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What if we owned it? In this Remaking the Economy webinar, leaders in the movement for Black food sovereignty discuss how that movement is being built, rooted in the gifts and talents from within the Black community, and anchored in a community vision. Our panelists are:
- Darnell Adams is a worker-owner of the Boston-based Firebrand Consulting Cooperative, which provides consulting support to nonprofit, for-profit, and cooperative business—and a member of the Food Co-op Initiative board.
- Dr. Jasmine Ratliff, based in New Orleans, is co-executive director of the National Black Food and Justice Alliance, a coalition of Black-led groups that builds Black leadership and institutions for food sovereignty and liberation.
- Malik Yakini is cofounder and executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN), which manages a 7-acre D-Town Farm, and is a board member of the Detroit People’s Food Co-op.
This webinar explores:
- How has the movement for Black food sovereignty developed over time? What are some leading movement priorities in the current moment?
- What are key elements that make for a healthy food system?
- How can food co-ops be a tool for not just providing healthy food for communities but also to further movement for racial and economic justice?
- How do efforts to develop Black-led food co-ops in cities connect with the movement to restore Black farming and Black ownership of land?
- What is the role of education in Black food justice work? What needs to be taught and what needs to be unlearned?
- What steps can nonprofits and philanthropy take to support the movement for Black food sovereignty?
Resources
Darnell Adams, “For Food Co-ops, The Future is Now,” NPQ, June 30, 2020.
Dañia Davy, “What Would a Pro-Black Farmer Policy Regime Look Like?” NPQ, October 20, 2021.
Steve Dubb, “A Burgeoning Food Justice Movement Rises in Black America,” NPQ, February 24, 2021.
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Laura Herberg, “Detroit People’s Food Co-op Signs Purchase Agreement for North End Location,” WDET[Detroit public radio], April 8, 2021.
Ashanté Reese, “Incarceration, Abolition, and Liberating the Food System,” Civil Eats, January 17, 2022.
Ashanté Reese and Dara Cooper, “Making Spaces Something Like Freedom: Black Feminist Praxis In The Re/Imagining Of A Just Food System,” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 2021, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 450-459.
Ashanté Reese and Randolph Carr, Op-ed: Overthrowing the Food System’s Plantation Paradigm, Civil Eats, June 19, 2020.
Robin Runyan, “Detroit Food Commons lands state funding,” Urbanize Detroit, October 27, 2021.
The Editors and Malik Yakini, “Visions of a New Economy from Detroit: A Conversation with Malik Yakini,” NPQ, July 11, 2018.
Malik Yakini, “What Ferguson Means for the Food Justice Movement,” Why Hunger, issue 1, 2015.
