The Marc Steiner Show: Racism and Jackson’s water crisis

Jackson, Mississippi, remains gripped in an ongoing water crisis. The task of distributing water to local residents has been largely taken up by community organizations like Cooperation Jackson and Operation Good. Organizer, writer, and educator Kali Akuno joins The Marc Steiner Show to explain how the current crisis is a reflection of capitalism's failures and decades of institutional racism. Though Jackson today is more than 80% Black, this is a recent demographic development created by white flight and capital flight from the city. The state's prolonged neglect of Jackson's infrastructure is a consequence of an entrenched far-right politics in Mississippi's public institutions. And what's happening currently in Jackson is a sign of things to come around the country. To fight back, Akuno emphasizes the need to build mass movements and grassroots networks capable of exercising real political power.

A few scenes from our second Really, Really Free Market, which was held on Saturday, June 15, 2024.

The objective of the Really, Really Free Market is to create a culture and process of mutual exchange, that is exchanging the goods and services we need to both sustain ourselves and improve the quality of life in our community without monetary exchange. But, through negotiated exchange through barter, trade, and mutual credit systems.

This second Really, Really Free Market was a critical success. The word is spreading and the model and practice of mutual exchange is gradually taking hold. The next phase is getting more people to produce items to directly exchange, rather than merely donate things they are no longer using. It's going to be a struggle, that will take some time, but it's a struggle worth engaging. "Every yard a farm, every garage a factory". This is where we're heading.

“Ujamaa, Ubuntu, and New Pan Africanisms: The Future of World Peace Conference” Conference

Saki Hall and Kali Akuno spoke on a plenary on Friday, May 24th entitled “Community Movement Builders Bridge Building”. Additional speakers included Edget Betru, from Community Movement Builders, and Shannon Jones, from the People’s Senate Northeast/Spirit of Mandela Coalition.

On Saturday, May 4, 2024 we celebrated 10 years of organizing for and building of the solidarity economy in Jackson, MS. Our 10th anniversary was on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, i.e. May Day or International Workers Day.

These pictures capture just snippets of the great day that we had that was filled with great food, great music, great company, and good politics.

Going forward, we need your support to ensure that the next decade is even more transformative and impactful than the first one. Please donate today and spread the word to your family, friends, comrades and cooperators!

Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson and Bernard E. Harcourt reimagine the university as a multi-stakeholder cooperative of faculty, students, staff, and community on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. The university, as a collegium of scholars and students, is under threat across the globe and in the United States. State governments are interfering with academic freedom and knowledge, dictating what can and cannot be taught. Private donors are interfering with the scholarly project and the discourse of learning. Whether at public universities or private universities, the climate of learning has become intolerable.  Join us for an exploration with Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson of another model: a multi-stakeholder cooperative university run by and for those who want to learn–the faculty and students. The model dates back to the Middle Ages at least, when universities were first born as cooperatives of faculty or of students. Let’s explore together a new model for learning in the twenty-first century! Welcome to Coöperism 13/13!

Jackson Rising Redux Book NYC Book Launch at 1199 SEIU

The NYC book launch of PM Press' Jackson Rising Redux (2023), edited by Kali Akuno and Matt Meyer, was held at the main union hall of SEIU 1199 as a means of building new alliances across community-labor and geographic lines. Akuno and Meyer were joined by 1199 Vice President Shaywaal Amin, Cooperative Economics Alliance of NY co-director Maria Alex Garcia, 1199 senior advisor Bruce Richards, contributing author Sophie Gonick, and others.

Everything Co-Op Interview on Arts and Cooperatives within Cooperation Jackson

In honor of the 2024 Black History Month theme of African Americans and the Arts, Vernon interviews Kali Akuno, co-founder and Director and Cooperation Jackson. Vernon and Kali discuss new initiatives of Cooperation Jackson, and how the organization has used "the Arts" to inform and promote co-ops.

Conference on Worker Power and Economic Democracy: Keynote Address with Kali Akuno and Matt Meyer

Moderated by Benjamin Case, this Keynote Address from Kali Akuno and Matt Meyer-- editors of "Jackson Rising Redux: Lessons on Building the Future in the Present"-- was presented on Day One of the CWD Conference on Worker Power and Economic Democracy.

This event was held on Friday, February 23, 2024 at Arizona State University through the Center for Work and Democracy

Acting U.S. Labor Secretary pledges to enforce federal labor laws in Mississippi

Ed Inman, Special to the Mississippi Clarion Ledger

Article about the US Secretary of Labor, Julie Su, visit to Jackson, MS on Wednesday, February 14, 2021.

Cooperation Jackson played a critical role in helping to make this happen, via connections from the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives last Wednesday, February 14th. We thought it was critical to help advance our longstanding "union-cooperative" initiative, as part of our effort to unite and strengthen all of the tools in the toolkit of working class self-organization (respect to our comrade Tim Schermerhorn for this analysis and analogy, may he rest in power). It was a good time to reconnect with the various forces of the organized working class in Jackson, but we will see what the Labor Secretary can and will do in the days and months ahead to support the organizing efforts of workers in the state of Mississippi. Stay tuned

Cooperation Jackson at 10: Lessons for Building a Solidarity Economy

Article written Steve Dubb for the Nonprofit Quarterly in January 2024. The story addresses some of the primary lessons learned by Cooperation Jackson in the decade it has been in existence from 2014 to the present.

Building the Future in the Present: Lessons from Cooperation Jackson.

Howard Zinn Book Fair

San Francisco, CA

Sunday, December 3, 2024

This stimulating panel discussion brings together three pioneering figures in grassroots activism and community-centered economics. The dialogue focuses on the insights and experiences derived from Cooperation Jackson, an innovative endeavor to establish a solidarity economy in Jackson, Mississippi. The panelists explore themes related to decentralized community organizing, ecological sustainability, educational outreach, and how to reimagine economic structures beyond the conventional capitalist framework.

Panelists: Kali Akuno, Sacajawea Hall, Matt Meyer

Communes or Nothing! Communes against Capitalism

Thursday, December 7, 2023

This virtual panel examined the commune and communal organizing as part of the project of revolutionary social transformation. The speakers address how socialist communes can be used to abolish capitalism’s logic, based on the exploitation of the human being and the expropriation of nature, along with the range of oppressions (including racial, gender, sexual, and colonial oppression) in capitalist society.

The speakers – Kali Akuno, John Bellamy Foster, Chris Gilbert, and M.E. O’Brien – draw from various theoretical perspectives and practical experiences. This panel is presented by Monthly Review and hosted by The People’s Forum, and was organized in the context of the recent launch of Chris Gilbert’s Commune or Nothing! Venezuela’s Communal Movement and Its Socialist Project from Monthly Review Press. The book looks at the theory, practice, and history of socialist commune building in Venezuela.

SPEAKERS: Kali Akuno, Cooperation Jackson spokesperson and co-author of Jackson Rising Redux: Lessons on Building the Future in the Present. John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review Editor and author most recently of Capitalism in the Anthropocene: Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution. Chris Gilbert, author of Commune or Nothing! Venezuela’s Communal Movement and Its Socialist Project. M.E. O’Brien, author of Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care and co-author of Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072. Cira Pascual Marquina (moderator), Venezuelanalysis editorial team and co-author (with Chris Gilbert) of Venezuela, the Present as Struggle.

Build and Fight: Community Production, Community Control, and the Struggle for Self-Determination in Jackson, MS and Across the Globe

Monday, December 3, 2023

California Institute for Integral Studies - Department of Anthropology and Social Change

Kali Akuno, Sacajawea Hall, and Matt Meyer discuss the strategies, successes, and lessons of Cooperation Jackson and how it became a center for national and international coalition efforts around the movement for grassroots-centered Black community control and self-determination, inspiring growing partnerships and emulation across the globe. Learn from new and ongoing projects and methods by progressive peoples from diverse trade union, youth, church, and cultural movements found within the community and in the pages of Jackson Rising Redux: Lessons on Building the Future in the Present, coedited by Kali Akuno and Matt Meyer.

We are living through an historic moment where a number of crises-- climate change, growing economic and cultural divide, virulent racism, and the slide toward fascism--are converging. This makes for scary times but also times that are ripe with potential for fundamental system change. As the faith in the status quo is shaken, we're seeing a greater openness to post-capitalist futures such as the solidarity economy.

This webinar series on The Imaginal Cells of the Solidarity Economy will showcase the myriad ways that solidarity economy practices are providing models and pathways to build a more cooperative, democratic, equitable, and sustainable world--one in which many worlds fit. This video features David Cobb, Lydia Lopez, Jyoung Carolyn Park, Kali Akuno, and Petula Hanley discussing how to use/influence public policy advance individual policies as part of a coherent strategy to democratize the entire economy.

The webinar series on The Imaginal Cells of the Solidarity Economy showcases the myriad ways that solidarity economy practices are providing models and pathways to build a more cooperative, democratic, equitable, and sustainable world — one in which many worlds fit. Brought to you by Shareable, Resist & Build's SE Narrative Circle, the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, and the New Economy Coalition.

Video from the New School in New York City, kicking off the Peoples' Climate Week Launch: Day 1 on Monday, September 18, 2023! Listen in to Environmental Justice leaders holding the line against #FalseSolutions and demanding real climate action and #JustTransition! #PeoplesClimateWeekLaunch

Featuring video of Cooperation Jackson Executive Director, Kali Akuno.

Facing South Interview with Kali Akuno, Executive Director of Cooperation Jackson, conducted by Frances Madeson.

Interview focused on how to deal with the organizing challenges in Jackson and the Deep South during an era of neo-confederate and neo-fascist ascendency.

Interview with Catalan Journal, Setembre. Conducted by Nuria Segura. The interview focused on how our organizing efforts are addressing the crisis in Jackson and beyond.

Please note the interview was printed in Catalan and translated into English via website tools. So, some things have been lost in translation.

Lecture given at the Kenyan National Theater on Thursday, June 22, 2023.

It was hosted by Mwamko and Cooperation Jackson and featured a lecture by Kali Akuno. And discussion with Sacajawea Hall, Alieu Bah, and Ruzuna Akoth.

Article written by Miles Hadfield for Coopnews.com that reviews Jackson Rising Redux and provides some updates on the development of the cooperatives developed by Cooperation Jackson.

Cooperation Jackson Executive Director, Kali Akuno, interviewed by Davey D for KPFA’s Hard Knock Radio about the release of Jackson Rising Redux, which was published by PM Press.