Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.
  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
After Winning the Election Do We Govern the Place or Transform It? Kali Akuno on the Lessons of Jackson MS So Far
Bruce A. Dixon, BAR managing editor
26 Oct 2017
🖨️ Print Article

This is a hasty and cleaned up version of Kali Akuno's remarks at the Movement School for Revolutionaries, which was hosted by Cooperation Jackson in Jackson Mississippi on October 21, 2017. My apologies for the previous less accessible version and for this one too. Haven't edited video in a long while. Will do better next time, I promise.

Among much else, Akuno summarizes the long history of struggle, including electoral struggle to which Jackson MS and Cooperation Jackson are heirs. He outlines the factors behind Cooperation Jackson's break with City Hall in Jackson and with the Democratic party. He examines the problems encountered by left movements which win elections in this neoliberal era -- can the limited powers of local government be harnessed to transform the economy and peoples lives, or are local officials merely rubber stamps and friendly faces for the forces of austerity, perpetual war and privatization. Akuno also touches upon the connection between local and global politics, and frankly assesses the prospects of human, economic and social transformation from the front lines of Jackson Mississippi.

Cooperation Jackson

Related Podcasts

Cooperation Jackson's Kali Akuno: Elections Don’t Necessarily Change a Damn Thing
Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
Cooperation Jackson's Kali Akuno: Elections Don’t Necessarily Change a Damn Thing
06 December 2017
A key strategist among the Black radicals that were behind the election of two Black mayors in Jackson, Mississippi, says his fellow activists have
Coope ra tion Jackson: Reclaiming Democracy and Building a Solidarity Economy in Mississippi and Beyond
This Is Hell
Cooperation Jackson: Reclaiming Democracy and Building a Solidarity Economy in Mississippi and Beyond
01 November 2017
Kali Akuno and Ajamu Nangwaya discuss building a solidarity economy at Cooperation Jack

More Stories

  • Superpredator: The Media Myth That Demonized a Generation of Black Youth
    Carroll Bogert
    Superpredator: The Media Myth That Demonized a Generation of Black Youth
    25 Nov 2020
    By the end of the 90s corporate journalists were feverishly dehumanizing young blacks in news stories, editorials and commentaries.
  • Letters from Our Readers
    BAR Comments Editor Jahan Choudhry
    Letters from Our Readers
    25 Nov 2020
    This week the lives of the incarcerated, Susan Rice’s bid to be Secretary of State, and the incoming administrators of the empire were on your minds.
  • BAR Book Forum: Lavelle Porter’s “The Blackademic Life”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Lavelle Porter’s “The Blackademic Life”
    25 Nov 2020
    Despite academia’s inherent racism, black scholars have figured out ways to work within these institutions.
  • BAR Book Forum: Erin Manning’s “For a Pragmatics of the Useless”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Erin Manning’s “For a Pragmatics of the Useless”
    25 Nov 2020
    Schizoanalysis opens up new alliances (approximations) in the uneasy overlaps of neurodiversity and black life.
  • Alexander Hamilton: An American Slave-Master 
    Bashir Muhammad Akinyele
    Alexander Hamilton: An American Slave-Master 
    25 Nov 2020
    The Broadway show is a fiction and bamboozlement: Hamilton was a depraved enslaver of people, just like most of the Founders of the White Settler State.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us