Sunrise UNC holds first Southern Campus Climate Gathering, supports student activism

The Sunrise Hub at UNC held the first Southern Campus Climate Gathering from Feb. 7 to Feb. 9. The gathering welcomed over 100 student climate activists from 23 universities across the South, educating  them on how to better their campuses and the country. 

Sunrise UNC is part of the larger Sunrise Movement, a political action organization that advocates for the end of fossil fuels and invests in underrepresented communities. UNC is one of over 100 Sunrise hubs across the U.S.

“[Sunrise] is about building a movement across race and class, with labor and all sorts of different groups, to fight back against power, to stop climate change, but also to do that in a way that is equitable for everyone,” Victoria Plant, a sophomore at UNC and the research team lead for Sunrise UNC said.

Sawyer Pappas, a first-year at UNC who worked on the event's programming, said the CCG South is the third iteration of the gatherings. Previous versions were held at Brown University for CCG North and the University of California, Berkeley, for CCG West.

Plant said she and the other Sunrise officers wanted to host the gathering to build relationships and connections with student activists in the South, helping them achieve their goals on campus and across the region. 

Pappas said the event’s main goals were to give tools to attendees that can help them with their work on their campuses and to create a network to lean on in the future.

In fostering this network, Sunrise UNC members housed students from 13 states, and the organization funded their flights if needed to ensure they could make the weekend. 

“I feel like it’s not too big of an ask to be able to get people here because otherwise, it would be so expensive,” Plant, who has two students from Maryland staying in her room for the weekend, said. 

Ava Trachtenberg, a first-year at Emory University, came to attend CCG South to build connections as she starts a hub at her campus.

“We really wanted to take the opportunity to get trainings from leaders across the country,” Trachtenberg said. 

She said she is excited to meet other participants, especially others who attend school in Georgia, to collaborate in the future.

Amy Okonkwo, a first-year and the outreach team lead, said organizing events like these in the South is a unique but essential project.

She also said the weekend included panels, trainings and networking opportunities to educate attendees on climate activism.

Through activities, Okonkwo said she had panelists who could give perspectives on how to deal with uncooperative Southern lawmakers and institutions and evoke change, one structure at a time. 

“UNC had an event [on Feb. 6] with Dr. Dana Fisher from American University, and she was talking about the Civil Rights Movement, the way things spread little by little,” Okonkwo said. “That is what this network is for, so that we can effectively have the tools in that network to be able to spread as fast as possible.” 

As a Nigeran woman, Okonkwo said she wants to make the environmental justice movement more inclusive, saying that she intended to do just that during the weekend through event outreach. 

Okonkwo said she believes that CCG South and more protest-centric events are necessary for the future, especially during and after the Trump administration.

“This is just one example of the work that needs to be done and the kind of initiative we all need to be taking,” she said. “Now, because of the position we’re in, we’re all suddenly activists, and being in that role is something we should not take for granted.”

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