April 2024 Movie Night: Stamped from the Beginning
A film by Ibram X. Kendi
Balagoon Center for Economic Democracy and Sustainable Development
939 W. Capital Street, Jackson, MS
6 pm
This 3-day virtual conference serves as a space to exchange experiences and information, strengthen alliances and networks, and to devise strategies to decenter colonial systems and implement concrete solutions to heal the land and people.
To view visit https://decolonizingeconomicssummit.org
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!
Dismantling Green Colonialism
Discussion with author and editor, Hamza Hamouchene
John Thompson Legacy Center
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
6 pm
1212 St. Bernard Ave, New Orleans
Co-Sponsored by the Transnational Institute
Dismantling Green Colonialism
Discussion with author and editor, Hamza Hamouchene
Balagoon Center for Economic Democracy and Sustainable Development
Monday, April 22, 2024
6 pm
939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS
Co-Sponsored by the Transnational Institute
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
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.
Build and Fight: An Encounter with Kali Akuno
At Woodbine
585 Woodward Ave, Queens, NY 11385
4 pm
Join Cooperation Jackson in NYC at 1199 SEIU
498 7th Avenue, NY, NY
Join Kali Akuno, Sacajawea “Saki” Hall, Matt Meyer (co-editor), with Maria Alex Garcia, the Coordinator of the Cooperative Economics Alliance of NYC, and Bruce Edwards and Shaywall Amin of SEIU 1199.
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.
Join Cooperation Jackson and local allies and partners on Saturday, March 23, 2024 for this mutual aid exchange to meet the material needs of our families and community.
Ida B. Wells Plaza
1128 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS
Saturday, March 23, 2024
9 am - 2 pm
"Life and Debt" is a searing documentary from director Stephanie Black that examines the ways that policies of the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.), the World Bank, and other aid organizations changed the Jamaican economy in the late 20th century.
February 23 and 24, Worker Power and Economic Democracy, the ASU Center for Work and Democracy’s Annual Conference with Kim Kelly, Kali Akuno, and Matt Meyer in-person in Tempe, AZ and online.
Learn more, join via Zoom, and get their books at blog.pmpress.org/event-directory/
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
Friday, January 12, 2024
Kuwasi Balagoon Center
939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS
6 pm
Stonewall Uprising tells the story of the massive police raid of Stonewall in June 1969.
The role of the June, 1969 Stonewall Riots - so named for the Greenwich Village gay hotel and bar, the Stonewall Inn, in front of which the riots occurred - in gay liberation and the foundation of gay rights in the United States is presented. The riots are largely seen as the turning point in establishing what gay rights there are today. The societal situation for homosexual men and women - including the laws of the day - in the mid-1960s before the riots is presented. Those include forty-nine of fifty states banning homosexuality, homosexual men and women being able to be arrested for a plethora of reasons outside of gay sex (those reasons for which straight people would probably not be arrested), the rise of a homosexual enclave in among other places a one block stretch on Columbus Street in Greenwich Village, and no homosexual man or woman in the United States truly being "out". Those involved on both sides of the riots discuss the situation that led to the first night truly becoming a riot, it which could have been like any night in any large American city where the police were raiding gay bars for the purpose of arresting homosexuals. And the immediate aftermath is discussed, including a celebratory first anniversary event in the Village, which arguably could be considered the first open gay pride parade.
This virtual panel will examine 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 – will draw from various theoretical perspectives and practical experiences.
This panel is presented by Monthly Review and hosted by The People’s Forum, and is 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.
PLEASE NOTE this is a virtual panel and there will be no in-person component of the event.
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.
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Eastside Arts Alliance Cultural Center Gallery
2285 International Blvd, Oakland, CA
Join Kali Akuno and Sacajawea “Saki” Hall in Redding, CA for this book tour event about our struggle to construct economic democracy and ecological regeneration from below in Jackson, MS.
Hosted by Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ), the Anti-Police Terror Project (APTP), and the California Arts Council.
Join authors and activists like Robin D. G. Kelley, Lynn Lewis, AK Thompson, Sonali Kolhatkar, Jordan T. Camp, Josh Davidson, Christina Heatherton, Rebecca Solnit, Michael Reagan, Kali Akuno, Sacajawea Hall and so many more. Free and Open to the Public.
Join Kali Akuno and Sacajawea “Saki” Hall in Redding, CA for this book tour event about our struggle to construct economic democracy and ecological regeneration from below in Jackson, MS.
Dope Is Death
Friday, December 1
6:30 pm
Kuwasi Balagoon Center for Economic Democracy and Sustainable Development
939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS 39203
The story of how Dr. Mutulu Shakur, stepfather of Tupac Shakur, along with fellow Black Panthers and the Young Lords, combined community health with radical politics to create the first acupuncture detoxification program in America in 1973 - a visionary project eventually deemed too dangerous to exist.
Join these esteemed thinkers, strategists, and climate justice activists in roundtable discussions and an opportunity to break bread. We will explore big questions like: What role can higher education play in climate justice? How can we create transformative climate justice strategy and networks?
CLIMATE JUSTICE COMMUNITY STRATEGY
3:45–5:30 pm; Archway Lounge in Dion, 3rd Floor
Join the Center, Kali, and Michelle to welcome a wide range of community partners, engaged in climate justice work, for a visioning and strategic conversation about building networked movements to advance climate justice in the state.
The Imaginal Cells of the Solidarity Economy is an ongoing webinar series that 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.
The next offering is “Politics & Policy” on Tues, Sept 19 at 11am pacific, 2pm eastern.
Webinar panelists will include:
Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson talking about Worker-Owned Cooperatives
Petual Hanley of Democracy Beyond Elections talking about Participatory Budgeting
Lydia Lopez of CA CLT Network talking about Community Land Trusts
Jiyoung Carolyn Park of LA Public Banking talking about Public Banking
The webinar is free, but advance registration is required.
Join us Monday (9/18) for a Plenary & Movement Social as the launch of Peoples' Climate Week. On Tuesday (9/19), we will host a teach-in led by EJ/CJ frontline and BIPOC organizers on real versus false climate solutions.
Presented by Indigenous Environmental Network, Indigenous Climate Action, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, The Movement for Black Lives, Climate Justice Alliance, DRUM - Desis Rising Up & Moving and the Just Transition Alliance!
Register now: https://event.newschool.edu/apeoplesclimateweek1
This is a hybrid event: for those attending virtually, a Zoom link will be sent closer to the date.
People's Climate Week is a counter-space to mainstream NYC Climate Week events where movements advance a People's Agenda to interrupt and disrupt the promotion of false solutions to climate change and other crises, such as often advanced by corporate, governmental, and big NGO actors in NYC Climate Week fora, the UN Ambitions Summit, and UN Conferences of the Parties.
This event is being sponsored by Cooperation Jackson and the Global Working Group Beyond Development of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.
Spanish translation will be provided in person and online.
Join us Friday, June 30 at 6:30 pm at the Balagoon Center located at 939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS.
We will be showing the Summer of Soul about the Harlem Music Festival that was long forgotten by many.
Food and snacks will be served.
Join us for Juneteenth 2023 in New Orleans on Saturday, June 24, 2023 at the Fight Back Center located at 3820 Alfred Street, New Orleans, LA 70122.
Vendors, food, and music will be present.
Join us in taking the our next step in the journey to help the New Day Collective reclaim the St. Bernard neighborhood and take back New Orleans.
Mwamko and Cooperation Jackson invite you to this timely lecture and conversation on the alternatives to Capitalism and the many ways to build a new world. Join us at the Kenya National Theatre on Thursday, 22nd June 2023, at 4.00pm Kenya time 9 am est/8 am cst/7 pm mst/6 am pst. The event will be livestreamed on Cooperation Jackson’s Facebook page.
Join us Friday, May 26, 2023 for Friday Night Movie Night featuring “If Beale Street Could Talk”, a film based on the work of James Baldwin.
Join the New Day Collective and Cooperation Jackson on Saturday, May 20th to Honor Malcolm X and to Launch the opening of the New Day Fight Back Center.
12 noon - Until
3820 Alfred Street, New Orleans, LA
On Saturday, May 13 at 2 p.m. the Gandhi Peace Award for 2023 will be held at the Q-House at 197 Dixwell Avenue in New Haven, CT. If you'd like to attend on Zoom click here for the registration.
If you think you will attend in person click here for a free Eventbrite ticket. You can enter without a ticket but we're doing this to get an idea of how much refreshments to buy and so on.
The prize will be awarded to Kali Akuno of Jackson, Mississippi, co-founder of Cooperation Jackson. Cooperation Jackson was created in Jackson in 2013 to foster a solidarity economy in in the city anchored by a network of cooperatives and worker-owned, democratically self-managed enterprises. We think it's a model that should be widely copied.
If you are able, join us in-person on at Pierson Park, located at 1608 Pickett Road in McKinleyville, CA. The Decolonizing Economics Summit will conclude with a family-friendly event with keynote speakers Kamau Franklin and Edget Betru (Stop Cop City from Atlanta) and Kali Akuno (Cooperation Jackson), a raffle from Local Artisans and Organizations, a bike ride from Arcata to Mckinleyville hosted by CRTP and Critical Mass Arcata, food from Los Giles and Fry Bread Love, music from Good Shield and 7th Generation Rise, tabling, a bouncy house, face painting, jugglers, temporary tattoos, hula hoops, and more! Come celebrate Earth Day with us!
Building a solidarity economy in Jackson, Mississippi anchored by a network of cooperatives and other worker-owned and democratically self-managed enterprises.
