Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi

Edited By: Cooperation Jackson (Kali Akuno, Sacajawea Hall, brandon king) and Ajamu Nangwaya

There is a W.E.B. DuBois statement popular in radical political circles in the United States that asserts, “as the South goes so goes the nation.” This claim has much to do with the outsized role that the US South has played and continues to play in the ideology, economics and politics of the country. It is not a coincidence that the politics of mass resistance against racism and other forms of oppression in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s had its origins in the South with the emergence of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

It is the intensity of oppressive conditions in the South that provides the potential for movements emanating from this region to ignite the powder keg of popular resistance across the country. It is in the preceding context that we would like to document an emerging social, economic and political experiment that has the potential to provide a framework for resistance to racist domination, patriarchal oppression, ecological destruction and capitalist economic exploitation in the United States.

Jackson Rising is a chronicle of one of the most dynamic, but under-documented experiments in radical social transformation taking place in the United States. The book documents the ongoing organizing and institution building of the political forces concentrated in Jackson, Mississippi dedicated to advancing the “Jackson-Kush Plan”. These forces include the Jackson People’s Assembly, the New Afrikan People’s Organization, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the Jackson Human Rights Institute and Cooperation Jackson.

The “Jackson-Kush Plan” is a strategy written by Kali Akuno and collectively developed by activists in the New Afrikan People’s Organization and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in the mid-2000’s to advance the struggle for socialism in the United States and self-determination for people of Afrikan descent in Mississippi and the US South.

Jackson Rising documents the history of this movement, its contributions towards the radical transformation of the United States, and its ideological and political implications for social movements throughout the United States, the global South and the world.