Cooperation Jackson
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Cooperation Jackson is an emerging network of
worker cooperative A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and Workers' self-management, self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which ...
s in
Jackson, Mississippi Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the Capital city, capital of and the List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, Mississippi, ...
, United States. It aims to develop a series of independent but connected democratic institutions to empower workers and residents of Jackson, particularly to address the needs of poor, unemployed, Black and Latino residents. The development of Cooperation Jackson was heavily inspired by the
Mondragon Corporation The Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain. It was founded in the town of Mondragon in 1956 by José María Arizmendiarrieta and a group of his students at a technical ...
in Spain, which is also a federation of cooperatives, and by historical
cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
movements as described in works by
W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in ...
and in the book ''Collective Courage'' by Jessica Gordon Nembhard.


History

Cooperation Jackson, formed in 2014, enacts a vision of a radically democratic city of interconnected cooperatives and supporting institutions. Although the city of Jackson was already home to the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives, before Cooperation Jackson, there were not many existing cooperative businesses. Kali Akuno, a Cooperation co-founder and co-director, describes a goal of bringing a strong focus of cooperative economics to an urban American context, as opposed to the currently more common rural context of
agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...
and utility co-ops. The organization has attempted to work within and outside of the government to achieve its goals. It has had to fight off anti-democratic measures by the Mississippi state legislators including
austerity Austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three primary types of austerity measures: higher taxes to fund spend ...
measures, an attempted takeover of Jackson–Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport, and an attempt to pass a bill to hand control of the city government over to the governor. The organizers also struggle with working in an economically depressed city in the poorest state in the United States.


Jackson-Kush Plan

Akuno has described the network as a key part of enacting the Jackson-Kush Plan. The plan, which was developed by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the Jackson People's Assembly, involves building a strong base of community wealth, stability, racial equity, and
economic democracy Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that proposes to shift decision-making power from corporate managers and corporate shareholders to a larger group of public stakeholders that includes workers, customers, suppliers, neighbour ...
in Jackson. It has three planks, which are the "building of a broad-based solidarity economy, the building of people's assemblies, and the building of an independent black political party." Organizers behind Cooperation Jackson believe that a solidarity economy rooted in democratic principles is a core requirement of developing the community's capacity and vision in making meaningful change. The Jackson-Kush Plan describes the role of this economy as a "transitional strategy and praxis to build 21st century socialism and advance the abolition of capitalism and the poverty and oppressive social relations that it fosters". The
direct democracy Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate decides on policy initiatives without legislator, elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently establishe ...
of people's assemblies and local government electoral strategy are designed to both benefit and benefit from a strong cooperative system.


Projects


Mutual aid

Cooperation Jackson has long focused on facilitating mutual aid projects. This has included creating and distributing
personal protective equipment Personal protective equipment (PPE) is protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury or infection. The hazards addressed by protective equipment include physical, elec ...
and providing an eviction support hotline in the wake of the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. Members have also created community gardens and composting sheds on vacant spaces to aid their goal of providing enough organic food to provide for the calorie needs of 20,000 people in Jackson. In 2021, Cooperation organizers began work with the Grassroots Center in
Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
to develop a land trust in that state in cooperation with the local indigenous population and to address food needs with regenerative agriculture. The project also seeks to serve as a safe haven for potential climate refugees who may be escaping inhospitable conditions in Mississippi.


Cooperative institutions

Several cooperatives exist as part of the Cooperation Jackson network. These include the lawn care business The Green Team, the organic vegetable farm Freedom Farms, and the print shop The Center for Community Production, which also operates a
3D printer 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...
. These cooperatives try to alleviate causes of poverty and discrimination while operating in an ecologically sustainable manner. A cooperative
incubator An incubator is anything that performs or facilitates various forms of incubation, and may refer to: Biology and medicine * Incubator (culture), a device used to grow and maintain microbiological cultures or cell cultures * Incubator (egg), a de ...
exists, called the Balagoon Center. Cooperation Jackson also owns about three hectares of land which it operates as a community land trust.{{Cite web, url=https://indypendent.org/2019/10/building-a-solidarity-economy-in-jackson-mississippi/, title=Building a Solidarity Economy in Jackson, Mississippi, last=Franco, first=Cheree, date=October 2, 2019, website=The Indypendent, language=en-US, url-status=live, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191004021006/https://indypendent.org/2019/10/building-a-solidarity-economy-in-jackson-mississippi/ , archive-date=2019-10-04 , access-date=2019-10-29


External links


Official website

The Jackson-Kush Plan: The Struggle for Black Self-Determination and Economic Democracy


References

Cooperative federations Land trusts Business incubators Labor rights groups Worker cooperatives of the United States Cooperative movement