7 Directions of Service (7DS) was founded by frontline activists Crystal Cavalier-Keck and Jason Campos Crazy Bear Keck on Crystal's ancestral Occaneechi-Saponi lands, the rural Piedmont region of North Carolina.
7DS began as a culture class and youth program, and has grown into a regional grassroots mobilization platform, focused on environmental justice, cultural revitalization and Indigenous rights.
Everything changed in 2018, when Crystal and Jason learned that the MVP Southgate fracked gas pipeline was slated to go through Crystal's hometown and tribal grounds. They began dedicating their lives to resisting and supporting the working-class and farming families located along the route. Thanks to our coordinated opposition, MVP Southgate has never moved forward, and 7DS continues to organize against it, along with a slew of new fossil fuel infrastructure proposals.
7DS is also focused on fostering Indigenous leadership and youth empowerment, cultural and land reclamation, and advancing Rights of Nature, which seeks to encode in law the inherent rights of rivers and ecosystems to flourish. Through media campaigns and public programs like our annual “Truthsgiving” event and the Southeastern Indigenous Coalition Environmental Conference, 7DS is a leading force in engaging our region in transformative cultural and community-building experiences that build bridges and spark a paradigm shift.
"The destructive force of racial capitalist economies continues to harm all life and sacred kinship systems, beginning with our beloved earth, and extending all the way into our intimate family relationships. We are living in uncertain times, and yet the moment is ripe with opportunity to make a radical change. Now is the time to look to the leadership, wisdom, and experience of those who ARE the frontlines."