Building a solidarity economy in Jackson, Mississippi, anchored by a network of cooperatives and worker-owned, democratically self-managed enterprises.
News & Media
The Transformative Potential of a Union-Coop Alliance
The following is an audio excerpt and transcript from a point raised by Kali Akuno from our webinar “Remaking the Economy: Escaping Corporate Capture.”
The Really, Really Free Market #4
Cooperation Jackson our 4th Really, Really Free Market for the year 2024.
The Really, Really Free Market is a community aid and exchange process that tries to embody the principle of “from each to each” to meet our community needs.
Be on the lookout for our next Really, Really Free Market on Saturday, December 21st.
And also be on the lookout for the introduction of a community voucher exchange system to be introduced into the Really, Really Free Market process in 2025. We will be receiving training from Grassroots Economics and incorporating their innovative voucher system in Jackson.
Disrupt the Chaos: Interview with Kali Akuno
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
Check out the first Disrupt the Chaos show with Rosa Clemente featuring Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson. And be on the lookout for a monthly feature of Kali on Disrupt the Chaos the first Tuesday of every month as he breaks down the Build and Fight Formula being developed and promoted by Cooperation Jackson.
Build, Fight, Transform: Building a Regenerative Economy through the practices of Solidarity, Decolonization and Degrowth
Thursday, September 19, 2024
The Tishman Center hosted our Senior Fellow, Kali Akuno, for a ‘lunch and learn’ on campus. Kali shares his ideas on building participatory democracy from the grassroots level and altering the commodity form of production to regenerate social relations. He also engages in dialogue with attendees on Check out his upcoming book, The Build and Fight Formula and his recent book, “Jackson Rising Redux: Lessons on Building the Future in the Present.
Remaking the Economy: Escaping Corporate Capture
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
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.
Building a Solidarity Economy in the South (and beyond)
This article is from Nonprofit Quarterly Magazine’s summer 2024 issue, “Escaping Corporate Capture.” Written by Kali Akuno, Executive Director of Cooperation Jackson
The fundamental premise of the Build and Fight Formula is that we must abandon our deficit-based perspective of scale and pivot to a perspective of bounty—one that appreciates the value of a multitude of autonomous organizing projects.
Land Back and Liberated Zones: Building Power and Reworking Relations through Community Land Trusts
Dialogue with Kali Akuno and Ethan Miller
In late February of this year, Kali Akuno from Cooperation Jackson and Ethan Miller from Land in Common took part in a public conversation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. With over 200 students, faculty, and community members in attendance, Kali and Ethan shared with each other and the audience the history and politics of their organizations, the relationship between place-based and global politics, and the role of community land trusts and solidarity economies as part of a process of decommodification.
The Solidarity Economy must become more political to achieve it’s goals
Interview K.AL.O Attica Coordination in Greece with Kali Akuno
In the interview that follows and which he gave to Syntonismus, he talks about everything: the rise of the extreme right, the Social Solidarity Economy as a weapon for workers and marginalized social strata, but also the immediate need for its deeper politicization.
Building a Solidarity Economy
MOLD, Interview with Kali Akuno by Jaime Tyberg
This interview charts many of the adjustments Cooperation Jackson has had to make over the course of it first 10 years trying to build the solidarity economy in Jackson, MS.
Racism and Jackson’s Water Crisis
The Marc Steiner Show, The Real News Podcast
Interview with Kali Akuno
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. 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.
Really, Really Free Market #1 - June 15, 2024
Check out a few snapshots of the Really, Really Free Market. 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.
“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.
10 Year Anniversary Celebration Scenes
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!
Imagining Coop Universities with Columbia University Faculty and Staff
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.
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.
Build and Fight: Community Production, Community Control, and the Struggle for Self-Determination in Jackson, MS and across the Globe
Monday, December 4, 2023
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.
Imaginal Cells of the Solidarity Economy: Politics and Policy
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.
People’s Climate Week 2023 Launch Session - Monday, September 18, 2023
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.
Freedom is a Constant Meeting: An Interview with 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.
Kali Akuno interview in Barcelona, Catalonia
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.
Solidarity Economy in the Age of Global NeoColonialism
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.
Jackson Rising Redux interview on Hard Knock Radio, June 7, 2023
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.
Cooperation Jackson, Cooperative Economics, and Black Liberation
Kali Akuno in conversation with Dr. Jared Ball of I Mix What I Like on Black Power Media talking about Cooperation Jackson, Cooperative Economics, and Black Liberation. This conversation took place on Friday, May 26, 2023.
Eco-Justice Activist honored in Dixwell
Article from the New Haven Independent written by Allan Appel on May 15, 2023. The article is a report on the 2023 Gandhi Peace Award which was awarded to Kali Akuno from Cooperation Jackson.
Organizers gather to advance solidarity economy organizing
The gathering was titled Building Worker Power through Solidarity, Cooperation and Care. Organized by the Labor Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Wellspring Cooperative, a worker co-op network based in nearby Springfield, the conference set to develop deeper ties between unions and worker co-ops—and to advance organizing for a solidarity economy.
Shifting Focus Lecture at the University of Vermont
March 28, 2023
Capitalism is choking the life systems of our precious planet and threatening extinction of complex species including humanity. Kali Akuno explains how EcoSocialism offers transformation from below, employing the principles of decolonization, anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, anti-heterosexism, and degrowth.
Shifting Focus Lecture at the Schumacher Center
March 26, 2023
Kali Akuno delivered the First Annual Robert Swann Lecture in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in March, 2023. in 2023, we introduced the Annual Robert Swann Lectures, featuring Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson as the inaugural speaker. The lecture took place in the Great Hall at Saint James Place in Great Barrington, MA.
CJ and the State of Jackson Short Take from Joshua Dedmond, Part 3
Check out Part 3 of Joshua Dedmond, our Program Director analyzing the impact of the reactionary legislation being proposed by the Republican majority of the Mississippi legislature that is attempting to construct apartheid 2.0 in Jackson, MS. He also highlights what Cooperation Jackson and the broader progressive social movement in Jackson are doing to combat the reactionary development.
CJ and the State of Jackson Short Take from Joshua Dedmond, Part 2
Check out Part 2 of Joshua Dedmond, our Program Director, breaking down highlights of the work of Cooperation Jackson and sharing updates on the social struggles taking place in Jackson in early 2023.
CJ and the State of Jackson Short Take from Joshua Dedmond, Part 1
Check out Joshua Dedmond, our Program Director, break down highlights from the work of Cooperation Jackson and provide updates on the social struggles taking place in Jackson in early 2023.
From Crisis to Transformation: What is Just Transition? A Primer
This Primer has been the product of a collective process of thinking between the authors and their organisations, who have been working in different ways on the concept of Just Transition with social movements, organisations and communities around the world, and trying to understand how this simple but powerful idea can help people to mobilise for genuine and transformative change. This is not a final or exhaustive vision of Just Transition, as different regions, communities, movements and organisations are developing their own visions (see the final section). However it is hoped that these key ideas and questions will give all readers tools for thinking more deeply about what Just Transition might mean for them, their movements, and their communities.
Authors
Kali Akuno, Katie Sandwell, Lyda Fernanda Forero, Jaron Browne
In collaboration with
Mission & Purpose
The broad mission of Cooperation Jackson is to advance the development of economic democracy in Jackson, Mississippi, by building a solidarity economy anchored by a network of cooperatives and other types of worker owned and democratically self-managed enterprises.
Announcements
RISE UP
Film by Leftvision
Coming to Netflix.
RISE UP seeks answers to the devastating ecological, economic and authoritarian developments of our time. The cinema documentary is a surprise success by the radical video activists of @leftvision. It was picked up by Netflix Germany. Now you can stream/show the movie in English, or with Spanish subtitles. For more info: riseup-film.de/english.
Featuring: Kali Akuno (New Afrika), Marlene Sommer (Rojava), Shahida Issel (Anti-Apartheid, South Africa), Judith Braband (GDR opposition activist), Camila Cáceres (Chile)
New Plastic Waste Recycle Drop Off at the Ida B. Wells Plaza
Zero Waste JXN is partnering with Keep Jackson Beautiful to set up a Plastic Waste drop off site at the Ida B. Wells Plaza located at 1204 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS.
Really, Really Free Market Info Pamphlet
Building a world of mutual exchange and solidarity to meet our communities needs.
10th Anniversary Fundraising Appeal: Launching Development Phase Three
Capacity Building, Local Scaling, and Bioregional Development
Please support the Launch of our Third Phase of Development, focusing on Capacity Building, Local Scaling, and Bioregional Development.
Help us raise $500,000 to provide our members with more skill development, inventory management, and value chain development training to successfully launch the People’s Grocery, a Trucking Cooperative, the Ewing Street Eco-village, and more.
People’s Assembly’s Popular Education Initiative
Checkout these dope slides about People's Assembly's that draws heavily on the work emerging from experiences in Jackson, MS and New Orleans over the last 20 years. This is from the Solidarity Economy Association out of the UK. Enjoy!
A Just Transition for Goddard College
Help Cooperation Vermont raise $5 million to purchase the Goddard College grounds and transform it into a Just Transition Center and future Cooperative College.
Cooperation Vermont is a sister organization of Cooperation Jackson, based in Marshfield, Vermont, and is the sponsor of the Marshfield Cooperative at the Marshfield Village Store. Cooperation Vermont is also one of the anchor organizations of the People’s Network for Land and Liberation, which consists of Cooperation Jackson, Community Movement Builders, and INCITE Focus.
Donate Now and Spread the Word! Please note “Goddard/CVT Land Trust” in your donation.
Seeking Experienced AgroEcologist to work with Freedom Farms Cooperative
Cooperation Jackson is seeking to hire two experienced Agroecologists to anchor our Freedom Farms Cooperative. We are looking to develop a team to farm our urban farming lands, our rural farming lands, and support the aquaponic and hydroponic operations that will be central to the People’s Grocery Cooperative. These anchors will need to help us revive our community supported agriculture program (CSA) and produce enough for steady market exchange to make the cooperative as self-sufficient as possible.
These positions will be vacant until filled.
Please send a resume and cover letter to cooperationjackson@gmail.com. Note: “Freedom Farms Position” in the title.
Congratulations to Vick L. Hudson on his appointment to the Jackson, MS Planning Board
Cooperation Jackson offers our heartfelt congratulations to Vick L. Hudson on his appointment to the Jackson, MS Planning Board. Vick was appointed to the Board on December 5, 2023 by Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and the Jackson City Council.
Vick joined the staff of Cooperation Jackson in early 2023, to serve as our Community Land Trust Organizing Director.
Thank you for a dynamic 2023. Here’s to an amazing 2024!
To everyone who supported us, thank you. Your solidarity helped make our ongoing work possible. Love, Respect, and Solidarity.
Fannie Lou Hamer CLT Plaza Update
A short update on the development of the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust. Made in November 2023. Featuring, Sacajawea Hall, our Operations Manager, and Vick Hudson, our CTL Coordinator.
Help us start the new year off strong. We are in the process of completing Phase 2 of our CLT development work now, and getting in position to move to Phase 3 in 2024! Please donate now and spread the word to your family, friends, comrades and fellow cooperators.
Support the Eversville Design and Print Shop
Checkout this video of one of the Coop's co-owners Kwame Braxton describing some of the outlines of the business and its needs. We are looking to raise $80,000 to complete the build out of the Print Shop at the Ida B. Wells Plaza.
August 2023 Fundraising Appeal: Phase Two Development Completion
Completing Construction on the Ida B. Wells Plaza and other properties of the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust
Help Cooperation Jackson take the next step in our evolution. We are on the cusp of making a qualitative advance in our work, but we need your help to get there. Since our inception, we have tried our best to start our cooperatives as debt free as possible. To this point in our history, we have largely been able to acquire the property holdings of our community land trust and support our various cooperatives on a debt free basis by mobilizing resources drawn the various savings initiatives of our founders, dues from our members, ongoing support from our sustainers, strategic grants from progressive philanthropies, and the investment of major donors who share our vision.
We would like to see this trajectory through the completion of phase two of our development, which will enable our main hub and all of our cooperative units to remain debt free moving into the third phase of our collective development. This will enable us to further build and fortify a market protected ecosystem that will provide us with some competitive advantages in our quest to overcome the ruthlessness of the capitalist system, and replace it with a more cooperative and ecologically regenerative one. With your help, we will be in position to continue to serve as one of the largest and most strategic radical, Black led, land-based, solidarity economy initiatives in the United States.
So, what do we need help with? We need to raise $600,000 by October 31st to complete the foundational renovations at the Ida B. Wells Plaza, which is the largest holding in the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust, and several of our property holdings, including the Community Production Center.
Join the Campaign to Rebuild the Fight Back Center
This video features Endesha Juakali, one of the founders of the New Day Collective, and one of the principal organizers of the movement to save public housing in New Orleans over the last 40 years. The New Day Collective started in the St. Bernard neighborhood, located in the historic 7th Ward, in the 1970's. In this video Endesha shares some of the history of the struggle to save public housing housing since Hurricane Katrina, what the economic and political elite of New Orleans did to undermine this struggle to ensure that nearly 100,000 Black working class and poor folks could not make it back to New Orleans to ensure that the city would become "whiter, smaller, and more affluent".
Please donate as generously as you can to the Fight Back Center Campaign by donating to Cooperation Jackson at www.cooperationjackson.org/donate.
The Principles of Building Class Conscious Cooperatives
These graphics distill the core principles outlining what we believe it takes to build class conscious cooperatives. We believe the adoption of these principles help enable organizers, cooperators, and communities from building “cooperatives for cooperatives sake”, which are often ungrounded politically and can be and are used against working class communities as enablers of gentrification and displacement.
These principles are some of the emerging cornerstones of our Build and Fight Formula. Be on the lookout for more details on elements of how we think this formula can and should be operationalized to make some critical contributions to advance the struggle to socialize production and democratize society.
Building Class Conscious Cooperatives
An article written by our Executive Director, Kali Akuno, on occasion of International Workers Day 2023 and the 9th anniversary of Cooperation Jackson. The article focuses on the need to build class conscious cooperatives as a core tool in the toolkit of the working class to socialize production and democratically transform society.
Realizing the Durban Declaration and Program of Action is at the Heart of Our Pan-African Global Reparations Movement
An open letter to the Permanent Forum for People of African Descent will be issued before the next Session at the end of May. Support the demand for its work to be grounded in the Durban Declaration and Program of Action (DDPA) and the full and complete repair & justice it calls for. Provide your info and we will keep in touch around the Open Letter and other ways to engage.
Waste Management Support
Monday, April 17 - Friday, April 21, 2023
Ida B. Wells Plaza
1128 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS
Join us in the effort to serve the people and keep our community clean. Dump your trash and recycle your plastics with us as we work together to overcome this crisis.
Jackson Rising Redux
Out Now! Get your copy today.
Edited by Kali Akuno and Matt Meyer
Jackson Rising Redux is an updated and expanded version of Jackson Rising. It chronicles and growth and struggles of Cooperation Jackson in the ongoing struggle to socialize production and democratize democracy on a municipal scale.
Stop HB 1020
Fight Apartheid 2.0
House Bill 1020 is nothing but the promotion of a new and improved version of Jim Crow apartheid. HB1020 is intended to be an expansion of the Capitol Corridor Improvement District (CCID), which came into effect in 2018. This Bill will expand the district to include all of the majority white districts in the city of Jackson, and enable them to exercise a degree of self rule, that would include creating as separate police force in this district, a separate court system, the elimination of voting and political rights for Black people in this district, and will divert critical tax dollars away from the Black controlled municipality and communities in need.
This Bill poses a critical threat to the Jackson-Kush Plan and Cooperation Jackson opposes it unequivocally. We encourage everyone, in Mississippi and beyond, to do the same.
#StopCopCity
Cop City is a portent of the future. It represents the fact that both mainstream political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, are running out of viable options for a better, brighter, equitable and regenerative future. The investment of the Atlanta police, the City of Atlanta, the Federal government, and both political parties in making sure this project comes to fruition demonstrates that they all clearly envision and plan on delivering a more repressive future.
We have to Stop Cop City. We have to preserve what remains of our natural environments, particularly in urban spaces, where the vast majority of humanity now resides. Stay tuned to our sister organization Community Movement Builders (CMB) for updates on the struggle to stop Cop City and how you can get involved.
#Justice4Jackson Demands and Action Items
There are two components to Phase 2 of our Water Crisis Recovery, One dimension is Building Community Resilience and the Second dimension is Political Resistance. We need your help with both.
Jackson, MS Water Crisis - Building Community Resiliency, Water Crisis Relief Phase 2
What's happening is that we are moving on to Phase 2. This is the first community based water catchment system we are installing. More are on the way with your help & donations to build some resiliency in our community.
Special thanks to our comrades from Just Construction for coming down and lending us some knowledge, skill, education, training, and labor.
We need your support for Phase 2 of this struggle. Please donate generously.
Justice 4 Jackson. Help us fix Jackson’s water system and build more autonomy and people power in the city.
Call to Action from Cooperation Jackson.
We are demanding the State and Federal Government completely overhaul Jackson’s water treatment and delivery systems. And asking our allies to help us build autonomous infrastructure to help us end various dependencies on the racist state apparatus.
Show some love for Cooperation Jackson!
Support Our Capital Campaign for the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust
After two years of adjusted development due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cooperation Jackson is poised to take the next major step in our development. We aim to raise $2,500,000 that will strengthen our efforts to decommodify land and housing, collectively steward our resources, and expand the opportunity we have for democratic community control. Help us take the leap needed to consolidate the development of our Community Land Trust.
Cooperation Jackson developed the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust as a division of our non-profit operations in 2015. We established the land trust to protect and preserve Black land stewardship in West Jackson. By purchasing as many of the vacant lands and facilities as our limited resources would allow, over the past seven years, we have successfully acquired over forty properties in West Jackson, including a shopping mall, and three commercial facilities.
In our fight to defend our neighborhood in West Jackson from the rising tide of gentrification and displacement, our approach continues to be multifaceted; remove land and housing from the speculative market; build the affordable housing and commercial space needed to support families and businesses; create community space where we can be in relationship with each other; and build the democratic practices necessary to sustain and defend our alternative model. The money raised will enable us to finish developing the land and facilities we currently steward, and purchase a few remaining strategic assets in the neighborhood.
In many ways, it is now “the best of times, and the worst of times'' in Jackson. The housing market is increasingly rapacious, while speculation runs even more rampant than when we launched Cooperation Jackson. While it is true that these multinational corporations like Amazon will help address the need for jobs in Jackson, their arrival comes at a cost. In addition to the impact on land and housing, most of these jobs will deepen the exploitation of the working class in Jackson, the state of Mississippi, and the southern region in overall, as they are premised on exploiting the political conditions that exist in the state and region that intentionally impoverish labor and deprive workers of their fundamental rights, particularly the right to organize themselves into collective bargaining units.
In order to play our part in countering these developments, we are focusing and prioritizing the following:
Completing the renovation of the Ida B. Wells Plaza, to enable the opening of the People’s Grocery Cooperative, and to provide affordable commercial space for local businesses and community organizations
Fully renovating the Dambala House, one of the commercial facilities we own to turn it into a Maker Space with a training center in the arts of digital fabrication
Acquiring the commercial lot behind the Ida B. Wells Plaza to turn it into a food hub and recycling center
Acquiring a new home on one of our newest properties for Ms. Rose Brown, that will enable her to receive the critical live in home care that is required to manage her chronic medical condition
Completing renovations on the three existing cooperative housing units
Completing renovations on three additional housing units that can enable the development of more affordable housing in our community.
Clearing the dilapidated structures on Ewing Street, commencing soil remediation, continuing the community envisioning and planning workshops that will go hand in hand with the experimental housing development led by our Community Production Cooperative for the Eco-Village Pilot
The $2,500,000 we are seeking to raise will enable us to complete these fundamental projects that ultimately position our community and Cooperation Jackson to weather the storm of capital accumulation presently confronting us. So, we ask everyone who despises gentrification, displacement, the exploitation of labor, and the extraction of resources to show us some love today and the remainder of February.
We look forward to building a groundswell of support for our vision of a regenerative economy and a self-determined community. Donate and spread the word to family, friends, co-workers, comrades, and fellow cooperators.
We appreciate the love and support!
Our Story
Cooperation Jackson is the realization of a vision decades in the making. Our roots lay deep within the struggle for democratic rights, economic justice, and self-determination, particularly for Afrikan people in the Deep South, and for dignity and equality for all workers.
Events
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”.
October 2024 Film Night - Horror Noire
Friday, October 25, 2024
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.
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.
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.
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.
THROUGH THE PORTAL: GROWING THE WORLD WE WANT.
SEPTEMBER 20-22 2024 CHICAGO, IL
Join us in debates, conversations, and collaborations that pave the way to a more just and liberatory world.
Build, Fight, Transform: Building a Regenerative Economy through the Practices of Solidarity, Decolonization, and Degrowth
Thursday, September 19th
12 pm EST
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.
Remaking the Economy: Escaping Corporate Capture
Wednesday, September 18th
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?
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.
St. Bernard Reunion (New Orleans)
Friday, August 30th & 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.
Black August Art Exhibition 2024
Saturday, August 31, 2024
4 pm - 8 pm
512 N. State Street, Jackson, MS 39201
Join Cooperation Jackson for our annual Black August Art Exhibit focused on upholding and commemorating the courageous acts of resistance by our ancestors.
Join us for some good art, food, entertainment and politics.
August 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.
Really, Really Free Market - August 2024
Saturday, August 17, 202
8 am - 12 pm
1214 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS 39203
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.
Really, Really Free Market
Join Cooperation Jackson and local allies and partners for this exchange of mutual aid. Help us build a world of mutual exchange and solidarity to meet our communities needs.
Ida B. Wells Plaza
1128 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS
Saturday, June 15, 2024
8 am - 12 pm
May Day: 10 Year Celebration
Saturday, May 4, 2024
Balagoon Center
939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS
1 - 6 pm
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.
Decolonizing Economics 2024: Earth Day to May Day
Wednesday, May 1 - Friday, May 3, 2024
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.
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
Dismantling Green Colonialism: New Orleans
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 Colonialisim: Jackson
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 at the New School
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: And Encounter in Brooklyn
Sunday, April 7, 2024
4:00 PM
At Woodbine
585 Woodward Ave, Queens, NY 11385
4 pm
Jackson Rising Redux NYC Book Launch and Discussion
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
6 - 8 pm
A new documentary about Mississippi legend, Fannie Lou Hamer, in her own words.
Really, Really Free Market
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
Worker Power and Economic Democracy
Old Main ASU, Tempe Campus
February 23 and 24, 2024
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
Featuring Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson and Ethan Miller of Land in Common
Organized by Building Solidarity Economies at UMass Amherst
February 2024 Movie Night - “Life and Debt”
Friday, February 23
6 pm
Balagoon Center
939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS
"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.
January Movie Night - Stonewall Uprising
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.
Commune or Nothing! Communes against Capitalism
Thursday, December 7
6:30 pm est
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.
Climate Strategies in the Solidarity Economy
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.
Our Principles
Cooperation Jackson has 13 Core Principles, which were crafted by adapting aspects from the basic principles of the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation in the Basque country of Spain, and the International Cooperative Alliance’s cooperative identity, values and principles.
