Jackson, MS – The Human Rights Campaign is the country’s largest LGBT rights organization, and now, they’re launching an $8.5 million effort to establish a stronger presence in states that don’t provide protections for the LGBT community.

The initiative, known as Project One America, will establish offices in the states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. The reason for the focus in the South is to address its lack of marriage equality as well as basic protections in housing and employment areas.

“Right now, this country is deeply divided into two Americas, one where LGBT equality is nearly a reality and the other where LGBT people lack the most fundamental measures of equal citizenship,” HRC president Chad Griffin said in a statement to USA Today. “Project One America is an unparalleled effort to close that gap, and it opens up a bold, new chapter in the civil-rights movement of this generation. In this grand struggle for equality, we can’t write off anyone, anywhere.”