This week we’re talking about an Indigenous-led community land trust in northern California, the fight against food apartheid in Baltimore, how alternative currencies are building local resilience, ending US economic imperialism in Cuba and Haiti, rural cooperative energy systems from Hawai’i to Appalachia, and more!
PS: Enjoy the New Economy Roundup? Become a member of our Solidarity Circle for $5/month to help strengthen our grassroots funding base and keep the Roundup going strong!
Stories from the Field
PHOTO: Shaun Walker
Wiyot-led Solidarity Economy: In 2018, the city of Eureka returned 200 acres of Tuluwat Island back to the Wiyot Tribe from whom it had been violently stolen 150 years prior. Now, the Wiyot Tribe is working to form an Indigenous-led Community Land Trust, in partnership with Cooperation Humboldt, to build cooperative housing, grow and distribute food, and support worker-owned businesses. Join NEC member organization TransitionUS on July 23rd to learn more about how Dishgamu Humboldt is using solidarity economy principles to re-Indigenize.
Freeing the Land in Cherry Hill: Since 2017, the Black Yield Institute has been running a community garden in the Baltimore neighborhood of Cherry Hill to provide fresh and nutritious food for residents living in a food desert. Last month, the garden was threatened with eviction by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City. After weeks of organizing, Black Yield Institute has secured use of the land through the end of the year –– but are calling for folks to continue to show up and support work for land reparations in Baltimore.
Alternative Currencies Gain Ground: From the Hudson Valley to Brazil and Japan, the fallout from COVID-19 has increased interest in complementary currencies as a way to build up resilient, localized economies. Read how local currency projects have worked in tandem with cooperative businesses and credit unions to help local communities meet their own needs.
Solidarity Economies Abroad
PHOTO: Line Algoed
Community Control in Brazil and Mozambique: Around the world, community land trusts have the potential to protect against land speculation, gentrification, and displacement of local communities. Read about two pilot CLT projects coming to fruition in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and how they are connected to organizing in Mozambique.
Hands off Cuba & Haiti: “What happened this July 11th during Cuba’s biggest protests in decades? And most importantly, why?” Watch this short report from Belly of the Beast to hear how US economic imperialism has fueled the crisis and scarcity in Cuba, and join the call to end the US embargo. Also, as last week’s assassination of Haiti’s president Jovenel Moïse comes into closer focus, NEC member organization CODEPINK talks to Black Alliance for Peace organizers about what’s going on in the region.
Aboriginal Co-ops in Australia: There are over 200 co-operative and mutual enterprises owned and operated by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia, including the Northern Australia Aboriginal Kakadu Plum Alliance and the Aboriginal Medical Service Cooperative. Follow along as the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals highlights more examples of how Indigenous communities of Australia are healing, housing and caring for each other within cooperative structures.
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Movement News
- An Unapologetic ‘Tax the Rich’ Message Is the Key to Passing the Budget Plan
- A People’s Green New Deal: “Only Anti-Imperialism Can Save Us From Climate Catastrophe”
- A Prisoner’s Apothecary: Solitary Gardens Reimagines Six-by-Nine Cells
- Atlanta Land Trust—From Central Server to a Centralized CLT
- Canada: This Entire Country is Haunted
- Co-ops are Democratizing the Food Chain
- Movement For Black Lives’ Reparations June Recap
- The Co-op Movement Is Taking On Big Tech
- The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative Reimagines Ownership and Equity
- There’s a New Duo That Could Help Rein In Amazon
- Watch the Recording: Co-ops Not Cops Part 2
- Why Shouldn’t the People Own the Banks?
- Worker-Owned Cooperatives and the Future of Rust Belt Labor
- US Sanctions Against Cuba and Venezuela Hamper the Global Fight Against COVID-19
Podcasts of the New Economy
Hoʻāhu Energy Cooperative Molokaʻi and Shake Energy Collaboratives are flipping the script on the for-profit energy system in Hawai’i to make community-led and owned energy a reality. Hear more about these projects for energy democracy in the latest episode of Root Cause Remedies.
Additional Listens
Half Past Capitalism – Tactics for a Cooperative Digital Commons
Intercepted – Corporate Counterinsurgency to Line 3 Pipeline Resistance
LIFT Economy – Yana Ludwig: Moving Toward Cooperative Culture
NDN Collective – In Our Power
NEC on the Gram
Follow NEC on Instagram — @neweconomycoalition — Where we’re sharing about the Rural Power Coalition’s (RPC) campaign to direct $100B in federal funding into clean, cooperatively-owned rural energy infrastructure! Learn more about the campaign by watching RPC’s recent town hall.
Jobs
New Listings!
Contractor for Participatory Management Initiative, Cooperative Development Institute
Demilitarize Organizing Fellowship, Dissenters
Digital Content Creator, The Laura Flanders Show
Editorial Manager & Vice President of Communications, The Democracy Collaborative
Fundraising Associate, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha
Ownership Campaign Manager, Louisville Association for Community Economics
Political and Legislative Coordinator, Sierra Club
Various Positions, Center for Cultural Innovation
Various Positions, Center for Economic Democracy
Various Positions, Democracy at Work institute
All Jobs
Capital Campaigns Co-Director & Strategic Storytelling Co-Director, Minnow
Chief Marketing and Storytelling Officer, Color of Change
Co-Director, Director of Organizing, Resource Generation
Co-Executive Director, Partners for Dignity & Rights
Communications Consultant & Outreach Coordinator, Class Action
Communications Director, Working Partnerships USA
Finance & HR Manager, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Lead Environmental Justice Curriculum Designer and Facilitator, The New School
Partnerships & Marketing Associate, RiseBoro
Program Director, Community Purchasing Alliance
Project Manager, Urban Ocean Lab
Public Bank Campaign Organizer, New Economy Project
Senior Manager, Project Equity
Senior Researcher, Corporate Accountability
Software & Data Engineer, Data Wrangler & Analyst, Catalyst Cooperative
Various Positions, Action Center on Race and the Economy
Various Positions, Center for Popular Democracy
Various Positions, Dream Defenders
Various Positions, Equal Exchange
Various Positions, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
Various Positions, Ironbound Community Corporations
Various Positions, Movement 4 Black Lives
Various Positions, NDN Collective
Various Positions, PUSH Buffalo
Various Positions, The Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy (GCCLP)
Various Positions, Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) – NYC
Upcoming Events
Remaking the Past to Make the Future: The New Black History
As part of the Institute of the Black World’s 50th Anniversary series, this program explores the evolution of Black History from the late 1960s to the present and its relevance to the future of Black America. (July 20 – Online)
The People’s Demand for Land Reparations in Baltimore City with Black Yield Institute and Farm Alliance of Baltimore
Black Yield Institute (BYI) and Farm Alliance of Baltimore (FAB) have released a report, Community Control of Land: The People’s Demand for Land Reparations in Baltimore City. In this session, BYI and FAB organizers will share the context of Baltimore City land use (and non-use) in primarily poor and Black communities. (July 20 – Online)
Abolition 101 Series: Abolition Y’all
“Sometimes concepts like abolition feel far away and leaders of the movement seem historic – but there are abolitionists right here, right now! This session will be used for open discussion and questions.” (July 21 – Online)
Dishgamu Humboldt: Using Solidarity Economy Principles to Re-Indigenize
Dishgamu Humboldt is an Indigenous-led Community Land Trust using Solidarity Economy principles to buy land, build cooperative housing, grow and distribute food, and support worker-owned businesses. Michelle Vassel (Wiyot Tribal Administrator) and David Cobb (Co-Founder of Cooperation Humboldt) invite you to learn more about our project, and to imagine how you might replicate some version of this in your community! (July 23 – Online)
What Can Co-ops Do About Child Care?
“This conversation with experienced cooperative entrepreneurs will highlight innovative approaches to increasing the availability and quality of child care through the growth of employee-owned child care businesses, mutual aid networks, and the conversion of existing businesses to employee ownership, as well as policy innovations and investment opportunities to support and strengthen cooperative child care.” (July 23 – Online)
The Economics of Queerness
“We will hear from QTBPOC activists and artists who are challenging the economic system through building cooperatives and community wealth building models, creating radical alternative community spaces for healing, developing ideas and spaces that challenge our culture of scarcity and using art to reimagine queer economic futures.” (July 29 – Online)
Mayday Space: Gentrification x Theatre Training
“Mayday Space is hosting a Gentrification x Theatre training to engage our local communities in important struggles around land use, housing and anti-gentrification work using applied theatre. Participants will learn a range of theater skills and develop their own creative workshop to conduct later this summer.” (July 31 – in-person, NYC)
Contesting for Narrative Power: Changing the Story of Philanthropy
“Interactive sessions will provide participants with the critical narrative strategy skills to better support frontline-led social movements and to advance institutional change in the field(s) of philanthropy and beyond. Participants will explore what it means to apply a ‘narrative power analysis’ to social change philanthropy and investing, and practice creating narrative intervention prototypes with peers.” (August 18 & 25 – Online)
Conference on Black Cooperative Agenda: Black Wealth Through Equity & Ownership
Network for Developing Conscious Communities’ national conference will focus on “Deepening Black Wealth Through Building Equity and Ownership” echoing their commitment on expanding cooperative models in Black communities as a means for broadening a collective understanding of how cooperatives can tackle economic disparities and challenge systemic racism and inequality. (Sept 27 – 29 – Baltimore, MD | Early Bird Registration Open Now)