Above Photo:Â (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)Â
Black Lives Matter and the new economy movement echo decades of black community organizing.
The past three Thursdays, I found myself in the midst of several different landscapes, all working towards real, transformational change. With hands open to the possibility of community wealth and land, I learned about the work of the Black Belt Justice Center. With hands in the soil with a community that creates healthy relationships with ecosystems, I visited the Black Dirt Farm Collective. With hands sore from tweeting about policies for freedom, I attended a racial justice forum led by the Movement for Black Lives.
These are snapshots of the struggles and successes for a so-called new economy – the fight for a people- and planet-first world that is more equitable, sustainable and democratic. And this shift is being pioneered by the black community. In other words, the Movement for Black Lives is the new economy movement and has been for decades.
Take farmer cooperatives, for example. After being barred from the Southern Farmers’ Alliance, southern black farmers founded the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative Union in 1886. Their purpose was to “elevate the colored people of the United States, by teaching them to love their countries and their homes; to care more for their helpless, sick and destitute” and “become … less wasteful in their methods of living.” The union peaked at about 1 million members in 20 states, and it was a key force in the populist movement, the formation of independent parties and the fight for voting rights in the 19th century.
This is just one sound bite from the profound history of the people- and planet-first agenda. So the new economy movement is, in many ways, not new and has deep roots in black community organizing.
Yet black liberation continues to be sidelined in its thinking and action. Today’s new economy movement has predominately white leadership, overemphasizes class without race and has offered solutions that disproportionately disrupt black communities.
And it’s not as if the contributions of the black community stayed in the past. Just this month, the Movement for Black Lives released “A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom, and Justice,” a significant shift in the Black Lives Movement from protest to concrete policy platform.
This policy platform translates six broad demands into 40 specific policy solutions, providing specific ways in which lawmakers, organizations, advocates and engaged citizens can work together to ensure that black lives do more than just matter, but have the space to thrive and build power.
Despite its name, the “Vision for Black Lives” is not just an agenda that will benefit black people. It boldly fights for a world envisioned by Bernie Sanders supporters and addresses the demands of the Occupy Movement. The platform incorporates policies in line with the National People’s Action long-term agenda to create a new economy. It speaks to people across the nation who’ve lost their homes, don’t have access to healthy food, live paycheck to paycheck and know that something has got to give.
One recommendation in the platform is for federal, state and local lawmakers to pass legislation that incentivizes the funding and development of cooperatives, collectives, land trusts and culturally responsive health structures. This can be done through individual tax deductions for investing in cooperatives; passing legislation that divests from prisons and invests in cooperative development for returning prisoners; establishing and funding public banks; and transferring city-owned land into community land trusts through community block grants.
This is just one recommendation from a single policy brief out of over 20 policy papers to help enact 40 demands. The breadth of the “Vision for Black Lives” is no small achievement, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, black communities have always been the architects of the new economy movement and social change. Eliminating the idea of the new economy as a modern invention, and making black visionaries central to the movement, helps to begin dismantling white supremacy and privilege within the struggle.
Now is the time to get your hands dirty and join the Movement for Black Lives: Provide a space to convene, donate, volunteer or simply start reading. Advocate for your organization or community group to endorse and commit to campaigns that put these policies into action. Ask an organization of the Movement for Black Lives how your group can support and follow through. Push your organization to include racial justice, and justice for peoples of African descent, as a key priority in their fight for the next system.
If you envision a world that puts people and planet first, now is the time to stand up for the Movement for Black Lives.