SOCM’s original name, Save Our Cumberland Mountains, grew out of SOCM’s origins as a grassroots community organization based in poor isolated coalfield communities in five northern counties in the Cumberland Mountains.  SOCM kept this name for the first thirty-six years of its history.

In 1971, armed with research about the failure of large absentee land corporations to pay taxes on their rich mineral land, residents won an appeal to require this taxation.  In January 1972, after the win, residents formed an organization to take on other critical problems in their communities: virtually unregulated strip mining of coal which literally blasted the sides of steep mountains onto homes, roads and streams; insufficient revenue for schools, roads, and other services; and general neglect on the part of county officials.  The organization, which came to be called SOCM (pronounced “sock-em”), was membership-based (first dues were $1!) and from the start it was democratically run by members.

In 1975, when Amax Coal Company applied for a permit to strip mine 20,000 acres on the Cumberland Plateau, SOCM expanded beyond the original five counties and onto the plateau to fight the permit.  On the plateau SOCM encountered widespread separation of surface and mineral rights.  Surface owners had few rights over mineral extraction on their land.

Despite many threats and incidents of violence, SOCM achieved major victories during these early years: mineral tax and severance tax revenue for poor coalfield counties; a state Surface Rights Law requiring the surface owner’s consent before strip mining coal on the land; the defeat of many mining permits, including the Amax proposal, and a new federal strip-mining law which SOCM, in conjunction with coalfield groups across the country, worked to pass.

During the years of expansion onto the plateau, growth pains arose internally about the identity of the organization.  In a series of leadership retreats, members faced decisions about whether SOCM would be an organization based only in the coalfields and focused only on coal-related issues or whether it would become a multi-issue organization building a strong, empowered membership by working on whatever issues affected members.  SOCM members resoundingly chose a multi-issue membership focus, paving the way for geographic, constituent, and issue expansion in the following decades.

In the 1980’s, SOCM began expanding from the coalfields into the Tennessee Valley and further into East Tennessee.  Members took on issues that affected the residents of their communities: oil and gas development; solid, toxic, and hazardous waste issues; the rights of temporary workers and other economic justice issues.  SOCM joined and provided leadership in coalitions which formed to tackle organizer training, cooperative fundraising, and joint issues, especially national work about coal.  To facilitate consistent decision-making, SOCM changed from a loose-knit, town meeting type of democracy to an organization with a representative board of directors, a local chapter model which would emphasize and provide a lab for local leadership development, and issue committees which could coordinate the growing statewide policy focus.

During this period of ambitious growth and development, SOCM won a precedent-setting ruling on mining in toxic coal seams, defeated many proposals for toxic and hazardous waste facilities in communities, exposed concentrated land ownership and continuing taxation problems in sixteen counties, exposed poor state enforcement of strip mine laws, thereby prompting Federal takeover of the coal regulatory program, won a state law giving surface owners some rights in oil and gas development, and won a new state Surface Rights Law which allowed reunification of surface and minerals under some circumstances, thereby clearing title for the surface owner and giving surface owners control over their land.

In the 1990’s, SOCM’s growing alliance with JONAH, a predominantly African-American community organization in rural West Tennessee, sparked the growth of an organizational commitment to confronting the injustice of racism and opened SOCM to an ever wider range of issues.  SOCM formed multi-racial chapters in Bedford and Maury counties, began multi-racial youth organizing encampments, and hosted both multi-day and shorter dismantling racism trainings. Environmental justice work in the 90’s expanded to include battling the growth of chip mills and unregulated clear-cutting of forests as well as new toxic and solid waste issues.  Dropping a 150-foot banner in 1998 at the overlook at Fall Creek Falls State Park was a dramatic media event in an eight-year successful organizing effort to have 61,000 acres of the park’s watershed designated “off-limits to mining”.  SOCM celebrated a huge victory!

SOCM also increased its participation in a variety of coalitions during the 90’s.  After more than a year of trainings and research, SOCM voted to join the Tennesseans for Fair Taxation coalition working for structural state tax reform.  SOCM, in conjunction with other community organizations, formed the Southern Organizing Cooperative to “improve the art and practice and funding of community organizing in the South.”  Ten organizing and policy organizations, including SOCM, formed the Tennessee Partnership on Organizing and Public Policy to work on common state policy justice issues.

Embracing new challenges continues in the new century!  In the early 2000’s, SOCM expanded into far West Tennessee to help citizens fight toxic aerial drift from sprayed agricultural fields which sickens nearby residents.  SOCM’s anti-racism work intensified.  Additional anti-racism trainings were held, and the SOCM Board approved a mandate to confront internal as well as external racism.  SOCM also worked to restore voter rights to ex-felons who have completed their terms and forged new ally relationships with groups working for universal health care and for immigrant rights.

Mountaintop removal (MTR) strip mining has emerged as a critical environmental justice issue during this decade.  Local residents are fighting new permits which allow mining companies to literally blast the tops off of mountains, and they have opposed TVA’s plans to lease its mineral land for this purpose.  SOCM organized a two and a half week Canoe Relay, carrying MTR polluted water four hundred miles down the Cumberland River to present it to Tennessee’s Governor, accompanied by large media flair.  SOCM was one of the founding members of the Alliance for Appalachia, joining other groups in central Appalachia to combat MTR and to work for economic alternatives and healthy, sustainable communities in the coalfields.  SOCM has developed broader energy policy positions, uniting with other grassroots groups to form CLEAN, a national network of grassroots organizations working for good jobs and a clean energy future by phasing out coal and other fossil fuels and phasing in renewables and energy efficiency. 

SOCM members govern the organization and set its policies and priorities.  They have inspired and guided SOCM throughout its history.  They are a force which can build capacity for greater democracy in our country. Many early SOCM members in isolated coalfield communities who braved threat and intimidation to speak out for change have left a legacy.  Little did they know they were building the base for a powerful, multi-racial, statewide organization to work for economic, environmental and social justice issues in our local communities, our state, and our nation.

In 2008, SOCM’s Board made the decision, ratified by members at the annual meeting, that SOCM’s name needed to catch up with the organization’s reality!  The new name, Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment, keeps the acronym while reflecting SOCM’s growth and development over the years: the statewide stretch, the overall justice focus, the commitment to developing member leaders, and the inclusion of a diverse constituency which works for justice from the East Tennessee mountains to the Mississippi River in far West Tennessee.