“Using the shovel to scrape aside the dirt, I began to reveal, very slowly and carefully, the gold and purple potatoes that rested just beneath the plants. She [my daughter] was enchanted. It’s just like…it’s just like…she said. It’s just like finding gold, I completed her thought. Yes! She said, her eyes wide.”

-Alice Walker “Childhood”

Some of the most passionate, hardest-working, toughest progressive activists I have ever seen come from rural areas, where progressivism isn’t “supposed” to exist; these nuggets of gold are often not highlighted in the world and, more often than not, are still waiting to be unearthed.  Many people believe that rural areas are bastions of monolithic conservatism, as many people view the South. Progressive work, though, is being done in these areas, where the work is perhaps the most vital and often neglected.  Certainly progressive work in any area should be appreciated and assessed. We should look up more often to progressive leaders in rural areas, have their voices in the conversation, invite them to talk at the table, and truly listen to them.