While historic activist movements like the Civil Rights movement and the LGBTQ+ rights movement are best remembered for their big protests and major policy shifts, Matthew Woodruff, an assistant professor at Emory’s School of Medicine and a co-founder of STAND, recognizes these movements were made of hundreds of small, community organizations.
When Donald Trump was inaugurated into office in January, a similar community organization was born from a group of neighbors in Decatur with one question: what can we realistically do about this?
“I think that it was pretty clear in January of 2025 that maybe this Trump administration was going to look a little different than the last Trump administration,” Woodruff told Rough Draft. “Maybe the headwinds were going to be a little stronger, the bad policy was going to roll a little hotter and a little faster… We wanted to build community, and specifically we wanted to build community with the intent of asserting and defending the dignity of all people.”
STAND was built on the belief that in the face of overwhelming global conflict and turmoil, we have to turn to our neighbors and communities. The organization has three goals: support those harmed by destructive policy, share information and resources removed from federal agencies, and protest. In less than a year, STAND has garnered 275 members in the Decatur area and held 18 events. Their next event, Stand for Peace on Sept. 20, will harness the power of storytelling as a tool for political organizing.
“We want to be acting on behalf of folks, but in order to do that, what we really need to be doing is we need to be operating with them,” Woodruff said. “We’re trying to take a step back and say, ‘Are we hearing the voices of the communities that are frequently most vulnerable in situations like this?’”
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The event will offer a variety of modalities for people to share and hear stories, all organized by professional storyteller StoryMuse. Attendees can sit down for half an hour to record their stories, casually share their experiences in one-on-one conversations, share their insights with Q&A cards, and connect with media representatives of Rough Draft’s Georgia Voice and 285 South.
Attendees can also get connected with other local organizations like Afghan-American Alliance of Georgia, Georgia Equality, DAMES Doing Good, Trans Joy, Coalition for a Diverse DeKalb, Feet of Clay, and Blessing Bags of Warmth.
Stand for Peace, a celebration in honor of the International Day of Peace, will also connect people with their neighbors with live music, hourly bubble parties, free snow cones, and food from the immigrant/refugee community.
“We’re trying to create a welcoming, inviting space where people can come in, hear stories, tell stories, and hopefully walk away having met a community or learning something about a community that they want to help,” Woodruff said, adding that he hopes the event and all the work STAND does acts as a salve against policies attempting to divide us.
“As those dividing attempts fall down into our communities from the top, there needs to be an equally impressive force that is trying to pull that community together from the bottom,” he said.
Stand or Peace is Sept. 20 at 1:30 p.m. at North Decatur United Methodist Church, 1523 Church St. To learn more about STAND, visit whenwestand.org.
