Leadership

 ROOTS Week 2024. Photo: melisa cardona. As a beloved community of artists and cultural organizers, we know what to do in this time. We keep doing what we’ve been doing in this time.  We keep creating, truth telling, connecting, organizing, imagining and building a world rooted in justice, love, and liberation.  We’ve been doing this work. We’ll keep doing this work.  ROOTS has existed for nearly fifty years because artists and culture bearers are powerful and necessary agents of social transformation. ROOTS has existed for nearly fifty years because this community of justice loving cultural workers knows that we need strong relationships to carry us through.  ROOTS has existed for nearly fifty years because the South has always been on the frontlines of movement building in the US and the world.  In the coming years, we’re going to take care of ourselves and take care of our people. We’re going to stay well and strong and rooted in our mission.  One of the ways we do this is by gathering together. In November 2024, we met up for a virtual post-election “Porch Sit.” We talked, cried, laughed, and grounded ourselves in the strength of our beloved community. We fortified ourselves for the work ahead. 

 ROOTers in solidarity with Palestine at ROOTS Week 2024. Photo: melisa cardona As we get ready for the next presidential administration, Alternate ROOTS is lifting up our role in the Southern Movement Assembly (SMA). Alternate ROOTS has been an integral part of this vital southern movement since 2013, though ROOTS members have been part of SMA since the beginning.  SMA converges Southern frontline assemblies to collectively develop shared action plans rooted in political alignment. As members of the SMA governance team, we practice bottom-up, grassroots governance to build the infrastructure to carry out these action plans. At its core, our work with SMA is about building shared power, expanding democracy and community control, and defending our communities from violence.  We encourage all ROOTS members to join us and get involved with SMA. A great place to start is with the Get Ready Task Force. You can join the Task Force HERE and explore our Get Ready Tools & Resources guide HERE.  If you are looking for political analysis and organizing resources rooted in the realities of our region, this is the place for you.  If you are looking to connect with Southern organizers and artists working in your town, state, or region on the frontline issues you care about, this is the place for you. If you are seeking a Southern political home to root your art/cultural organizing practice in, this is the place for you.  In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing resources and stories from the SMA Task Force on our social media platforms. We’ll also continue including SMA’s monthly calls and yearly gathering in our Member News.  You, as an artist, have a place in this movement. We hope you’ll join us. 

 L-R: Paige Heurtin and Wendy Shenefelt are Alternate ROOTS’ new co-executive directors, and Keryl McCord is the ROOTS ExComm Chair. Photo: melisa cardona, 2024. Beloved Community, This has been quite a year. In fall of 2023, we stepped forward to serve ROOTS as interim co-executive directors. Less than a year later, we were named co-executive directors of Alternate ROOTS. We are honored to provide leadership for the next chapter of Alternate ROOTS.  We deeply love and enjoy this community and are dedicated to bringing the visionary and steady leadership that ROOTS needs at this time in our nearly 50-year history. We’ll continue building strong partnerships and comradeships across the South and nation, just as we’ve done for our shared 20 years at ROOTS and 40 years working for the public good. As we move further into our roles, we are committed to meeting our members and staff where they are, listening to their perspectives, and working together to find solutions.  Our vision for the next chapter of this beloved community involves rooting ourselves in best practices, retaining talented folks, and supporting their wellness and ability to make their strongest contributions. We envision a membership, staff, and Executive Committee that feels fully integrated into the work and community. We will build on ROOTS’ history and support our leaderful community where many can step into the roles needed to seed, tend, and nourish our thriving organization through our 50th year and beyond.  Our 2024 theme is Southern Soil: Sankofa Seeds. Sankofa is an Akan word from the Twi language of Ghana, meaning “go back and get it.” As we move forward as a community, we do so grounded in our history, in our people, in our culture and legacy. When we are challenged, we find solutions in innovative visioning, but also look back to where we have been. We take the lessons we have learned along with the new ideas, and we braid them together. Grounded in our mission, rooted in our art and organizing practices, we can’t wait to see what we can create together! In joyful community, Paige HeurtinWendy ShenefeltCo-Executive Directors, Alternate ROOTS 

L-R: Paige Heurtin and Wendy Shenefelt are Alternate ROOTS’ new co-executive directors. Photo: melisa cardona, 2024. With joy, gratitude, and excitement for the future, we announce the next chapter of executive leadership at Alternate ROOTS. Please join us in welcoming Paige Heurtin and Wendy Shenefelt as co-executive directors of this beloved community! Many of us know Wendy and Paige as devoted members of the ROOTS community. Together they have a combined twenty years as staff members of Alternate ROOTS and more than forty years working for the public good. Paige brings a wealth of experience in financial management, operations, human resources, and fundraising; prior to ROOTS she served at the Manship Theatre at the Shaw Center for the Arts and the Seaside Community Foundation. Wendy’s expertise includes arts administration, youth development, and social justice organizing and advocacy; she has worked with the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Children’s Defense Fund, and Mississippi Arts Commission. In addition to their depth of experience and strong connections to ROOTS, Paige and Wendy are deeply rooted Southerners. Together, they have lived in eight out of the fifteen states in ROOTS’ region. Their regional roots shine through in so many ways: from their commitment to justice and movement work to the love, humor, and radical hospitality they weave into everything they do. Since September 2023, Wendy and Paige have served as ROOTS’ interim co-executive directors, providing steady leadership during this time of transition. Co-leadership models are by no means new to ROOTS; as an organization, we have continually reimagined the way we do leadership, guided by our value of shared power. In the mid-90s, Kathie deNobriga, Lisa Grady-Willis, and Greg Carraway led ROOTS as “the triumvirate” set of Directors, all with equal job titles and equal salaries. In recent years, many of our movement partners have adopted co-director models as well. A co-executive director model is both rooted in our past and aligned with the present. L-R: Paige Heurtin, Wendy Shenefelt, and Keryl McCord at ROOTS Week. Photo: melisa cardona, 2024. Keryl McCord, a champion of the field of arts and justice, a former Managing Director of Alternate ROOTS, and our current Executive Committee (ExComm) Chair notes: “Critically, it was Paige and Wendy who proposed we continue the shared executive leadership structure begun during the interim period, thereby modeling ROOTS’ value of shared power.” Keryl also reflected on her time working with Wendy and Paige during her tenure at ROOTS: “Getting to know them, working side by side with them, was an incredible gift. Witnessing their work ethic, tenacity, creativity, compassion, and their commitment to the mission of ROOTS was demonstrated daily. Their commitment to serving our members was unwavering and unparalleled.” Alternate ROOTS’ Executive Committee selected Paige and Wendy after a formal, nine month national search process led by a task force of ROOTS members. Through surveys and listening sessions, the task force engaged a diverse array of stakeholders including members, staff, and partners in the field to determine the type of leadership that was needed at ROOTS during this critical time. What emerged: visionary and principled; team-centered and collaborative; deep relationship skills; commitment to racial equity; cultural roots in the South; connection to the ROOTS community; and managerial, financial, and fundraising acumen. Keryl, who was part of the task force, says that even as longtime staff members and interim co-executive directors, “it wasn’t a foregone conclusion Wendy and Paige would be selected as our next leaders. They rose to the top of the list of candidates because it was clear they are the best of ROOTS, understanding at a granular level the importance of this deeply diverse coalition of artists committed to art, culture, community, and justice.” “A jubilant, joyous, resounding outpouring.” ROOTS members on their feet at the announcement that Wendy and Paige are the organization’s next co-executive directors. Photo: melisa cardona, 2024. “Based upon the jubilant, joyous, resounding outpouring of love and thunderous applause at ROOTS Week when their selection was announced,” Keryl reflected, “our members, too, knew we made the right choice. On behalf of the Executive Committee we are thrilled to welcome Wendy and Paige as our new executive team.” Paige and Wendy wrote about their approach to leadership at ROOTS in October 2024. They also invited the community to a very special virtual “Porch Sit” conversation hosted by Keryl and ExComm President Sara Green.  As we move forward with Paige and Wendy at the forefront, we are filled with hope and enthusiasm for what lies ahead. Their leadership marks a new chapter in the story of Alternate ROOTS: one that honors our past, embraces our present, and dreams boldly into our future. Together, with the collective strength of our members, partners, and friends, we will continue to create and sustain the transformative work that defines ROOTS. We invite you to join us in this journey, as we step into this exciting new chapter with hearts full of gratitude and a shared commitment to justice, community, and the arts.