December 2024
In this issue we take a look at year-end Kwanzaa celebrations and how a cultural celebration lays a foundation for envisioning economies rooted in solidarity, community care, and Black community self-determination.
Keep scrolling for the newest news and resources across the global Black solidarity economy, and the latest on what we’re up to at Collective Diaspora.
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Maroon Dispatches
News from across the global Black solidarity economy
Image: Seventy Four
Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Black Culture and Solidarity (US)
As we wind down the year and get ready for end-of-year holiday celebrations, there is one that stands out for Black communities and nurtures the values that underlie a Black solidarity economy. Kwanzaa, celebrated annually from December 26th to January 1st, is a week-long cultural holiday that honors African heritage and culture. Created in 1966 in the United States by Dr. Maulana Karenga, Kwanzaa serves to promote self-determination in Black communities through community-building and affirming African culture.
Kwanzaa was created as a synthesis of cultural elements from across the African continent and the African diaspora in the spirit of Pan Africanism. It has grown beyond its African American origins, with millions celebrating throughout the Americas and in Africa as well. During the holiday, families and communities organize activities around the Nguzo Saba (The Seven Principles): Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity) and lmani (Faith).
Participants also celebrate with feasts (karamu), music, dance, poetry, narratives and end the holiday with a day dedicated to reflection and recommitment to The Seven Principles and other central cultural values. The Kwanzaa principles and the approach to celebrating that emphasizes reflection over consumption resonates deeply with Black solidarity economy organizing.
Image: Tracey Roman/Press-Telegram
One of the principles explicitly honors cooperative economic traditions in Black communities while another honors the many hands needed to realize these traditions. Ujamaa (cooperative economics) is dedicated to reflecting on the power of building and sustaining businesses and economies that prioritize collective benefit over individual gain. While Ujima (collective work and responsibility) emphasizes exactly what it says, collective work and responsibility. For Black cooperatives, Kwanzaa highlights the transformative potential of mutual aid and collective ownership in combating racial capitalism.
More than a cultural celebration, Kwanzaa offers a framework for envisioning economies rooted in solidarity, community care, and self-determination. It unites the African diaspora in a shared commitment to Black liberation through the tools of shared ownership and control. And it reminds us of the values needed to make use of those tools.
Happy Kwanzaa!!!
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Collective Diaspora NewsChocolate Rebellion Global Pop Up! The Cross Atlantic Chocolate Collective has officially rebranded as Chocolate Rebellion. And to mark that change they made a bold move by organizing pop-up chocolate tastings in 11 different countries simultaneously this past November 30th. It was a wildly successful and powerful celebration of Black self-determination and rebellion against the exploitation and extraction of the global chocolate industry. You can watch pics and videos from each of the chocolate pop-up sites at Chocolate Rebellion’s Instagram page. |
Keep It In the Culture New Orleans cultural materials cooperative, Keep It In the Culture, has launched season two of its collaborative podcast with the Backstreet Cultural Museum. The Podcast interviews local New Orleans culture bearers about their introduction to cultural expression, the challenges they face in participating, and ways to collectively preserve and uplift New Orleans Mardi Gras culture. Follow their Youtube channel to watch/listen to back episodes and be the first to know when they drop a new episode. |
Nexus Community Partners
The North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship has just launched its eighth cohort of Black cooperators and is in full swing! This year's 24 fellows represent 10 cooperatives, with missions focused on housing, community wealth building, solidarity and connection, life skills, empowerment, art, healing, and mental health.
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CDF announces 2025 Cooperative Hall of Fame inductees [feat Unsung Hero award to Estelle Witherspoon of Freedom Quilting Bee] (US)
The Struggle for Land, Reparations, and Belonging in California (US)
Cooperativa Afroamericana: a link for the Black community in Colombia (Colombia)
Can co-ops address AI labour inequities in East Africa? (Kenya)
Resource Library: Podcasts & Videos
Aarron Goggans: Collective Liberation in Action (Next Economy Now)
Dreaming of a Black Utopia in Trump's America (Code Switch)
How Can We Create More Affordable Housing? (Partners for Dignity & Rights)
Creating Supportive Cooperative Ecosystems for Justice-Involved People (NCBA - Strengthening Cooperative Communities)
Digging Deeper
Books, Journal Articles, Reports, and Other Resources
This groundbreaking compendium of Black cooperative history in the US by Dr Jessica Gordon Nembhard became an instant classic when it was released in 2014. It’s just been reissued with an updated introduction by the author. Get yourself a copy!
Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation (Book)
Bringing together insights from geography, political economy, and political science with mapping and spatial analysis methodologies, surveys, and in-depth interviews, Solidarity Cities illuminates the extensive footprints of solidarity economies and the roles they play in communities. The authors show how these initiatives act as bulwarks against gentrification, exploitation, and economic exclusion, helping readers see them as part of the past, present, and future of more livable and just cities.
Beautiful Solutions: A Toolbox for Liberation (Book)
Everything we need to transform our communities already exists. From food sovereignty to debt abolition, from folk schools to energy democracy — and from Argentina to Zimbabwe. If you long for a more beautiful, more just, and more livable world — and want to know how to get there — this book is for you.
This guide will help you plan, start, and grow a Library of Things in your community. Libraries of Things (often called LoTs) are a form of community infrastructure designed for sharing all kinds of stuff. LoTs follow the traditional mechanics of a library while pushing what can be borrowed to a new edge: instruments, gardening tools, camping gear, sporting equipment, and more.
Building Power Through Mutual Aid: Lessons From the Field (Toolkit)
This report is an invitation to rethink whether and how mutual aid can play a transformative role in our organizing.
Funding
Who’s Offering What
Global Innovation Fund releases call for Climate innovators (Global)
A call for applications for funding from innovators working to enable the world’s poorest to adapt and be more resilient to changing climate. This window will close on January 15, 2025.
Solidarity Economy Funding Library (US)
This is an online directory for people to find funding, investing, and fiscal sponsorship opportunities, as well as detailed relationships between movement organizations and funders.
No Movement Without Art
Songs, Film, Murals, and Paintings
Upcoming Events
- Dec 10-12 - 12th annual International Society for Markets and Development conference (Ghana)
- The conference theme is: Destabilizing Development? – Markets, Climate, Democracy and Technologies. Dr. Caroline Hossein is coordinating a solidarity economy track for the conference.
- Dec 18 - Introduction to Cooperatives: Empowering Communities Through Collective Ownership (Baltimore, US)
- Discover the basics of the cooperative business model and how it empowers communities through shared ownership, democratic decision-making, and equitable profits.
- Dec 20 - Movie Night: Birth of a Movement (Jackson, US)
- Dec 20 - Baltimore Green Justice Workers Cooperative's Green Jobs Academy Graduation (Baltimore, US)
- Dec 21 - Really Really Free Market #5 (Jackson, US)
- Dec 21 - Kwanzaa Celebration (Los Angeles, US)
- Dec 26 - Jan 1 - Kwanzaa
- Feb 4 - Mar 25 - Community Transformation Academy (Dayton, US)
- Join this 8-week Community Transformation Academy designed for emerging leaders who are passionate about building a stronger, more sustainable local food network
- May 30 - Jun 1 - 2nd bi-annual National Black Radical Organizing Conference (Indianapolis, US)
- June (dates TBA) - National Conference on Black Cooperative Agenda (Atlanta, US)
- Oct 29-31, Global Social and Solidarity Economy Forum (Bordeaux, France)
