and its shareholders can MAKE MORE MONEY. It’s time to build our network across the south from Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to take back our power as utility ratepayers.
a few things you need to know:
Most of Southern Company’s revenues come from regulated businesses, which means the main ways for them to generate more revenues are through winning rate increases from Public Service Commissions or supporting the growth of its customer base.
Southern Company’s (SO) stock price is up 68 percent since its pre-COVID low, from $43.95 on December 24, 2019, to $78.90 on August 23, 2022.
At the federal level, of Southern Company’s $2.9 million in political contributions from 2019 to 2022, $716,000 went to members of Congress who voted to overturn the presidential election results.
Ways you can get involved:
SIGN Power 4 Southern People NOTE Southern Company campaign demands and learn more about the campaign by CLICKING HERE!
READ about the latest actions by Southern Company and their affiliates!
WATCH
MAKE a donation to your local Hub - think of it as gathering the people you know to support what you’re doing. Remember it’s not about the dollar amount but the buy-in.
SIGN-UP to be a volunteer (phone/text banking, postcard writing, etc) and invite a friend to join you!
CONNECT!! Follow Arm in Arm on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!!
For more information on ending the climate crisis check out the Vision for Equitable Climate Action, a platform of just and equitable policies with the goal of satisfying what climate science says is necessary to hold global average temperature rise to 1.5°C.
The solutions to ending the climate crisis centering racial and economic justice are rooted in the southern states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Mississippi Power, Alabama Power, and Georgia Power (each a subsidiary of Southern Company) together with legislators and others in their pockets are actively denying the climate crisis and dismantling our democracy and reproductive rights. From higher utility bills, voting rights, anti-trans and LGBTQ bills, including threats to Roe v Wade; the same legislators that are stripping away our civil rights across every frame are perpetuating inequitable energy outcomes that are hurting families and communities across the south.
In May 2022, Arm in Arm kicked off its flagship campaign in Atlanta, Georgia. Customers and residents within Southern Company’s three-state footprint kicked off a Power 4 Southern People NOT Southern Company week of actions and campaign planning to hold company CEOs and legislators accountable, recruit people into the fight, and build relationships across our states. This was a week of important decisions and conversations being had in Georgia such as the Georgia primary elections, the Integrated Resource Process (IRP) hearings, and the Southern Company annual shareholders meeting. The goal was to maintain a constant presence throughout the week to put Southern Company on notice of our campaign, make the connection between monopoly utility companies, the legislators in their pockets and the shareholders they're all working for. People from Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, DC, and Tennessee, joined forces in acts of civil disobedience to show solidarity by participating in candlelight vigils to honor each other and the collective impacts to our communities, light projections on the State Capitol and Southern Company CEO offices with key justice centered messaging, and a banner drop reading “We Deserve a Liveable Future.” The largest days of action were a rally outside and strategic meeting attendance at the Southern Company shareholders meeting at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, GA on Wednesday, May 25th, and a rally and mutual aid support to the houseless in the area outside the IRP hearings at the Georgia Public Service Commission on Thursday, May 26.
Thank you to our Partners for being an invaluable part of this campaign launch: Education, Economics, Environmental, Climate, and Health Organization (EEECHO), Mississippi Rising Coalition (MRC), GASP, Margins, The People’s Justice Council, Sierra Club - Beyond Coal Campaign, Georgia Conservation Voters, Georgia for the Coalition for the People’s Agenda, 9to5 Georgia, Sustainable Georgia Futures, Girl + Environment.
Following the events of May, Arm in Arm executed events in Louisiana, Georgia, and Alabama to train the base of supporters, engage the public, and provide mutual aid. The strategies working from these actions include multi-state collaboration and leadership (between MS, AL, and GA), Black and BIPOC leadership, grassroots organizing, mutual aid, peer-to-peer fundraising, and partner training and support.
The Gulf Gathering for Climate Justice and Joy convened by the Gulf South for a Green New Deal June 3-5 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana was amazing!!! There were two days of centering the local community by bearing witness to struggles, challenges and triumphs that were shared across the broad spectrum of local and regional climate activists in the Gulf South including Puerto Rico. Discussions were related to stopping false solutions (including Carbon Capture Sequestration and biomass) to a just transition. Attendees participated in deep and courageous conversations together around ways to collaborate more closely and effectively at the local, regional and national levels. There were multiple opportunities to experience the rich, vibrant and resilient culture of indigenous and black communities in Louisiana in spiritual practice, music, dance, poetry and food…….GREAT food! We express gratitude to our USCAN member, Tap Root Earth (formerly Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy) for extending the invitation to such a memorable and transformational experience.
In July in Birmingham, AL, the Arm in Arm team executed a P4SPNSoCo event at the Alabama World Games to call out World Games CEO Nick Sellers, who also happens to be an executive at Alabama Power - a subsidiary of Southern Company. Alabama Power, the Alabama Public Service Commission, and their enablers have explicitly put profits over people living in local communities. Residents have been hurt and left out of long-term investments while strangers from around the world got brand new multi-million dollar accommodations for just a couple weeks of events. Arm in Arm and Partners held two important actions: the Peoples Tug of War, in which we demonstrated the strength of People Power against billion dollar corporations, and a People’s Power Aid stand, in which a lemonade stand with free and fresh hand-squeezed was served alongside $174 “filthy rich” lemonade, to illustrate the hypocrisy, and offered mutual aid. Please see the official June 14th press release for the World Games Weekend of Actions! Hear from local Birmingham leader Celida Soto Garcia about the need to build people power!
On October 13, 2022, the Arm in Arm Hub in Mississippi held a rally at the Mississippi Power office in Gulfport, Mississippi to mark the implosion of the Kemper Plant and to protest against the injustice committed by Southern Company and their affiliates against residents of Kemper County. The “clean coal” plant was imploded before generating ANY energy but rate payers are still on the hook for the bill. Activists from Mississippi Rising Coalition, Mississippi for a Green New Deal, and Arm in Arm participated in the action, carrying signs reading: “Did you know about Kemper?” and “Our air is under attack, fight back “. Volunteers participated in phone and text banking to energy burdened communities in the 5 counties surrounding the Kemper Plant in Kemper County, MS. Campaign state lead Artis Burney wrote an’ oped that got published in three locations: 1) Mississippi Free Press, 2) Clarion Ledger - Sunday Oct 30 edition (link unavailable), 3) Common Dreams. You can read more information in this press release.M
Coalition partners and Arm in Arm came together the night before the Georgia Rate Case on 9/26 to tell Georgia Power #DontRaiseMyBill. If you haven't heard, Georgia Power has submitted a plan to the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) asking for a $2.8 billion rate increase. The average increase will be approximately $200 per year for the average household.
Georgia Conservation Voters, Girl + Environment, Arm in Arm, Black Voters Matter, the Sierra Club Georgia Chapter Beyond Coal Campaign, held an action on September 26th the night before the hearings start on Georgia Power's proposed rate increases to make a spectacle of the ridiculous decisions people have to make daily to pay their energy bills or pay for something else. It's time to tell the Georgia PSC, Don’t Raise My Bill and stop the proposed increase because people's utility bills are too high already! Raising rates is unjustified, inequitable and will hurt many of our communities the most. We highlighted the unjust burden of Georgia Power's high bills with a candlelight vigil outside the Georgia Public Service Commission and offered mutual aid to those needing support to pay their utility bills. While leaving chalk messages for those entering the PSC in the morning, we were confronted by police who told us the sidewalk was government property and asked us to cross the street.
In December 2022, Arm in Arm Hubs working together on the Power 4 Southern People NOT Southern Company campaign held a "party bus" action and commissioned mobile billboards. The idea is to build the number of people that know about Southern Company’s predatory and anti-democratic practices by taking the information into communities instead of asking folks to come to us. In order to make the company politically toxic, rate payers have to know why they are such a bad company. A bus of local community members traveled to multiple Mississippi counties, passed out information, connected with energy burden communities, and live streamed the entire event. Alabama and Georgia saw mobile billboards with targeting messaging about 1) how much money people have paid to Alabama Power and 2) how much the Georgia Public Service Commission could approve in rate hikes over the next few years, all to boost shareholder profits.
We are continuing to grow, expand, and improve upon our mutual aid programs! We dispersed food outside the Georgia Public Service Commission and funds at the Alabama World Games, and Georgia Rate Case. In total we have dispersed $20,000 in mutual aid funds; prioritizing single Black mothers and Black elders, single parents, disabled folks, trans-identifying folks, and those experiencing housing insecurity.
Since the launch of the Power for Southern People NOT Southern Company campaign, we have made tremendous progress towards reaching our goals, growing our base and support system, bringing aligned organizations and partners into the fold, and creating a plan to win in the coming year.
Our goal in 2023 is to show people that Southern Company is anti-democratic and prioritizes shareholders over communities. We will continue to share and others to share stories of families in the South that have some of the steepest utility bills in the country. In planning for our future, we will continue to build power in Southern communities. We will make it politically toxic to take money from Southern Company, and we will do this to get them out of the pockets of our elected officials. Power to Southern People, NOT Southern Company. This campaign is a Black-led campaign and will be organizing predominantly in communities of color and low-wealth communities..
We know that currently there is not enough grassroots support behind a unified vision to push for equitable responses to the increasing climate disasters that we’re seeing. We know that too many proposed solutions are not centered around racial justice and equity. If we follow our current trajectory, at best, we will continue to see the same inadequate top-down responses and solutions that fail our frontline communities that are disproportionately likely to be affected by climate change. However, “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” So let’s do it! We can do this together.