The Alston/Bannerman Fellowship Program, based in Baltimore, Maryland, is committed to advancing progressive social change by helping to sustain long-time activists of color.
The program honors those who have devoted their lives to helping their communities organize for racial, social, economic and environmental justice.
They've worked on a broad range of issues from environmental justice to fair wages, from immigrant rights to native sovereignty, from political empowerment to economic revitalization.
[1] Established in 1987, the Alston/Bannerman Fellowship Program was founded on the belief that the most effective approach to achieving progressive social change is by organizing low-income people at the grassroots level.
The program is named for Charles Bannerman had worked with Mississippi Action for Community Education (MACE), an organization founded by Fannie Lou Hamer, Annie Devine and other local civil rights leaders; and Dana Alston, an activist who worked with the National Black United Fund, the Southern Rural Women's Network, Rural America, TransAfrica Forum and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.