The 1st Ecosocialist International is an initiative that started in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. In Chavez's last 5 year plan there was a goal to save the planet using an "ecosocialist production model"; activists inspired by this vision from around the world then used this initiative to call for the 1st Ecosocialist International. The 1st Ecosocialist International Convergence was held in Venezuela in November 2017. Cooperation Jackson was one of many organizations from around the world to participate in this convergence, based on our promotion and practice of regenerative ecosocialist models of production, distribution, consumption, and recycling that ground our notion of Just Transition and Ecological Regeneration. Cooperation Jackson hosted a convergence of North American ecosocialist activists in April to help build an ecosocialist international on the continent. This video explains why this development is so important - and why you should get involved.

An insightful and thought provoking review of Cooperation Jackson's 2017 publication, "Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, MS", edited by Kali Akuno and Ajamu Nangwaya, by radical activist and intellectual, Max Aji. 

This episode of the Upstream podcast features our Director, Kali Akuno, discussing our ambitious initiative, modeled in many respects after Mondragon in the Basque Country, which is featured in the podcast, and notes our aim to eventually become the Mondragon of North America. It also situates Cooperation Jackson as part of the same trans-local organizing movement that inspired formations like Cooperation Richmond, Cooperation Buffalo, etc.

How do citizens solve global problems with local solutions? Around the world people are finding local solutions to global problems. New citizens coalitions are winning municipal power from Barcelona and Madrid to Jackson, Mississippi; embracing the term ‘fearless’ to show their willingness to take on entrenched power.

This report by Quincy Saul highlights the on going development of the EcoSocialist International. The first North American Convergence of the EcoSocialist International was held in Jackson, MS Friday, April 20th through Sunday, April 22nd. Cooperation Jackson is a founding member of the EcoSocialist International and was host to this convergence.

This Left Forum plenary focused on developing a transformative vision for a new society and social relations that the left can and must build in the United States and beyond. It was organized by Rob Robinson, and featured: Cathy Dang, Kali Akuno, Bhairavi Desai, Ajamu Baraka, and Mark Winston-Griffith.

Will cities save us? In the last decades we have witnessed a resurgent interest in cities, accompanied by a great deal of urban optimism, even in the face of the exclusion and inequalities of our cities. Cities have become a privileged target of investment, as professionals and elites have rediscovered urban cores as desirable locations. At the same time, cities have become a veritable laboratory for new technologies in transportation and infrastructure, ones that promise to be more sustainable and resilient. And most recently, urban progressivism has captured the imagination of many large cities, like New York, Barcelona, London, and Los Angeles, and smaller ones, like Jackson, MS, and Berkeley, CA. Such places have played important roles in advancing innovative progressive policies, but also as symbolic beachheads holding up socially just principles in the face of global tides of conservative and reactionary politics playing out at the national level. And yet a number of questions remain about the viability of progressive strategies at the local level. Cooperation Jackson’s Director, Kali Akuno, was featured on this panel discussion.

This article focuses on the “Just Transition” movement, which is broadly defined climate justice movement that focuses on building a regenerative, post-capitalist economy and society that centers on the needs of workers and oppressed peoples and communities in balance with the needs of the Earth and its ecosystems. It also focuses on the Just Transition Assembly hosted by Cooperation Jackson and held in Jackson, MS in February 2018. This article appeared in the Earth Island Journal and was written by Samantha M. Harvey.

This article from Yes! Magazine focuses on the development of Community Land Trusts and other forms of fair and affordable housing in Jackson, Mississippi. Cooperation Jackson’s emerging Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust, being anchored by Sacajawea “Saki” Hall, is featured in the article.

For the first time in decades, cities round the country are advancing progressive innovations and solutions to too-long-sustained poverty and inequality. In New York City worker cooperatives, participatory budgeting, and community land trusts are on the policy platform of the City Council’s progressive caucus and elected officials in the democratic party are pushing legislation for employee and worker ownership at the state and federal levels. With greater visibility and support from the public sector some believe that these pilots and experiments for neighborhoods to drive wealth creation and capture and create equitable economic opportunities can reach into broad-based and mainstream policy.

Cooperation Jackson Director, engages the Solidarity Economy Initiative - SEI and its allies in Boston, Massachusetts about the lessons from the organizing initiative to implement the Jackson-Kush Plan and how they might apply in Boston.

The dialogue centered on the insights from Cooperation Jackson's recent book, "Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi."

This Future Left Podcast features Gyasi Williams a member of Cooperation Jackson and anchor on the emerging Community Production Cooperative.

The interview focuses how communities can use technology create localist, environmentally conscious models of production that are aimed at black liberation and the empowerment of the working class.

A discussion with Cooperation Jackson Director, Kali Akuno, in Worcester, MA and that focused on the Jackson Rising book, the Jackson-Kush Plan, and the formation of Cooperation Jackson is an emerging network of cooperatives and grassroots institutions that aim to build a "solidarity economy."