Featuring Kali Akuno
As part of the Climate Convergence, REC helped host "The U.S. Left and the Problem of the State," a panel with Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin, journalist and author Christian Parenti, historian Frances Fox Piven, organizer Kali Akuno, and REC Executive Director Marcie Smith. The panel, which was held at 16 Beaver Street, discussed the role of the state in addressing the climate crisis.
By Adofo Minka
El-Hajj Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X) once said that travel helps to broaden one’s scope. I never exactly understood what he meant by that and this is likely attributable to the fact that until now, I had never traveled outside of the United States. Being a part of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance’s (GGJ) delegation to the World Social Forum has changed that reality and has helped me to understand, more than I did before, the importance of international travel and engaging with other people throughout the globe to grasp a better understanding of where the work you do fit into the world picture. Being a part of this delegation has shown me the difference in reading about various struggles globally and having the opportunity to actually meet, talk to, and strategize with various people who are engaged in these struggles. The difference is that you actually get to learn about the nuances, complexities, and challenges that people face in their struggles against various forms of oppression in a way that in many instances reading will not reveal to you.
Read MorePosted on March 18, 2015
By Dara Cooper, Contributing Editor, Environment, Food, and Sustainability
Just over a year ago last February 2014, the world lost an incredible activist, organizer, father, and mentor—Jackson, Mississippi Mayor Chokwe Lumumba who came to be known as “America’s revolutionary mayor”—due to a very sudden death. Although we gained Baba Chokwe as an ancestor, after only seven months in office, the loss of Mayor Lumumba came as a sudden blow to activists, dreamers and loved ones all over the country. The significance of his revolutionary work, and most notably his term in office, was and will be forever remembered. With scant resources, a radical agenda and revolutionary heart, his candidacy appeared to be a tremendous long shot to most. A strong grassroots strategy that mobilized the masses proved that the power of the people is more than an ideology. The election of Mayor Lumumba was a real life example of the true power of democratic processes and the viability of a radical agenda.
Read MoreKali Akuno - February 2015
By Kali Akuno. “As the South Goes…So Goes the Nation.”
W.E.B Du Bois wrote these famous words in Black Reconstruction, linking America’s promise of democracy to the horrendous conditions for Black people in the South. Sadly, the State of Mississippi has long been a bellwether in this regard, from slavery and lynchings to Jim Crow, segregation, and ongoing voter disenfranchisement. Today, Mississippi has both the country’s largest Black population by percentage and its highest poverty rate. This is a not a coincidence but an illustration of how economic inequality goes hand in hand with racial discrimination.
Read MoreIn this article, Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson ask critical questions like what is the root cause of racism and national oppression in the U.S.? What are the underlying reasons for the fact that Black people remain at the bottom of the U.S. economy? What are African-American organizations and communities doing to resist the persistence of institutional racism and structural inequality? What are we doing to combat advancing structural exclusion from the formal economy, which is intensifying our dehumanization making large sectors of our people disposable? And what is the direction forward?
Read MoreBuilding a solidarity economy in Jackson, Mississippi anchored by a network of cooperatives and other worker-owned and democratically self-managed enterprises.
