About

Blowing Rock Persisters is a grassroots community of neighbors across the High Country who care deeply about protecting democracy by the people, for the people, and of the people. Whenever possible, we stand up for democracy and human rights to build a fairer, more compassionate world — starting right here at home.

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We came together in 2017 meeting in Blowing Rock (hence the name), inspired to take action in the face of alarming threats to our democracy. We also aimed to serve in tandem with a local group called High Country Persisters. From 2017-2020, we organized  A Civil Conversation speaker series with a special focus on North Carolina, where many of the threats to democracy at the federal level were echoed or, in some ways, worse. We believe partisan gerrymandering in our state (and now in Watauga County) is corruption. It means that our General Assembly and our representatives in Washington can never fully reflect or represent all of North Carolina. This corrupts not only our ability to work as a democracy, but also results in legislation that profits the few rather than serving the many (for example, the vouchers for wealthy families to send their children to exclusive private schools with taxpayer funds while our public schools grapple with cuts and layoffs).

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Due both to the challenges of Covid and some improvements in federal representation, our group became inactive (our members remained active in other ways). With the election of a federal branch and Congress that appear willing to embrace authoritarianism over democracy, cruelty over compassion, and corruption over fairness, we restarted in January 2025, This time, our top focus is to provide options for action through weekly emails and gradually building an online presence through a website and a Bluesky social media account. 

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We believe change starts locally — through conversations, gatherings, learning from one another, and lifting up actions that matter. We rally, we write, we vote, we volunteer — and we keep showing up because the stakes are too high to sit back. We have been inspired from the start by the national Indivisible guides, and we consider ourselves allies and partners to the national movement as well as the newly formed Indivisible Watauga. We aim to amplify and share their events and calls to action. Further, we aim to make local politics more accessible and to provide information to help all voters monitor the actions of our local and state politicians, as well as those who represent our region in DC.

 

We know activism can feel overwhelming, especially in tough times. That's why we're committed to building a space where people feel encouraged, informed, and energized — not alone. 

 

Together, we are part of something bigger. Together, we persist.