Convening, Recruiting, and Connecting People Who Repair Local Economies
It seems that sometimes the history of what the Church has done in times of struggle gets overlooked. We seem to get lost in personalities and political agendas that move us away from who we, the Church, are in society. The Church has a long history of stepping into spaces and representing well. I think […]
Note: Perhaps this isn’t 100% factual, but it IS a very true story. And I think it speaks to the work we are trying to do at Neighborhood Economics. Sharing this story feels risky because it is told from the vantage point of a single person (me!), and the way all the dots connect it […]
The influential Aspen Institute has decided that the goal of their Future of Wealth initiative is to see Black family wealth grow ten-fold over the next twenty-five years. This would bridge a significant chunk out of the racial wealth gap; the average white family has 10x the assets of the average Black family. Aspen’s grounding […]
Kevin Jones We’ve raised a year of operating capital to launch The Watershed Fund, https://emsdcmarketplace.org/donations/watershed-fund/ which offers zero interest loans to local farmers serving our farm-to-table sector in Asheville. The connections and reciprocity within our food systems are already proving to be one of the surprising benefits. With the Watershed Fund, https://neighborhoodeconomics.org/wiki/index.php/Initial_design_of_the_Watershed_Fund what we are […]
Dignity is defined as being worthy of respect or honor. I often hear that everyone is deserving dignity at some level. It seems like a fairly understandable concept, but the practice of respecting people seems to be something that is pretty difficult to apply. It seems to be hardest to apply when it comes to […]
Kevin Jones The Neighborhood Economics model of bringing a national focus to local issues was in high focus in Jackson, Mississippi at our April conference. I want to tell you about one of the most exciting things that came out of our conference. Because of white flight and the city’s problems, developers had stopped building […]
Dave Kresta After spending the morning touring the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson on a recent Sunday morning, I was in an understandably somber mood. I was shocked out of my disgust and confusion when later that afternoon I attended the Working Together Jackson “Refounding Convention,” where over 500 energized and engaged community leaders […]
CategoriesUncategorizedPaula Garrett My 92-year-old mother grew up celebrating Juneteenth. She is a Texan, and she says that she learned about it in school. She was taught the history of it, the fact that it took two years for the news to get from Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation all the way to Galveston, TX. As a young […]
By Shonda Allen Economic, educational, and social institutions are not thought to be the traditional primary drivers of moral civility in the south. The wheelhouse that, arguably, should be driving moral/human civility is religious institutions – The CHURCH. But it is not. In fact, it has been the opposite. Ingrained in the DNA of the […]
By Paula Garrett “It’s Been A Long Time Coming. But I Know A Change Is Gonna Come” — Mississippian Sam Cooke Sam Cooke, the “King of Soul,” is known for his Chicago-style music, but he is actually from Clarksdale in the Mississippi Delta. He left Mississippi with his family as a child. He and hundreds […]
