In the U.S., we celebrate Black History in February. Black history is vital to the ongoing project that is American democracy.  “We have helped the country live up to its founding ideals”, writes 1619 Project journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. We celebrate local legends like Dennis Terry, filmmaker and co-founder of Mandela Foods Cooperative (1950 - 2020), who dedicated his life to supporting Bay Area cooperatives, publicizing grassroots economic activity and documenting the stories of Black Farmers. We celebrate American giants like anti-capitalist Ella Baker, who co-founded the Young Negroes Cooperative League to invigorate Black buying clubs and grow Black economic power autonomy; and Fannie Lou Hamer, who founded Freedom Farm Cooperative, a grassroots self-help effort to organize and feed as many Black families as she could. 

For the Movement for Black Lives, February is Black Futures Month. Inspired by this visionary framing, we’re shining light on Black folks in our community who’re doing the work to make a better future for us all, right now. They are our mentors, advisors, collaborators, and colleagues.

	Clark Arrington, attorney and educator, reminds us to be nimble in our work for economic liberation, such as his work's evolution supporting Black cooperatives, to innovating cooperatives structures, to developing international fair-trade initiatives.
	Dorcas R. Gilmore, a racial and economic justice advocate and attorney, reminds us to mentor young attorneys of color who might not think to work in support of the solidarity economy.
	Ed Whitfield, social critic, writer, and community activist, reminds us that in our work to eliminate economic injustice, we must think bigger than solving at the level of consumption and interrogate the power structures that have destroyed the Commons.
	Gregory Jackson, community organizer and Law Center staff attorney, reminds us to draw strength from the successes of Black cooperative history in order to dream of and create a Pan-African solidarity economy providing the essentials of life.
	Leah Penniman, food justice activist, author, and educator, reminds us that food sovereignty is the basis for racial and economic justice.
	Noni Session, cultural anthropologist and grassroots organizer, reminds us People Power can produce home grown leaders and your desire to transform your community can turn into a movement.
	Shawn McDougal, a math teacher and co-founder of the Community Democracy Project, reminds us to get out in the streets, meet people where they’re at, and encourage people to use their collective power.

📣 New Blog Post 📣

"Iwa pele", or as an Radical Real Estate Law School apprentice adélàjà simon translates it, "an attitude of gratitude when greeting the home/earth." In this blog post he asks us, how might we cultivate this attitude when engaging with land through systems that relate to land as inanimate? How do we shift the dominant systems to foster deeper relationships with land?

We're hiring a Financial Craftsperson & Bookkeeper!

We hope you’ll consider joining us! We are looking for someone who will support the smooth, transparent, participatory, and (dare we say it?) joyful function of our financial, payroll, and benefits systems, in addition to contributing to our collectively-stewarded organization in other ways. Do you think that might be you? We’ll be posting the job description and application in a few days. Once posted, we will be taking applications between February 23 to March 22nd, 2021.