Weeksville Heritage Center: Will Capitalism Feed Us? Nourishing an Appetite For a Cooperative World Beyond It, 11/14

[Image Description: Weeksville logo, which is comprised of a gold old stamp like circle, in which a “W” in white is central. Underneath is the text “WEEKSVILLE HERITAGE CENTER” also in gold]

Weeksville Heritage Center: Will Capitalism Feed Us? Nourishing an Appetite For a Cooperative World Beyond It.

You can register for this program here.

What can we learn from the Black cooperative tradition at a time when Black people are again fighting for their economic survival due to the recent economic crisis caused by COVID-19 and still fighting against systemic oppression dating back to the founding of this country? Born out of the free Black communities movement and the fight for racial justice, of which Weeksville sprouted in 1838, the Black cooperative tradition is rich and has spanned many generations, but is largely unknown. The community of Weeksville and other intentional communities like it are branches on the tree of economic cooperative development in the U.S. By sustaining mutual-aid and benevolent societies, largely done by the sacrifices of Black women, organizing, consolidating, and sharing the resources among Black people, cooperative practices helped generations to escape poverty, starvation, and to educate the youth much like the Brooklyn African Woolman’s Society and to provide a proper burial for those who couldn’t afford it like the Abyssinian Benevolent Daughters of Esther Association.

What Black cooperatives are carrying on this tradition and organizing in Central Brooklyn? How can we begin to imagine a world beyond capitalism which has continued to fail the Black working class by confining our movements, our vision, and the ability to conceptualize an existence outside of it? November’s Weeksville Weekend, Will Capitalism Feed Us? Nourishing an Appetite For a Cooperative World Beyond It, invites political economist and author of Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard and archivist, and Community Wealth Facilitator of Black Farmer Fund Lex Barlowe, members of the Central Brooklyn Food Co-op, and artist duo Intelligent Mischief, to unpack the Black cooperative tradition and share direction for the way forward for cooperatives and towards a more just economic system.

The time is now to imagine how people build community control by organizing within their communities to share the resources that they already have, with one another, and to advance a more just economic system so that the working poor who create the wealth have a share in the profits. RSVP to join Weeksville Saturday, November 14, 2020, from 12:30 PM-5 PM for a series of virtual workshops that will be live-streamed.

Program Outline:

12:30PM-12:35PM: Opening Remarks

Zenzelé Cooper, Weeksville Heritage Center Program Manager gives opening remarks and welcomes the community back to Weeksville Weekends.

12:35PM-1PM: ALL ARTS TV presents: “How New York's Weeksville Heritage Center and Black Gotham Experience are Preserving Black Spaces”

Danielle Moulton, Weeksville Heritage Center Tour Educator, will show a video from ALL ARTS TV’s “On Display” series highlighting Weeksville Heritage Center as a historic site of memory and Black space being preserved. She will take questions from the community.

1PM-2PM: Let’s Just Talk: Our Powerful Black Cooperative Lineage with Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard & Lex Barlowe

Join us for a conversation between Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard and Lex Barlowe about the history of Black cooperatives in Brooklyn and across the country. What is our Black cooperative tradition and what does it teach us about our work now? How have Black communities used practices of mutual aid, working together, supporting each other, and sharing resources to survive and build wealth? What can our history tell us about the challenges Black cooperatives face today? We will bring in and honor the wisdom from our ancestors whose lives and work have paved the way for us to build cooperatives now.

2:10PM-3:10PM: Good Food and Black Community Ownership with the Central Brooklyn Food Co-op

This panel discussion will focus on the past, present, and future of the Central Brooklyn Food Co-op, a Black-led 100% member-owned grocery store and community center opening soon, to bring affordable, fresh food to Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights. Member-owners of the CBFC will discuss the history of CBFC and their plans to build membership and prepare to open the storefront. The conversation will also share CBFC’s vision for a healthy, local food chain where the community owns and decides on every part of it - from the farm to the distribution to the grocery store.

3:10PM-3:20PM: Closing Remarks

Zenzelé Cooper, Weeksville Heritage Center Program Manager gives closing remarks.

3:20PM-5:00PM: Weeksville 2138: Imagining Future Brooklyn as a Black Utopia with Intelligent Mischief

In a future 300 years after Weeksville was first settled as a free Black community, Brooklyn has become a thriving Black Utopia based on values of cooperation, community, resilience, interdependence, regeneration, and Black joy and love. In this workshop we’ll dream together about Future Brooklyn, and using mapping as a tool for worldbuilding and speculative imagination.