Frontline Community

Four Winning Models For Building Community Wealth

October 10, 2023 Deb Nelson, Next City. Create! Community Ownership, Economic Justice, Frontline Community, Local Economy

If we’re ever going to have a just economy, we’ll have to build it from the ground up. Flowing resources to front-line communities that face the worst of the climate crisis and the racial wealth gap is the ideal way to plant the roots of a new economy. Not only is it essential for justice, but it’s also a practical, scalable strategy for seeding system change. As executive director of the Just Economy Institute, I’ve collaborated with many JEI fellows who are leading promising community wealth-building initiatives. These financial activists share a set of principles: They support community self-determination and ownership.

Laid-Off Sierra Club Staffers: ‘We Can’t Give Up On United Fronts’

September 3, 2023 Brooke Anderson, Hop Hopkins, and Michelle Mascarenhas, Portside. Organize! Climate Justice, Frontline Community, Green Economy, Liberal class, Sierra Club

For the last decade, climate justice organizers have seen the Sierra Club as a critical lever for moving a climate agenda that centers equity and just transition. It has the largest grassroots base outside of labor, the most substantial infrastructure of any national green group in the US, and roots in a movement that at times was not afraid to go toe-to-toe with large corporations or development-oriented pro-business government entities. But beginning in May, the organization accelerated a restructuring process that included layoffs of the entire equity and environmental justice teams and of senior staffers, several Black women and other women of color among them.

Europe’s Climate Movement Is Fractured And Stuck

August 26, 2023 Nicolò Wojewoda, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Europe, Frontline Community, Privilege

For people like me, who are among the least affected by the unfolding climate crisis, and are in the privileged position of being paid to figure out a way to address it, there are times that make the reality and urgency of rising global average temperatures come alive. The last month has been one of those times, and a trigger for some deep reflection. I have scrolled and scrolled through Italian social media accounts taking in the many shocking videos and images of thunderstorms in Veneto (hammered by hailstones the size of apples), tornados in Milan, wildfires raging across the entire map of Sicily

Training Formerly Incarcerated Leaders To Fight Mass Incarceration

May 23, 2023 Mansa Musa, The Real News Network. Resistance Report Criminal Justice and Prisons, Frontline Community, Mass Incarceration

Over 1.9 million people are incarcerated in the US today, and even greater 5.5 million people are subjected to the wide-ranging system of mass punishment from parole, probation, and beyond. One organization, JustLeadershipUSA, seeks to tackle the prison system by building leaders among formerly incarcerated people, and fighting for change from the local level up. JustLeadershipUSA President and CEO DeAnna Hoskins joins Rattling the Bars to explain the work of her organization and how it seeks to bring about to change. DeAnna Hoskins has been at the helm of JLUSA as the President and CEO of JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA) since 2018.

NDN Collective Responds To House Passing Inflation Reduction Act

August 14, 2022 NDN Collective. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Frontline Community, Inflation, Inflation Reduction Act

Rapid City, South Dakota – In response to today’s news that the House of Representatives passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, NDN Collective released the following statement: “To say this moment is bittersweet is an understatement,” said Jade Begay, climate justice director at NDN Collective. “On one hand, the IRA – which puts us on track to meet national climate goals by 2030 and will provide much-needed support around health care, jobs, and infrastructure – was only made possible by the tireless organizing of frontline and Indigenous communities, young people, and climate justice advocates. On the other hand, the IRA dismisses fundamental, decades-long demands by Indigenous, Black, Brown, and low income communities to end fossil fuel expansion and invest in a just transition to renewable energy."

Residents Living Near Oil Drilling And Allies Converge On State Agency Offices

July 15, 2022 Last Chance Alliance. Resist! California, climate crisis, Frontline Community, Oil and Gas

Sacramento, California – Residents living on the frontlines of California’s oil extraction, and allies from across the state, came together today for demonstrations at the headquarters and Central Valley field office of the state’s oil regulator California’s Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM.) Advocates protested egregious mishandling of oil site inspections, threats to frontline communities from ongoing methane leaks at idle wells, and the long-delayed health and safety rule which Gov. Newsom touted last October would prevent new oil drilling in neighborhoods. Climate justice advocates and residents who have been sickened by oil drilling pollution gathered outside CalGEM’s offices to disrupt business as usual and bring their demands directly to the agency’s leadership.

In Appalachia, The Mine Cleanup System Has Collapsed

March 28, 2022 Dan Radmacher, In These Times. Educate! Appalachia, Coal Mining, Environment, Frontline Community, Mining

The growing movement for regeneration offers a much needed reframe of how to fully show up in our humanity at this critical moment in our planet’s history. We need to move beyond incremental change and a narrowed fixation on reducing our carbon footprint. We cannot treat social injustices and ecological crises as separate, unrelated phenomena. Nor can we surrender to despair and distraction, or waste time on projects that make us feel good but lack deeper impact. The task at hand—our great calling—is to simultaneously regenerate our ecosystems AND integrate the design of new social and economic systems that can truly center and support life. At a foundational level, this ambitious project of regeneration requires us to RESIST or stop destruction, repair harm, and reimagine our world, our communities, and the systems upon which we depend.

People Vs. Fossil Fuels: Nearly 400 People Arrested Outside White House

October 14, 2021 People Vs. Fossil Fuels. Resist! Biden administration, climate crisis, Fossil Fuels, Frontline Community

Washington, D.C. — Demonstrators returned to the White House on Wednesday morning for the third day of the “People vs. Fossil Fuels” mobilization, keeping up the pressure on President Biden to declare a climate emergency and stop all new fossil fuel projects. Under a giant banner that read “Biden: Our Communities Can’t Wait,” hundreds of people marched to the White House this morning to highlight the dangerous ongoing impacts of the climate crisis across the country and the world. As hundreds rallied in Lafayette Square Park, 90 people sat in at the White House fence, risking arrest for the third straight day of civil disobedience. The Biden Administration has so far avoided questions and refused to comment on the mass civil disobedience or respond to the demonstrator’s demands.

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