The Voice a Song: Oral Histories and Songs of Labor and Community in East Tennessee

**Program moving to Zoom! 2pm EST Sunday, February 1, due to weather.**

Out of concern for road conditions and wanting to be sure we still have a good audience for our presenters we have decided to move The Voice a Song program to a virtual program. It will happen via Zoom on Sunday, February 1 at 2pm. Registration info is below, you can join in at any time. So get out some colorful paper for our hands-on art activity, grab a cup of hot cocoa, and listen to the stories and sing along with the songs of labor, community, and collaboration inspired by the exhibition The Body is a Drum, the Voice a Song, the Soul a Fire.

KMA Zoom Program
When: Feb 1, 2026 02:00 PM Eastern Time

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/JHTeTKiYSaCx__aevntBMQ

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Enjoy an afternoon of songs, stories, and reminiscing about the rich culture of collaboration from East Tennessee community and labor organizers past and present. The oral history stories will be led by Jessie Wilkerson, University of Tennessee history professor and author of To Live Here, You Have to Fight: How Women Led Appalachian Movements for Social Justice (2019). Asheville musician, Saro Lynch-Thomason, will conduct a sing-a-long of songs about labor and social justice inspired by the music archives of the Highlander Center. The audience is encouraged to participate in a collaborative-paper-quilt based on the stories and music.

This event will take on zoom using the link above.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS—

Jaz Brisack (who grew up in East Tennessee) is a union organizer and cofounder of the Inside Organizer School, which trains workers to unionize. After spending one year at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, they got a job as a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, becoming a founding member of Starbucks Workers United and helping organize the first unionized Starbucks in the United States. As the organizing director for Workers United Upstate New York & Vermont, they also worked with organizing committees at companies ranging from Ben & Jerry’s to Tesla.

Ron Davis has lived in Knoxville for 36 years. He came to Tennessee to work with the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, TN. Ron worked with The Highlander Center for seven years (1989 to 1996). Subsequent to Highlander he formed a community organizing consulting practice, served as project director for The Commission on Religion in Appalachia, and the Center for Health Environment and Justice in Fall Church, VA. His vocation is community organizing and he is still at it.

Daniel Urquieta is a Mexican American law student at the Lincoln Memorial University School of Law. Daniel has been a case management intern for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, a graduate student in Sociology at the University of Tennessee, and a union organizer across public universities in the Southeast. He loves to read, watch basketball, and spend time with family. He hopes to work in some combination of immigration and labor law in the future after graduation.

FREE and open to the public! 

Thanks to our partners who helped make with program possible: Jobs with Justice of East Tennessee Highlander Research and Education Center United Campus Workers of Tennessee Teamsters Local 519 Communications Workers of America (CWA) 3805 Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 205 Knoxville Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Knoxville-Oak Ridge Central Labor Council.