November 2024 Movie Night - A Panther in Africa
Nov
22
6:00 PM18:00

November 2024 Movie Night - A Panther in Africa

A Panther in Africa: The Story of Pete and Charlotte O’Neal

Friday, October 22, 2025

6 pm

939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS

On October 30, 1969, Pete O'Neal, a young Black Panther in Kansas City, Missouri, was arrested for transporting a gun across state lines. One year later, O'Neal fled the charge, and for over 30 years, he has lived in Tanzania as one of the last American exiles from an era when activists considered themselves at war with the U.S. government. Today, this community organizer confronts very different challenges and finds himself living between two worlds — America and Africa, his radical past and his uncertain future.

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Really Really Free Market #5
Dec
21
8:00 AM08:00

Really Really Free Market #5

Really Really Free Market #5

Saturday, December 21, 2024

8 am - 12 pm

1214 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS

The Really, Really Free Market is a process of mutual aid and site of mutual exchange. We encourage anyone and everyone in Jackson to come get what you need, from items provided by the community.

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Presidential Candidate Forum with Dr. Jill Stein
Nov
1
4:00 PM16:00

Presidential Candidate Forum with Dr. Jill Stein

Presidential Candidate Forum with Dr. Jill Stein

Friday, November 1, 2024

Kuwasi Balagoon Center

939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS

Cooperation Jackson will be hosting our second Presidential Candidate Forum with Dr. Jill Stein from the Green Party. These Forums are to educate our community about the full complement of democratic choices that are available to people in Mississippi and throughout the United States. This is part of our educational mission to “socialize production and democratize society”.

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October 2024 Movie Night - Horror Noire
Oct
25
6:00 PM18:00

October 2024 Movie Night - Horror Noire

Join us Friday, October 25, 2024 for Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror

939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS

6 to 8 pm

Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror is a 2019 American documentary film directed by Xavier Burgin and based on the 2011 non-fiction book Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present by Robin R. Means Coleman.The film examines the evolution of the genre of black horror.

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Really, Really Free Market #4
Oct
19
8:00 AM08:00

Really, Really Free Market #4

Really, Really Free Market #4

Saturday, October 19, 2024

8 am - 12 pm

1214 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS

The Really, Really Free Market is a process of mutual aid and site of mutual exchange. We encourage anyone and everyone in Jackson to come get what you need, from items provided by the community.

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Mama Charlotte Hill O'Neal for the 27th UAACC Heal the Community Tour
Sep
30
6:00 PM18:00

Mama Charlotte Hill O'Neal for the 27th UAACC Heal the Community Tour

Join us in welcoming Mama Charlotte Hill O'Neal for the 27th UAACC Heal the Community Tour

6pm-8pm

Monday, September 30th, 2024

Kuwasi Balagoon Center

939 Capitol St. Jackson, MS 39203

Sharing Wisdom, Music, Poetry and Building the Global Community

Mama C, is an elder in the black liberation movement, from the Kansas City Black Panther Party to co-founding the United African Alliance Community Center (UAACC) in Tanzania. She is an internationally known Visual Artist, Musician, Filmmaker, Poet and Author.

Donations will be accepted to raise funds for the United African Alliance Community Center (UAACC) compound in Tanzania, East Africa and the Leaders of Tomorrow Children's Home.

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September Movie Night - Jones Plantation
Sep
27
6:00 PM18:00

September Movie Night - Jones Plantation

September 2024 Movie Night - Jones Plantation

Friday, September 27, 2024

Kuwasi Balagoon Center

939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS

6 pm

Join us for controversial, cult film classic.

You can control a man with brute violence but you can never truly OWN a man until he's convinced that your word is law, and obedience is a virtue. A film destined to be a cult classic, and at the forefront of American Dissident Cinema.

In a time of great hardship, an enslaved people yearn for freedom. Their desperate pleas seem to be answered when a charismatic stranger arrives, promising liberation. But behind his honeyed words and grand vision lurks a sinister agenda. Piece by piece, he spins an elaborate fiction, twisting their hopes into shackles to bind them.

https://www.traditionrolex.com/18

Caught in his intricate web, they fail to see the truth staring them in the face. The few who dare speak out are silenced through coercion and violence. Step by step, the sinister plan takes shape as the people are complicit in their own continued oppression. They cheer their captor and turn on the ones who urge them to open their eyes.

As the ruse reaches its climax, the ultimate price must be paid. Will the truth finally spark the rebellion so long suppressed or will the people remain imprisoned in their own minds? This harrowing tale explores the tangled roots of exploitation and control through one man's nefarious quest to maintain power through elaborate deception. But even the best cons must eventually come to light...

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Remaking the Economy: Escaping Corporate Capture
Sep
18
1:00 PM13:00

Remaking the Economy: Escaping Corporate Capture

Remaking the Economy:

Escaping Corporate Capture

Wednesday, September 18th, 2024

2:00pm - 3:30pm ET

What is “corporate capture” and how can people escape its effects—in our politics, our culture, our daily life, and in the nonprofit sector? How do people, in short, build an actual everyday politics and economics of liberation?

This was the organizing question for the summer 2024 issue of Nonprofit Quarterly. To addresses this question and expand upon their contributions, three authors from NPQ’s summer economic justice magazine will explore the concept of corporate capture and how movement-based groups can build viable escape routes to advance economic justice. Our panelists are:

Kali Akuno is the cofounder and executive director of Cooperation Jackson, based in Jackson, Mississippi.

Hannah Appel is cofounder of the Debt Collective, a professor of anthropology, and associate director of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, based in Los Angeles, California.

Arlene Martinez is deputy executive director of Good Jobs First, based in Washington, DC.

Sara Myklebust is research director for Bargaining for the Common Good, based at Georgetown University's Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor in Washington, DC.

This webinar will explore:


  • What do we mean by corporate capture? How does it affect economic justice work? 

  • How can debtors organize to build power and restrain the power of banks and financial institutions? 

  • How can communities organize effectively to limit corporate tax breaks?

  • How can workers and labor unions leverage trillions of worker pension dollars to advance an economy that prioritizes the common good?

  • How does one build a solidarity economy on the ground?  

  • What does it look like to transform racial capitalism? What are points of leverage and how do we engage for the long haul? 

  • What is the role of cultural change in economic change work?

  • What are the democratic economic structures that people want and need—and are worth fighting for?

Whether you’re a social movement activist, nonprofit leader, board member, or engaged in community-based organizing, this webinar will provide you with real-life examples and lessons learned that can inform your work in your own community.

Register to learn how nonprofits and movement activists are advancing strategies to address the economic and social inequalities of our time!

The moderator for this webinar is NPQ senior editor of economic justice Steve Dubb. Steve has worked with cooperatives and nonprofits for over two decades and has been both a student and practitioner in the field of community economic development. 

You can send your questions to webinar@npqmag.org to have them answered during the web event.

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Presidential Candidate Forum with Claudia de la Cruz
Sep
17
6:00 PM18:00

Presidential Candidate Forum with Claudia de la Cruz

Presidential Candidate Forum with Claudia de la Cruz 

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Kuwasi Balagoon Center

939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS

Cooperation Jackson will be hosting several Presidential Candidate forums in September and October to educate our community about the full complement of democratic choices that are available to people in Mississippi and throughout the United States. This is part of our educational mission to “socialize production and democratize society”. Our first candidate forum is with Socialist Presidential Candidate, Claudia de la Cruz, who represents the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). We are working to bring Cornel West and Jill Stein to Jackson to educate our community about their efforts to build alternatives to the political duopoly that dominates the United States political arena. 

Socialist presidential candidate Claudia de la Cruz is coming to Jackson, Mississippi. If you’re frustrated by the two-party “lesser of two evil” politics that seems incapable of delivering transformative change for Black people in America, come to Cooperation Jackson on Tuesday, Sep. 17 at 6:30pm.

Mississippi is the poorest state in the country. Jackson—the only city in the state with a population exceeding 100k people—has experienced the largest population decline of any major US city in the last 10 years.

When it comes to Black economic and social freedom, we are told that our options are limited to a vote for Harris or for Trump, and affiliation with a blue or red political block, both led by ruling class elites and committed to exploitation and Empire. But is that true? Is there really no strategic vision outside of the two-party status quo?

Join the conversation with presidential candidate Claudia de la Cruz and Cooperation Jackson!

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St. Bernard Reunion - Day 2 (New Orleans)
Aug
31
4:00 PM16:00

St. Bernard Reunion - Day 2 (New Orleans)

St. Bernard Reunion - Day 2 (New Orleans)

Saturday, August 31, 2024

4 pm - 9 pm

3820 Alfred Street (across from Columbia Park)

Join Cooperation Jackson and the New Day Collective to honor those memory of the St. Bernard Projects and those we lost on account of Hurricane Katrina and the Great Flood.

This is one of the critical steps towards rebuilding the New Day Center on Alfred Street.

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Friday Night Film for August 2024 - An Upright Man
Aug
30
6:00 PM18:00

Friday Night Film for August 2024 - An Upright Man

Friday Night Film Night August 2024 - An Upright Man

Balagoon Center

939 W. Capitol Street

Jackson, MS 39203

6 pm

Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man is a 2006 documentary film about Thomas Sankara, former president of Burkina Faso. Sankara was known as "the African Che", and became famous in Africa due to his innovative ideas, his devastating humor, his spirit and his altruism. With a gun in one hand and Karl Marx's works in the other, Sankara became president at the age of 34 and served from 1983 to 1987. He immediately set out to shake the foundations of the country that he renamed from the French colonial Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, "Land of Upright Men." More than a classic biography, this film sheds light on the impact that this man and his politic made on Burkina Faso and Africa in general.

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St. Bernard Reunion (New Orleans)
Aug
30
4:00 PM16:00

St. Bernard Reunion (New Orleans)

St. Bernard Reunion (New Orleans)

Friday, August 30, 2024

4 pm - 9 pm

3820 Alfred Street (across from Columbia Park)

Join Cooperation Jackson and the New Day Collective to honor those memory of the St. Bernard Projects and those we lost on account of Hurricane Katrina and the Great Flood.

This is one of the critical steps towards rebuilding the New Day Center on Alfred Street.

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THROUGH THE PORTAL: GROWING THE WORLD WE WANT.
Aug
24
2:00 PM14:00

THROUGH THE PORTAL: GROWING THE WORLD WE WANT.

SEPTEMBER 20-22 2024

CHICAGO, IL

THROUGH THE PORTAL: GROWING THE WORLD WE WANT.

Join us in debates, conversations, and collaborations that pave the way to a more just and liberatory world.

Register Here: https://appserv7.admin.uillinois.edu/FormBuilderSurvey/Survey/UIC_Social_Justice_Initiative/General/ttpr/Survey

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Build, Fight and Transform at the New School
Aug
24
2:00 PM14:00

Build, Fight and Transform at the New School

Build, Fight, Transform: Building a Regenerative Economy through the Practices of Solidarity, Decolonization, and Degrowth

Wolff Conference Room

As a prelude to Climate Week, the Tishman Environment Design Center will host our visiting scholar Kali Akuno for a second lunch and learn. Kali will build upon the last session by expanding on the Build and Fight Formula that Cooperation Jackson utilizes in its mission to build just communities in Jackson, MS. 

 

As an environmental justice leader, Kali is working on a transformative book, The Build and Fight Formula. With this text, Kali aims to provide strategic suggestions for social movements in the US and beyond. These suggestions focus on building participatory democracy from the grassroots level and altering the commodity form of production to regenerate social relations. Ultimately, this transformation aims to end various forms of exploitation and extraction and reposition our communities in the right relationship with our ecologies. Kali's work is not just inspiring but also offers hope for a better future.


Kali Akuno is an organizer, educator, and writer for human rights and social justice. He is currently the co-founder and Executive Director of Cooperation Jackson, an emerging network of worker cooperatives and supporting institutions.


When: September 19th, 2024, Noon - 2pm EDT

Where: The New School, Wolff Conference Room

 Albert and Vera List Academic Center, room D1103
6 East 16th Street, NY, NY

This is part of our 2024 Climate Week programming

 

Presented by the Tishman Environment and Design Center.

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Really, Really Free Market Saturday, August 17, 2024 (Marcus Garvey Day)
Aug
17
8:00 AM08:00

Really, Really Free Market Saturday, August 17, 2024 (Marcus Garvey Day)

Really, Really Free Market

Saturday, August 17, 2025

Marcus Mosiah Garvey Day

Working step by step to enhance the productive capacity of our people to make every yard a farm, and every garage a factory. Join us in the effort. See you on August 17th in the memory of Marcus Mosiah Garvey. #BuildAndFight #GetOrganized #MutualAid #MutualExchange

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May 2024 Movie Night: An Upright Man
May
31
6:00 PM18:00

May 2024 Movie Night: An Upright Man

May 2024 Movie Night - An Upright Man

Balagoon Center

939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS

6 pm

Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man is a 2006 documentary film about Thomas Sankara, former president of Burkina Faso. Sankara was known as "the African Che", and became famous in Africa due to his innovative ideas, his devastating humor, his spirit and his altruism. With a gun in one hand and Karl Marx's works in the other, Sankara became president at the age of 34 and served from 1983 to 1987. He immediately set out to shake the foundations of the country that he renamed from the French colonial Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, "Land of Upright Men." More than a classic biography, this film sheds light on the impact that this man and his politic made on Burkina Faso and Africa in general.

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May Day: 10 Year Anniversary Celebration
May
4
1:00 PM13:00

May Day: 10 Year Anniversary Celebration

Join Cooperation Jackson on Saturday, May 4th at the Kuwasi Balagoon Center from 1 to 6 pm to honor International Workers Day or May Day and the 10th Anniversary celebration of the launch of Cooperation Jackson. 


Cooperation Jackson launched on Thursday, May 1st, 2014 to signal to the world that we were part and parcel of the International Working Class Movement to build a new world, an ecosocialist world. And that we were going to do our part to organize the Black working class of Jackson, the state of Mississippi, and the deep south to make a major contribution to the advance of this movement by building economic democracy in Jackson, through the means of worker cooperatives and other institutions of the solidarity economy. 

The Balagoon Center is located at 939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS 39203. 

So, come join us for some good company, good food, good music, and good politics!

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Organizing for Change: Fighting Poverty and Inequality in US
Apr
11
12:00 PM12:00

Organizing for Change: Fighting Poverty and Inequality in US

Organizing for Change: Fighting Poverty and Inequality in the US

Human Rights Center at the Columbia School of Law

Jerome Green Hall, Room 107

Thursday, April 11, 2024

12 - 1 pm

Featuring Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson, Ashely Hufnagel of United Workes, and Anthony Prince of the California Homeless Union

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Build and Fight Formula Discussion at the New School
Apr
9
10:30 AM10:30

Build and Fight Formula Discussion at the New School

The Build and Fight Formula: A lunch and learn with Kali Akuno

Location TBD

Join the Tishman Environment Design Center  as we welcome our visiting scholar Kali Akuno for a community Lunch and Learn. Kali is an environmental justice leader who is currently working on his comprehensive book, The Build and Fight Formula. With this text, Kali aims to provide strategic suggestions for social movements in the US and beyond on how to build participatory democracy from below and alter the commodity form of production in order to stimulate regenerative social relations to end various forms of exploitation and extraction and reposition our communities to be in right relationship with our ecologies.


Kali Akuno is an organizer, educator, and writer for human rights and social justice. He is currently the co-founder and Executive Director of Cooperation Jackson, which is an emerging network of worker cooperatives and supporting institutions.


We hope you’ll be able to join us for what is sure to be an engaging experience!


When: Tuesday, April 9th, 10:30-Noon EST

Where: In Person, The New School, Room TBD.

Presented by the Tishman Environment and Design Center.

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March 2024 Film Night - Fannie Lou Hamer's America
Mar
29
6:00 PM18:00

March 2024 Film Night - Fannie Lou Hamer's America

March 2024 Film Night - Fannie Lou Hamer’s America

Friday, March 29, 2024

Balagoon Center 939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS

Fannie Lou Hamer’s America is an original documentary told through the public speeches, personal interviews, and powerful songs of the fearless Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist. Known for being “sick and tired of being sick and tired” and her impassioned pleas for equal rights, Fannie Lou Hamer helped change laws and was very influential in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Besides her political advocacies during the 1960s, Hamer was also a humanitarian, providing clothing, housing, educational opportunities for the poor, and food for thousands through her Freedom Farm Cooperative and Pig Bank.

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Land Back and Liberation Zones
Feb
20
4:00 PM16:00

Land Back and Liberation Zones

Land Back and Liberated Zones

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Old Chapel, UMass Amherst

5 pm - 7 pm est

Featuring Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson and Ethan Miller of Land in Common

Organized by BSE (Building Solidarity Economies) is an assemblage of courses and projects aimed at researching and advancing a post-capitalist politics. Contact BSE at bshear@umass.edu

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