Jackson Rising Redux: Lessons on Building the Future in the Present

by Richard D. Wolff (foreword), Kali Akuno (Editor), Matt Meyer (Editor)

Mississippi is the poorest state in the US, with the highest percentage of Black people and a history of vicious racial terror. Black resistance at a time of global health, economic, and climate crisis is the backdrop and context for the drama captured in this new and revised collection of essays. Cooperation Jackson, founded in 2014 in Mississippi’s capital to develop an economically uplifting democratic “solidarity economy,” is anchored by a network of worker-owned, self-managed cooperative enterprises. The organization developed in the context of the historic election of radical Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, lifetime human rights attorney. Subsequent to Lumumba’s passing less than one year after assuming office, the network developed projects both inside and outside of the formal political arena. In 2020, Cooperation Jackson became the center for national and international coalition efforts, bringing together progressive peoples from diverse trade union, youth, church, and cultural movements. This long-anticipated anthology details the foundations behind those successful campaigns. It unveils new and ongoing strategies and methods being pursued by the movement for grassroots-centered Black community control and self-determination, inspiring partnership and emulation across the globe.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Activism

584 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 11, 2023

About the author

Richard D. Wolff is an American economist, well-known for his work on Marxian economics, economic methodology, and class analysis. He is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York. Wolff has also taught economics at Yale University, City University of New York, University of Paris I (Sorbonne), and The Brecht Forum in New York City. In 2010, Wolff published Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It, also released as a DVD. He will release three new books in 2012: Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism, with David Barsamian (San Francisco: City Lights Books), Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian, with Stephen Resnick (Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT University Press), and Democracy at Work (Chicago: Haymarket Books).

Reviews

[JRT · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jackson Rising Redux is both a reassertion of the tenants, philosophies, and works of Cooperation Jackson’s efforts to push forward the radical Jackson-Push Plan, and an overarching evaluation of why such efforts to date have fallen short. Much of this book is a reprise of the original Jackson Rising book. While some might see this as repetitive, there is much value in the way the authors and editors of Redux re-emphasize and hammer home the fundamental ideology and political agenda of Cooperation Jackson—to develop an “Eco-Socialist” form of socioeconomic and political organization, beginning with the inauguration of a cooperative-centric, economic democracy inclined “solidarity economy.” Much of the writings in Redux detail how Cooperation Jackson formed and how it perceives and pursues its solidarity economy agenda. In short, Eco-Socialism will be achieved when there is a total transformation of social relations—from one geared towards profit motive, competition, and domination—to one geared towards democratic principles and self-determination in every aspect of society. Cooperation Jackson sees its work with cooperation economics (particularly worker cooperatives) as a fundamental aspect of this transformation. It considers “non-reformist reforms”—actions that improve the immediate material conditions of the people while simultaneously undermined the basic structures of racial capitalism and domestic colonialism—as a necessary condition for this total transformation, and cooperatives as a vehicle for such reforms.

After a detailed retelling of its agenda and ascendance, Kali Akuno and others discuss how Cooperation Jackson has changed since the first book was published. The breakup of Cooperation Jackson, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and the Chokwe Antar Lumumba administration is given heavy analysis. As Akuno explains, organizers from these various groups did not share the same vision as to the role of electoral politics. Cooperation Jackson saw electoralism as but one avenue for building “Dual Power,” and not necessarily the most important one. In fact, Cooperation Jackson felt that the other groups were putting too much emphasis on simply holding elected offices in the City of Jackson, rather than the other tenants of the Jackson-Kush Plan (such as building an independent political party, integrating various cooperatives with one another, and fighting corporate encroachment and gentrification). Ultimately, these groups split because, according to the folks at Cooperation Jackson, there was a fundamental disagreement over how best to advance the Jackson-Kush agenda.

I am appreciative of this book because rarely do we get to see organizers documenting their struggles and contradictions in real time. In doing so, the folks at Cooperation Jackson have shown how they are greatly influencing others around the country (and world), despite the fact that they are still no closer to furthering the cause of Eco-Socialist Black self-determination in Jackson, Mississippi than when they started. This kind of honest and transparency is necessary, and is a breath of fresh air.

[Max Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this with a reading group where most of us met at Cooperation Jackson. I was only able to read sporadic sections and what I did read presented a frustratingly utopic and uncomplicated picture in contrast to having been to Jackson and seeing the organization and talking with Kali and Saki is so much more valuable.

[shemauky · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Jackson Rising is an attempt to document the theoretical foundations, practical applications, and hard lessons learned from this emerging African liberated zone

— But, one palenque or kilombo or autonomous zone is not enough. We need thousands of autonomous zones, and we need them to link on the basis of mutual aid and solidarity to break the back of imperialism and move us toward collective liberation and eco-regeneration.”

Solid collection of readings, best engaged in groups of study and organization, for critique and application.

[Karen Mahtin · Rating 5 out of 5]

1. Goodreads shows the author as a guy who wrote a forward or introduction or whatever. If it is going to say one name, it should be Kali Akuno. This is an amazing book about a very inspiring organization and its work in its local area.

A few things:
1. the first half of the book is really repetitive, but at a certain point you'll see that some people are talking about the same events from a different perspective.

2. the book is full of lefty jargon. i know this language because i used to read some soc ia list and com mun ist groups' newspapers, and i worked closely in a coalition that was run by one of those groups, so I had heard terms like... i dunno, forces (people), contradiction, things like that. Maybe I'll edit this if i think of any of those words. at times i struggled to figure out what the ultimate political orientation (besides Black nationalist) of Kali and the folks he started/has run the group with is. Of course it doesn't matter, but one's mind wanders when it wants to.

3. the amount of research and planning that went into the Jackson-Kush plan and Cooperation Jackson is so inspiring! And all the different projects that members do.

4. Cooperatives-- wave of the future?

5. I read The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism just before this book. now i've forgotten a lot of what i read, but that book got more interesting as it went farther along. The author had a critique of Murray Bookchin (his politics changed in his later years), so it was interesting to read that CJ folks have worked with the Institute for Social Ecology what sounds like a fair bit.

6. This book is LONG!

[RMD · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone interested in a positive future.
Probably a bit too advanced for some, this is as leftist as it gets.
Important enough that I'll try to squeeze the main insights into its own article.

As a book, I do think most of it is too repetitive and not worth the time of the average reader. I'd recommend to just skip the initial chapters where many of the iterations of cooperation jackson are presented several times - in chapter 4 you get an examination anyway which is the summary you need, 250 pages later.

There are so many insights, I'll only throw a few of them in:
- the idea of black liberation in the US leading to independent black-led states actually makes a lot more sense and more legitimacy than California seceding
- the fine line between fostering a political movement that is bigger than electoral democracy
- any good transition has to involve a democratic structure, build an alternative economy and be ready to resist politically and materially (easy!) - dual power!
- on being locally rooted and able to exercise solidarity beyond it

Etc etc, my words can't do justice to what is ultimately the most advanced, pragmatic and hopeful leftist literature I've gotten my hands on.

[Debbie Notkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been curious about Cooperation Jackson, a grassroots effort at solidarity economy for Jackson, Mississippi, for a long time. I have activist colleagues in Cooperation Humboldt in Northern California, which is modeled on the Jackson effort. So when I saw this book on a table at an event, I suggested it to my economic justice bookgroup, and we picked it up.

We decided to focus on the last four sections of the book, so I really only skimmed the first four sections, which are basically the history of Cooperation Jackson and the philosophy behind it. As I had previously understood, this is a very radical program, focused basically on Black self-determination in a very Black university town (the state capital) with historically White governance and, of course, in a very White-run state. In the 2013, Jackson elected a Chokwe Lumumba as mayor, supported by CJ. He died after less than a year in office, and the circumstances surrounding his death are murky . His son, who seems to be somewhat less radical, is currently the mayor of Jackson.

This book is a revision of a previous book entitled Jackson Rising, and one of its two biggest flaws is that it doesn't distinguish well between older essays and current ones (or revisions of older ones). So a good deal of the book examines the time before the pandemic, right around or shortly after Lumumba's death. So it is difficult to sort out what was true at the beginning of CJ, what changed in the 2010s, and what's true now. (The other big flaw is that it's quite repetitive.)

The book reveals an exciting vision of a Black business corridor (the original plan was to build a 3D printing corridor, which may have changed) which works with a progressive local government to build an economic base, maintaining intense global relationships with other emerging cultures. The leaders and essay writers are generally clear-eyed and thoughtful. They want to build electoral power into their strategy without ever seeing electoral power as a solution. They understand (and come to understand more deeply) just how difficult it is to engage and involve a defeated population. They are energized by their connections around the world.

And, in the face of endless obstacles, they don't give up. The book was printed too early to mention the Jackson water crisis, which appears to be still going on more than a year later. I would love to know how CJ is involved in that and what effect they have had--clearly not enough.

In the end, this comes down to the kind of story that people like me use to grasp for hope, while most of the story is about failures or at least minimal small successes. So a hard book to read, and also full of long-term food for thought.

[Party Possum · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished reading it, and already want to read it again, because there's really a lot to learn from and think about.

[Mason Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kali Akuno is like Bakunin of this age. He indulged himself in activism and has brought changes in true sense while also writing from his practical experiences. It's a lifetime read. A work, I think we should keep re-reading, it's a complete blueprint plan for anyone who wants to build libertarian socialism from below, the best practical guide one can find on prefiguration and grassroots socialism. I simply love it, and I cannot stress it enough how important this is! If it was upto me, I would make it part of syllabus in formal education. There is so much one can learn from Cooperation Jackson! It's a dream come true of anarchists, a directly democratic, self-governing, and autonomous community thriving building "a new world in the shell of the old". If you truly want to make a change, then this book is going to be the holy book for you, a blueprint plan to make a change!

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The work is inspiring, the writing and editing leave some things to be desired. Convinced my book group, which is made up of a bunch of organizers, to read this, but we're definitely not reading all the chapters, as many of them are fairly redundant. Wish the 2023 update had considered the flow of the chapters a little more carefully, cut out more of what isn't necessary, and included more on what's happened in the work since 2019.