News & Resources

Resist & Build: Resources to Build Radical Imagination

Dec 31, 2022

As our communities struggle to survive this pandemic and against a failed governance and economic system, how will we reclaim our power and create a world where our needs are met, and no one is disposable?

Born out of the Creative Wildfire Manifesto, this is a 5-part collaboration between New Economy Coalition, Movement Generation, and Climate Justice Alliance aimed at sparking radical imagination. It honors stories of grassroots power and struggles for community self- determination. It aims to show inspirational examples of when our communities have taken to the streets to resist, and then organized for the long-term to build power and truly regenerative economies.

Community Controlled Health Care

COVID-19 has made it clear than ever that the current healthcare infrastructure is racist, classist, ableist, and criminally inadequate. Frontline communities have a longstanding history of resisting this system by building community-controlled alternatives in it’s place. Alternatives where frontline BIPOC communities receive the quality care they need. Alternatives were disabled, chronically ill, and immuno-compromised folks are not disposable but whose lives are centered and held sacred.

How can we build community-controlled health infrastructure that is safe, free, and accessible to all?

In this series learn about:
  • The legacies of the Black Panther Party, the 504 Sit-Ins & the Young Lords
  • Disability justice & mutual aid responses to the pandemic and natural disasters
  • Health care cooperatives

HOUSING AS A HUMAN RIGHT

In many of our communities, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the preexisting crises of eviction, displacement, and gentrification created by the for-profit housing system. In the past few years, communities across the country have used direct action to remove land and housing from the speculative market and build long-term community control.

How do we resist speculative market forces and build a world where housing is truly a human right?

In this series learn about:
  • The founding of the first community land trust by civil rights organizers

  • The connection between co-ops & squatters movements of the 1970s and 80s

  • Recent organizing wins for CLT’s and co-op housing

JUST TRANSITION & CLIMATE JUSTICE

Frontline communities and workers are impacted first and worst by the interlinked crises of climate change and the extractive economy. A dig, burn, and dump economy base on extracting natural and human resources faster than we can regenerate will eventually end — either through collapse or through our intentional re-organization. Transition is inevitable. Justice is not.

How can we resist false climate solutions and ensure a just transition that restores our communities and the web of life?

In this series learn about:
  • The meaning & history of the term Just Transition

  • How to identify false climate solutions

  • Examples of real climate solutions that build community self-determination

More Resources

Regenerative Finance

Financial systems in our current economy are based on extracting value from land and people to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few — fueling global economic, political, and ecological crises. Transforming finance is crucial to transforming our economy. In recent years, divestment movements have encouraged communities to move public resources out of Wall Street banks, fossil fuel companies, war and prison profiteers, and other extractive industries.

Once we divest from extractive institutions, where do we move our money? How can we use finance to restore wealth to the communities it’s been extracted from and grow our collective resources?

In this series learn about:
  • The history of divest/reinvest movements

  • Public banking

  • Non-extractive and cooperative finance 

More Resources

INDIGENOUS SOVEREIGNTY & LAND BACK

The U.S. was built on stolen land by stolen lives and labor. Returning land and sovereignty to Indigenous peoples is a requisite to building economies rooted in a just relationship with each other and the earth.

We acknowledge that struggles for collective determination and sovereignty over Indigenous lands are as diverse as the hundreds of Indigenous nations across Turtle Island.  Within this context, how do we resist extraction and desecration of sacred sites while permanently returning land and sovereignty to Indigenous peoples?

In this series learn about:
  • Precedents to the #LandBack movement

  • Examples of communities successfully organizing for land return