Economic Justice
Adelante is the only worker center in Alabama. Our members and staff lead the fight for economic justice and work hard to ensure that every person, no matter their job or wage is treated with dignity.
Our work includes:
Workers’ Rights Defense Program
- Informing workers about their rights through weekly wage theft clinics and “Know Your Rights” trainings.
- Advocating for workers who suffered wage theft and other abuses through mediation, direct action, and legal advocacy.
- Ensuring marginalized workers’ voices are included in local and statewide advocacy campaigns.
Housing Justice
- Providing orientation, organizing support, and advocacy to residents of apartment complexes and trailer parks who are taking on abusive landlords and dangerous and unhealthy living conditions.
Language Justice Collective
- We provide trainings to bilingual community members and allies on the principles of language justice and interpretation skills in order to build economic opportunities
- We also rent out our interpretation equipment on a sliding-scale basis to community organizations and interpreters.
Immigrant Justice
Every person, regardless of citizenship status, should be able to thrive and feel safe in our communities. Our immigrant justice work focuses on ending the pipeline from jails/prisons to ICE custody and working to dismantle our carceral system in order to achieve freedom for all people.
Here are some of the ways we’re fighting for freedom:
Community Deportation Defense & Rapid Response
- Providing orientation, support, and resources to community members who have a loved one in immigration detention.
- Advocate for the release of community members from detention centers and jails through public pressure, legal support and challenging local policies that support police-ICE collusion.
- Training community members to “Know Your Rights” with ICE and police.
- Participating in a Rapid Response Coalition of organizers and volunteers who mobilize to respond to reports of ICE activity in our community.
Accompaniment Program
- Training and coordinating a group of volunteer witnesses to accompany community members to court hearings, probation appointments, and check-ins with immigration authorities.
Detention Abolition
- Supporting the Shut Down Etowah Campaign and other efforts to reduce and ultimately end immigrant detention and mass incarceration.
- In 2020 we hosted our first ever multi-week training for formerly detained and incarcerated individuals with the goal of channeling participants into the movement to abolish detention centers and prisons in Alabama and across the country.
Arts & Culture
We weave a colorful, do-it-yourself aesthetic and vibrant imagery into all of our organizing work as a way to promote joy and healing in the face of oppression, to amplify our messages, and reach new audiences and supporters.
Here are some of the ways that we celebrate our creativity and culture:
- Design and print our own banners, silkscreened posters and T-shirts, and carry out other art-for-action projects
- Host our fourth annual Day of the Dead celebration, converting Adelante’s community space into a giant altar to honor our ancestors and victims of state violence in the U.S. and Latin America
- Host spring and fall Kermesses (community festivals) in Adelante’s space
- Host cultural events such as poetry nights, film screenings, and international food exchanges at least every two months
Litigation & Legal Advocacy
