A UC Regents’ Lecture by Kali Akuno
Tuesday, April 11
6:00-6:30 p.m. – Check-in and Reception
6:30-7:50 p.m. – Lecture
The capitalist system is choking the life systems of our precious planet and threatening the extinction of complex life, including that of the human race. The IPCC and leading climate scientists clearly indicate that we have less than 10 years to make a serious course correction to avert this catastrophe. Trying to work within the logic of the capitalist system to course correct, which is the path of the UN Climate Change Conferences, clearly isn’t working. Reforming capitalism, which will still depend on the need for constant growth, also won’t work. We need a real course correction, and we need it in short order. The path to getting there has to be an ecosocialist one. One premised on bottom up transformation, employing the democratic tools of the solidarity economy and the transformative principles of decolonization, anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, anti-heterosexism, and degrowth.
Kali Akuno is a co-founder and director of Cooperation Jackson, which is an emerging network of worker cooperatives and supporting institutions. Cooperation Jackson is fighting to create economic democracy by creating a vibrant solidarity economy in Jackson, MS that will help transform Mississippi and the South. You can find more information about Cooperation Jackson at www.CooperationJackson.org.
Kali served as the Director of Special Projects and External Funding in the Mayoral Administration of the late Chokwe Lumumba of Jackson, MS. His focus was supporting cooperative development, sustainability, human rights and international relations.
Kali Akuno is an organizer, educator, and writer for human rights and social justice. He is the former Co-Director of the US Human Rights Network. Kali also served as the Executive Director of the Peoples’ Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) based in New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. And was a co-founder of the School of Social Justice and Community Development (SSJCD), a public school serving the academic needs of low-income African American and Latino communities in Oakland, California.
Kali is also the co-editor of “Jackson Rising: the Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, MS”, and the author of numerous articles and pamphlets including the Jackson-Kush Plan: the Struggle for Black Self-Determination and Economic Democracy”, “Until We Win: Black Labor and Liberation in the Disposable Era”, “Operation Ghetto Storm: Every 28 Hours report” and “Let Your Motto Be Resistance: A Handbook on Organizing New Afrikan and Oppressed Communities for Self-Defense”.
