Groundwork Project and the NAACP recently kicked off The Organizing Accelerator 2025 in Jackson, Mississippi, and we’re thrilled to share how it went.

2025 marks the third year of The Organizing Accelerator — our first-of-its-kind training, mentoring, and networking fellowship program for emerging grassroots organizers, community organizers, social justice advocates, and civil rights leaders. It is designed by organizers, for organizers, with the goal of forming a powerful network of emerging organizing leaders who can share resources and fuel the greater fights for civil rights in the most impacted communities across the country.

The Organizing Accelerator in Jackson, Mississippi

The Accelerator, NAACP, and Groundwork teams touched down in Jackson for a packed weekend of programming, training, networking, and bonding with this year’s incredible cohort of fellows. The fellows are an amazing group of 16 talented and inspiring activists, organizers, and changemakers from 10 states, from Nebraska to Alabama, Oklahoma to West Virginia.

Throughout the weekend, fellows were exposed to the unique organizing history of the region with stops at Tougaloo College, the Two Mississippi Museums, COFO Center, BB King Museum, Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, and MS State Conference NAACP offices. We hosted deep organizer training on topics ranging from storytelling to networking. Fellows met their individual mentors, who will guide them through the 20-week program, as well as familiarized themselves with the Accelerator’s capstone — crafting their very own organizing project proposal to help kick-start their efforts upon the program’s completion.

For the first time, the Accelerator brought its fellow class outside of Jackson, spending a day in the Mississippi Delta, where we hosted a public panel discussion about community organizing in the region and a Town Hall in Indianola featuring Derrick Johnson, NAACP President, and Joe Kennedy, Groundwork Project Founder. Back in Jackson, we held another panel at the Civil Rights Museum, ‘The South Got Something to Say: Diving into the Intricacies of Community Organizing in the South’. It was inspiring to see local community members and the fellows come together, share their experiences, and talk about how to build long-term organizing power together across states, regions, and the country.

A handful of special guests were also in community with the fellows throughout the weekend. STEPS Coalition, a partner in the Groundwork Organizer Network, hosted an insightful conversation, ‘Environmental Justice in Action,’ detailing their deep organizing work across the Gulf Coast. Jaribu Hill, Executive Director of Groundwork Organizer Network partner the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights, helped introduce our fellows to the Delta. Accelerator alumni from previous years served as mentors and panel discussion moderators, helping fortify the incredible network this program has created in just three years.

By all marks, our first in-person weekend of the 2025 program was a huge success! We closed out the trip by reflecting on our time in Mississippi — the fellows reported feeling energized, inspired, and ready to take what they learned back to their hometowns.

The Organizing Accelerator is a critical part of our efforts to ensure frontline organizers in traditionally overlooked states have not just the financial resources, but the community, training, and leadership development opportunities they deserve. Over the next three months, our fellows cohort will be deep in learning in virtual spaces, before gathering again in Boston this fall!

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You can learn more about The Organizing Accelerator here.