It’s the thick of winter. The bare trees and chilly weather are a good reminder to slow down and ease into the new year. What better way to slow down than to read a good book? That’s why one of the Law Center's favorite new year rituals is to collectively curate a list of our favorite books from the previous year that moved us, changed our thinking, or were just plain fun. We hope you curl up with one of our favorite reads of 2023. And let us know if you have any book recommendations by replying to this email!

Building the Solidarity Economy by Boosting Black Owned Coops

Gregory Jackson, former Law Center Fellow and co-founder of Repaired Nations, recently wrote a piece for Nonprofit Quarterly highlighting ways Black-owned cooperatives are growing solidarity economy networks, returning wealth, and building power in the Bay Area and across the African Diaspora. You can find his piece here. 

If you’re interested in deepening your understanding of the power of Black owned cooperatives, Repaired Nations in collaboration with Abibikwantuo travel, are organizing the 6th Annual Black Solidarity Co-op Conference Tour: (Building Blocks of Afro-Futurism) hosted in Ghana West Africa from October 10th-27th, 2024.

Please fill out the interest form if you would like to be a part of this experience.

Embodied Divestment: Moving Money Out of the U.S. War Machine

This two-part workshop series pairs divestment tools with somatic and creative practices. We will focus on the D part of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement — removing investments from the corporations that are funding genocide in Palestine. We will also look at divestment from militarism affecting other sites of colonial violence, drawing inspiration from efforts like Divest From the War Machine. 

The wealth defense industry will tell you to ensure your corpus - the principal of your investments - keeps growing no matter what, but our literal corpus - our body - tells us otherwise as we witness unrelenting death and suffering on our newsfeeds. We aim to ground in the wisdom of the body with Art.coop as we address the technical processes with advisors from Rad Planners and Redistribution Law and collectivize our efforts as a movement strategy with Resource Generation.

Session 1: Overcoming our Blocks - Feb 5th at 7 - 8:30 ET // 4 - 5:30 PT

Session 2: Collectivizing our Action - Feb 19th at 7 - 8:30 ET // 4 - 5:30 PT 

The Beer Stays Here!

For 127 years, Anchor Steam Brewing Company has been making their beloved beers. In 2017, the Japanese beer conglomerate Sapporo acquired Anchor Brewing. In 2023, Sapporo announced their plans to liquidate the company. Anchor SF Cooperative —which includes the brewers, production workers, managers, bartenders, and others — is preparing to bid for the assets needed to continue the brewing operations, and carry Anchor Steam forward.

They’re currently less than $50k away from reaching their $500,000 fundraising goal. You can pledge to become a community investor and support this fledgling worker-owned business.