Equity

Declaration Of The International Conference Cuba 2024

December 18, 2024 Conference Organizing Committee, Black Agenda Report. Organize! Cuba, Equality, Equity, International Conference, Social Justice

From December 9th to the 13th, the 240 delegates, coming from 30 nations from four continents, gathered for the International Conference “Cuba 2024 Decade for People of African Descent. Equality - Equity - Social Justice”, that took place in the cities of Havana and Matanzas. Attended by 103 delegates from Cuba and 137 from the following geographical áreas: From the Americas: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, United States, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico and Panama. From the African continent: Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Comoros, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Somalia, Togo and Kenya.

Shining Light On Energy Equity

August 25, 2024 Ian Carbone, Resilience. Create! Clean Energy, Energy, Equity, Solar

As a faculty member at Allegheny College in Northwestern Pennsylvania, I work with students to design and install solar arrays for churches, housing nonprofits, and other organizations that serve our community. Collaborating on local solar projects has taught me a great deal. But what stands out most from my experience is that vulnerable populations are being left out of the energy transition. As I meet individuals and organizations who are actively pursuing solar installations, it is clear that these stakeholders possess a certain degree of time, knowledge, and/or financial resources that enable them to entertain the idea of a solar investment.

Seattle Is Walking Back Its Promises On Community-Led Anti-Displacement

July 23, 2024 Quynh Pham, Ryan Curren and Ben Palmquist, Next City. Educate! Displacement, Equity, Gentrification, Seattle, Systemic Racism

When it launched a first-in-the-nation anti-displacement fund in 2016, Seattle established itself as a leader in racial equity. But a new attack on the City’s Equitable Development Initiative (EDI), part of a national backlash against government efforts to address systemic racism and inequality, threatens that progress. The EDI finances the construction of community cultural and commercial space developed by community-of-color organizations in Seattle, often co-located with affordable housing. As of March of this year, the fund had provided over $100 million in grants for 56 different community-led projects that are helping create an inclusive, multiracial city.

In Colorado, Renters Earn Cash Back For Paying Rent

June 22, 2024 Roshan Abraham, Next City. Create! Affordable Housing, Colorado, Equity, Housing, Rebate, Tenant Rights

Danielle Rickards is a 30-year-old single mother and a full-time caretaker to her 5-year-old daughter, who has a rare heart condition. For many Americans in similar circumstances, the pressures of affording rent and daily expenses are a constant and crushing burden. But she counts herself lucky: She found an affordable two-bedroom apartment in Grand Junction, Colorado, where rent is subsidized by the local housing authority. On top of that, she also receives a rare financial bonus, part of an experimental program to build equity for affordable housing tenants in Colorado. On the 18th of every month, Rickards receives a small cash stipend – $21.62 – in exchange for paying her rent on time.

Grassroots Business Incubator Has A Plan To Support Black Entrepreneurs

January 3, 2024 Brittany Moseley, Next City. Create! Black America, Entrepreneur, Equity, North Carolina

When DeWayne Barton returned to Asheville, North Carolina’s Burton Street neighborhood in 2001, he found a community reeling from years of devastating blows. Like many historically Black neighborhoods across the country, the Burton Street community was the victim of highway expansions in the 1950s and 1960s that quite literally tore the neighborhood apart. That plus the effects of the crack cocaine epidemic of the ’80s and ’90s had turned Burton Street into a neighborhood in need of saving. “That urban renewal period, 1950 to 1970, is what really dropped the hammer and really crushed the neighborhood,” says Barton, who was born in Asheville but grew up in Washington, D.C.

The People Are The Builders Of The Brazil’s Unified Health System

July 8, 2023 Gabriel Brito, People's Dispatch. Organize! Brazil, Equity, Health Care, Social Movements, universal healthcare

Brazil’s 17th National Health Conference brought a significant portion of the social mobilizations that led to President Lula’s electoral victory to the federal capital Brasilia. It was a rare opportunity to see all, or almost all, the social struggles from different corners of the country in one place. The National Health Conference represented an important gathering point for different activists and generations, highlighting the long-standing challenges in the pursuit of social justice. The National Health Conferences are spaces for activists and the population at large to conduct dialogue with the government and influence the priorities and working of the Brazil’s famous Unified Health System (SUS).

Nonprofit Takes A Big-Picture Approach To Playspace Inequity

June 3, 2023 Amanda Loudin, Next City. Create! Children, Equity, health, wealth inequality

Researchers have been documenting the benefits of outdoor playtime for years, demonstrating it leads to improved cognitive ability, fights childhood obesity, improves mental health and promotes social skills. Yet, for far too many children, safe, well-designed playspaces are sorely lacking. This phenomenon is called playspace inequity, and it has lasting, detrimental effects on primarily Black and Brown communities in the United States. Cities around the country are recognizing the importance of playspace inequity as a public health issue, particularly as families emerge from a pandemic with wide-ranging physical and mental health impacts.

A GreenStar For All

May 24, 2023 Emma Karnes, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Equity, Food and Agriculture, Grocery Coop

In my hometown of Ithaca, New York, GreenStar has been, for many, a symbol and a center of ethical food retail since its birth in the early 1970s. When its Bylaws were first written in 1971, the GreenStar operation consisted of Ithaca volunteers driving the 56 miles to Syracuse and back every Saturday morning, transporting healthy and local farm food which they pre-ordered and distributed to community members at just 5% wholesale mark-up. Today, the consumer-owned grocery cooperative boasts three stores across the city, servicing 12,000 member-owners and thousands of non-members who are also free to shop.

In Buffalo, A Medical Campus And Community Collaborate For Equity

March 5, 2023 Matt Enstice, Next City. Organize! Buffalo, Cooperatives, Equity, wealth inequality

“If you want our money, you’ll have to work together.” That’s essentially what The John R. Oishei Foundation told three separate anchor institutions when they asked for money to fund new buildings on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC). As Buffalo’s largest foundation, Oishei has quietly supported the BNMC from the beginning. But all along, there was one steady condition: The institutions had to collaborate. Funding requests from individual organizations would almost invariably be rejected. Any request had to come from the campus as a whole. Insisting that the institutions collaborate wasn’t a popular decision. But it was the right one.

Groups Urge White House To Revisit Support Of Current Permitting Reform

November 15, 2022 Climate Justice Alliance. Resist! Biden administration, climate crisis, Environmental Just, Equity

More than 70 environmental justice groups and 60 allied organizations demonstrate their commitment to ensuring that equity and justice are central to national policy decisions by sending a letter to President Joe Biden expressing concern about his support of dangerous and undemocratic permitting ideas, including the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022. The advocates called for the President to support reform measures that uphold democracy and center community interests in decision-making for projects designed to advance our national transition to a clean energy economy. The letter was sent to President Biden in anticipation of the “permitting reform” conversations beginning again as Congress reconvenes.

Transgender Rights: China Advances While US Backslides

March 3, 2022 Serena Sojic-Borne, Fight Back News. Educate! China, Equity, Socialism, Transgender Rights

New Orleans, LA - This year, transgender star and People’s Liberation Army veteran Jin Xing announced the re-launch of her talk show. It aired from 2015 to 2017 as the most-watched show in China. With 100 million viewers, Jin was the world’s most popular trans celebrity. Her rise to fame foretells the Chinese people’s rise against transphobia. But in the U.S., trans people have suffered sharpening attacks. Last year broke records for trans murders and state-level anti-trans legislation. What does this difference tell us? The U.S. empowers bigots The Republican evangelical right scapegoats trans people as their latest “culture war” to mobilize far-right support and secure corporate interests. In a coordinated transphobic attack, state legislatures introduced over 100 anti-trans bills in 2021.

New Report: Small Business’s Big Moment

January 31, 2022 Kennedy Smith, ILSR. Create! Equity, Federal funds, Local Economy, Small Business

Small businesses build local wealth, with benefits for nearly every aspect of the community and region. They offer a path to prosperity for hard-working entrepreneurs. They keep a larger share of their economic output within the community than businesses with outside ownership, putting that output to work to support schools, public safety, roads, parks, affordable housing, and many other vital public needs. And young, small businesses create the bulk of the nation’s new jobs. But one of the biggest challenges facing America’s communities is leveling the playing field for small businesses and intentionally moving away from the past decade’s Amazon-take-all trajectory. The $1.9 trillion ARPA provides America’s towns and cities with the money and encouragement to do so.

Union Membership Resumes Its Fall

January 31, 2022 Doug Henwood, LBO-News.com. Educate! Equity, Finance and the Economy, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

Union membership fell by almost 2% in 2021 as employment rose by over 3%. That took union density—the share of the workforce belonging to unions—down from 10.8% in 2020 to 10.3% last year, where it was in 2019. Density rose in 2020 because more nonunion workers lost their jobs in the covid crisis than their unionized counterparts, but 2021’s return to employment undid that. For the private sector, just 6.1% of workers were unionized last year, down from 6.3% in 2020, an all-time low for a series that goes back to 1900. (Official numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics began in 1983; I’ve assembled figures for earlier years from various sources.) Public sector density also fell, from 34.8% to 33.9%, not quite a record low. But the number of government workers organized in unions fell by 2.7%, almost four times as much as private sector members. The full history is graphed below.

Understanding The Politics Of Urban Apartheid In The United States

January 25, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Apartheid, Baltimore, Equity, Racism

Baltimore Maryland is a majority-black but hyper-segregated city. Following the uprising in Baltimore in 2015 in response to the police murder of Freddie Gray, Dr. Lawrence Brown, a public health expert at Morgan University, a historically black university in Baltimore, found that historical context and data were missing from the conversation about what was happening. Thus, he wrote "The Black Butterfly: The Politics of Race and Space in America." In this book, Dr. Brown describes the history of and the players who created the urban apartheid and how Baltimore became a template for many cities across the country. His book, available through Johns Hopkins University, provides the data, language and solutions necessary for the struggle to dismantle systemic racism.

Activists, Health Care Workers Are Fighting To Keep Mercy Hospital Open

December 29, 2020 Maxwell Evans, Block Club Chicago. Resist! Chicago, Equity, Health Care, Hospitals

Chicago - A coalition of activists are demanding elected officials maintain pressure on Mercy’s ownership to keep the hospital open or sell to someone who will. The activists held a vigil Monday, a week after a state board unanimously rejected Mercy Hospital’s request to close. Board members agreed closing the Near South Side institution would negatively impact South Siders, especially in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Mercy Hospital leadership announced in July the city’s first chartered hospital would shut down, citing monthly operating losses of $4 million and shifting trends in the field of health care away from inpatient services. The news came two months after a billion-dollar plan to consolidate the hospital with three others on the South Side fell apart.

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