Show some love for Cooperation Jackson! Support Our Capital Campaign for the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust

After two years of adjusted development due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cooperation Jackson is poised to take the next major step in our development. We aim to raise $2,500,000 that will strengthen our efforts to decommodify land and housing, collectively steward our resources, and expand the opportunity we have for democratic community control. Help us take the leap needed to consolidate the development of our Community Land Trust.

Cooperation Jackson developed the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust as a division of our non-profit operations in 2015. We established the land trust to protect and preserve Black land stewardship in West Jackson. By purchasing as many of the vacant lands and facilities as our limited resources would allow, over the past seven years, we have successfully acquired over forty properties in West Jackson, including a shopping mall, and three commercial facilities.

In our fight to defend our neighborhood in West Jackson from the rising tide of gentrification and displacement, our approach continues to be multifaceted; remove land and housing from the speculative market; build the affordable housing and commercial space needed to support families and businesses; create community space where we can be in relationship with each other; and build the democratic practices necessary to sustain and defend our alternative model. The money raised will enable us to finish developing the land and facilities we currently steward, and purchase a few remaining strategic assets in the neighborhood.

In many ways, it is now “the best of times, and the worst of times'' in Jackson. The housing market is increasingly rapacious, while speculation runs even more rampant than when we launched Cooperation Jackson. While it is true that these multinational corporations like Amazon will help address the need for jobs in Jackson, their arrival comes at a cost. In addition to the impact on land and housing, most of these jobs will deepen the exploitation of the working class in Jackson, the state of Mississippi, and the southern region in overall, as they are premised on exploiting the political conditions that exist in the state and region that intentionally impoverish labor and deprive workers of their fundamental rights, particularly the right to organize themselves into collective bargaining units.

In order to play our part in countering these developments, we are focusing and prioritizing the following:

• Completing the renovation of the Ida B. Wells Plaza, to enable the opening of the People’s Grocery Cooperative, and to provide affordable commercial space for local businesses and community organizations
• Fully renovating the Dambala House, one of the commercial facilities we own to turn it into a Maker Space with a training center in the arts of digital fabrication
• Acquiring the commercial lot behind the Ida B. Wells Plaza to turn it into a food hub and recycling center
• Acquiring a new home on one of our newest properties for Ms. Rose Brown, that will enable her to receive the critical live in home care that is required to manage her chronic medical condition
• Completing renovations on the three existing cooperative housing units Completing renovations on three additional housing units that can enable the development of more affordable housing in our community
• Clearing the dilapidated structures on Ewing Street, commencing soil remediation, continuing the community envisioning and planning workshops that will go hand in hand with the experimental housing development led by our Community Production Cooperative for the Eco-Village Pilot

The $2,500,000 we are seeking to raise will enable us to complete these fundamental projects that ultimately position our community and Cooperation Jackson to weather the storm of capital accumulation presently confronting us. So, we ask everyone who despises gentrification, displacement, the exploitation of labor, and the extraction of resources to show us some love today and the remainder of February.

We look forward to building a groundswell of support for our vision of a regenerative economy and a self-determined community. Donate and spread the word to family, friends, co-workers, comrades, and fellow cooperators.

We appreciate the love and support!