SC Progressive Network members and allies from across the Palmetto State will gather the weekend of Nov. 15–17 at historic Penn Center to network, map strategy, and build community.
The Network was founded at Penn in 1996, and we have met there many times over the years. It is a unique place steeped in rich culture and history. We will meet in the same room where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other luminaries of the civil rights movement met to find fellowship and map strategy. We will sleep on the same campus where formerly enslaved children studied freely for the first time in America.
Dr. King Jr. wrote his I Have a Dream Speech at Penn. We will consider the same question he posed in 1966: Where do we go from here?
We hope you will join us for some old-school grass-roots organizing, face-to-face and in the round. Come for a day or the whole weekend. We promise that you will leave more energized, inspired, and hopeful than when you arrived.
Over the weekend, we will unpack the latest election and what it means for us as South Carolina citizens and as organizers. We will update members about the Network’s ongoing programs, including our Missing Voter Project, the Modjeska Simkins School, and our SC Fair Maps campaign to end gerrymandering.
We also will enlist participants’ help map our 2025 DemocraSC campaign — a civics model that connects all of our projects — and to brainstorm about our relaunch of the Network’s Healthy Democracy Road Show. In 2014, our 10-city road show focused on Medicaid expansion. The campaign included a spirited rally at the State House, intense lobbying of lawmakers, and peaceful protests over several weeks.
In 2025, we will focus our campaign on the increasing assault on public education — and on our commitment to teaching truth.
The retreat will provide enough structure to be practical and productive, but will allow enough free time for participants to caucus on their own or explore the beautiful Lowcountry culture and landscape.
Penn’s museum will be open, as will the National Park Service’s Reconstruction Era National Historical Park office, which anchors the Gullah-Geechee Corridor. On Saturday, rangers will be on duty offering lectures and exhibits.
Hunting Island State Park is 10 miles from Penn, with spectacular, undeveloped beaches on a 5,000-acre barrier island.
Members of allied organizations are welcome to bring promotional materials to share with retreat participants about their work. Please remember that the Progressive Network is nonpartisan.
To help provide scholarship assistance, donate HERE. To request scholarship assistance, call the Network’s office at 803-808-3384 or email network@scpronet.com.
If you can share a ride to Penn — or if you need one — call 803-808-3384 or email network@scpronet.com.