Project South

Our Gulf South family is in our thoughts as Hurricane Isaias approaches landfall along the Gulf Coast. States of emergency have been declared in parts of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.

We're resharing these important hurricane preparedness and safety tips to help our communities stay safe.

We encourage everyone in the storm's path to stay informed, take precautions, and look out for one another. In moments like these, community care, solidarity, and mutual aid are more important than ever.

Stay safe, check on your neighbors, and remember: we keep each other safe. 💙

As Hurricane Isaias approaches, we're sharing this call for community support from SONG - Southerners On New Ground. Whether you need assistance or have resources to share with neighbors and community members, please fill out this short form so they can elevate your needs and community efforts!

https://bit.ly/isaias_support

Let's continue to show up for one another, practice collective care, and keep our communities safe. We keep us safe!

📢 UPDATE: EVENT POSTPONED: 📢

Brownsville Homecoming & People’s Movement Assembly (PMA) Postponed

After thoughtful conversations with community members, partners, and staff, and in a spirit of collective care, accountability, and love, Project South has made the decision to postpone the Brownsville Homecoming & People’s Movement Assembly (PMA) due to the potential impact of Hurricane Isaias and the State of Emergency declared in Georgia and other states.

The safety and well-being of our communities remain our highest priority.

Project South is reaching out directly to all confirmed and registered participants and partners to share this update. We ask that you help spread the word to anyone in your networks who may have planned to attend.

Over the next two weeks, we will work to confirm a new date for the Brownsville Homecoming & PMA and share that information with our community as soon as possible.

We extend our deepest gratitude to everyone who has poured their time, energy, and love into organizing this gathering. To our Brownsville community members, youth leaders, partners, organizers, and Project South staff, thank you for your commitment to this process and to building collective power in our communities.

This work continues, and we look forward to coming together when it is safe to do so. We are postponed, not canceled!

In solidarity and love,
Project South

✊🏾 OPPORTUNITIES FOR ORGANIZERS: BUILDING POWER FOR THE LONG HAUL

⭐ DOWNLOAD THE SNAPSHOT here (or at the link in bio): bit.ly/OCTSIT

Social movements are in a 10-year fight to prevent multigenerational, global fascism. We need strategies that advance short, medium, and long-term visions, moving us beyond collective survival toward building lasting people power.

Here's a snapshot of the October 2026 Situation Report, produced by the Assembly of Assemblies Synthesis & Recon Team.

Our hope is that this report will help organizers and movements:

👉🏾 Spark critical conversations�
👉🏾 Sharpen collective strategy�
👉🏾 Identify opportunities for action
�👉🏾 Strengthen our collective preparation for the struggles ahead

The future is not predetermined. We have a role in shaping what comes next.

📖 READ & DOWNLOAD THE SNAPSHOT here (or at the link in bio): bit.ly/OCTSIT

📖 READ & DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT for deeper analysis, strategic insights, and opportunities for organizers: bit.ly/OCTSITREP

🔗 Learn more about the Assembly of Assemblies: assemblyofassemblies.my.canva.site

Project South’s Countering State Repression team is following developments at the Folkston ICE Processing Center in Folkston, Georgia, where dozens of detained immigrants have launched a mass hunger strike protesting prolonged detention, human rights violations, and deteriorating conditions inside the facility.

The Folkston detention center is a former state prison operated by GEO Group under contract with ICE. One of the nation’s largest private prison operators, GEO Group has faced widespread allegations, lawsuits, investigations, and legal challenges concerning human rights abuses, unsafe conditions, inadequate medical care, and constitutional violations across the facilities it operates.

At Folkston, this week detained immigrants launched a hunger strike to protest prolonged and arbitrary detention, systemic abuse, and inhumane conditions. They also released an open letter calling for greater public attention and pressure on ICE for their release, along with a comprehensive 9-page report documenting conditions and violations inside the detention center, based on their firsthand accounts and experiences.

The hunger strikers are protesting:
▪Extended, arbitrary detentions lasting up to two to three years without resolution.
▪Severe medical and dental neglect, including untreated infections.
▪Substandard living conditions, including spoiled food, cramped quarters, lack of access to fresh air/sunlight, and black mold.
▪Hostile behavior and xenophobic treatment from correctional officers managed by the GEO Group.

“We are the faces of this country’s broken immigration system. We are the victims of ICE’s political agenda to detain and deport as many as possible no matter who, no matter what.”
— Idris Makhmudov, detained for 27 months

“One might say we have become political prisoners in the United States, simply because we are immigrants.”
— Mujtaba Qeyami, detained for 20 months

The hunger strikers are demanding:
▪Immediate release from detention into the United States and reunification with their loved ones
▪Protection from retaliation, re-detention, and deportation
▪Immediate intervention and oversight from federal authorities

Project South stands in solidarity with the hunger strikers, supports their demands, and joins the call to shut down the Folkston ICE Processing Center. Hunger strikes have long been an important organizing strategy to expose violations and contend with the horrific conditions of all forms of incarceration and imprisonment.

The immigrants detained inside Folkston have taken tremendous risks to document and expose the conditions they are being forced to endure.

We are also beginning to hear reports that some immigrants detained at Folkston are being held in solitary confinement and that some families are losing contact with their loved ones or have been unable to reach them. We call for the immediate restoration of communication access and the release of all people from solitary confinement.

We condemn any retaliation against hunger strikers, organizers, or others speaking out about conditions inside the facility.

No one should face isolation, intimidation, or other punitive measures for organizing or protesting their conditions. People inside must be able to remain in contact with their families, attorneys, and advocates.

RESOURCES:
▪Watch the video from detained immigrants: bit.ly/47ceYuS
▪Read their open letter: bit.ly/4dTMN7G
▪Read their report documenting violations and the conditions at Folkston: bit.ly/4yxRNap
▪Follow and support the Campaign! Shut Down Folkston ICE Facility

Project South stands in solidarity with the detained immigrants bravely speaking out against the abuses at the Folkston ICE Processing Center in Georgia. Folkston is one of the largest ICE prisons in the country and the prison where one immigrant, Mr. Jaspal Singh, died in 2024. The lack of medical and mental health care, prolonged detention, frequent use of solitary confinement, and disregard for human life described at Folkston echoes with what we've heard from detained immigrants for years.

Please read and share the accounts from those directly-impacted and support the work of the Campaign. Shut Down Folkston ICE Facility

Check out the recent video from detained immigrants: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVHeyL7xIYM

🏡 BROWNSVILLE HOMECOMING & PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT ASSEMBLY!

We’re coming together to honor our history, celebrate our resistance, and organize for our collective future.

Join us Saturday, October 10, from 1–6 PM at the Mutual Aid Liberation Center @ 9 Gammon for the Brownsville Homecoming & People’s Movement Assembly.

Community members from across our South Atlanta neighborhoods will gather to uplift the legacy of Black Reconstruction, commemorate our community’s resistance during the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre, and strategize around the issues facing our neighborhoods today.

Through the PMA process, we’ll identify community priorities, strengthen how we govern and organize together, and establish a Brownsville delegation to carry our collective voice into upcoming movement assemblies and governance spaces.

And bring the little ones! We’ll have a concurrent Children’s Movement Assembly for ages 3–12!

Our Brownsville neighborhoods include: Carver Homes, South Atlanta/Brownsville, Joyland, Pittsburgh, Mechanicsville, Summerhill, Peoplestown, Thomasville Heights, Lakewood, Adair Park, Amal Heights, and Chosewood.

📅 Saturday, October 10, 2026
⏰ 1:00-6:00 PM
📍 Mutual Aid Liberation Center, 9 Gammon Ave, Atlanta, GA. 30315

📌 Register with the QR code or see link in comment!

Come on home. Bring your people. Bring your stories. Together, we’ll honor where we’ve been and organize for where we’re going.

Congratulations to Project South’s Legal & Advocacy Director, Azadeh N. Shahshahani!

We are honored to recognize Azadeh Shahshahani as the recipient of this year’s Community Impact Award at our 19th Annual Gala on November 7, 2026!
Azadeh Shahshahani serves as the Legal and Advocacy Director with Project South. For more than two decades, she has focused her advocacy on confronting state repression and dismantling systems of surveillance, incarceration, and deportation. Her work is instrumental in protecting and defending migrants and Black and Muslim communities from systemic Islamophobia, xenophobia, and anti-Black racism. Ms. Shahshahani is a renowned author and editor of groundbreaking human rights reports focused on movement lawyering, immigrants’ rights, surveillance of Muslim-Americans, and using the international human rights framework as a tool for liberation.
Purchase tickets to our 19th Annual Gala at the link in our bio!

Newsletter link: iabanorcalgala.com