In a recent column, Mark Kelly pointed out that, in spite of Birmingham's "renaissance," poverty is increasing. He also calls for the city to do something to address it, though he stops short of offering a viable alternative.
What we are proposing is a viable alternative. It is also in line with the city's existing comprehensive and framework plans.
Our plan has four major components:
- Birmingham Institute for Social Change is an anti-racist and community organizing training targeted at white people. We are currently experimenting with different educational forums to engage in discussions with white folks about white supremacy and racism, including the upcoming "What Can White People Do About Racism? A Forum of Self-Reflection for the White Community" at Beloved Community Church on April 23. The goal of BISC is basically outlined in my earlier blog, which is to encourage white folks to think about how white supremacy shapes them and how to act meaningfully to address it.
The appropriate role for white organizers, activists, and generally any white person who is concerned about the well-being of our community is to lead in the white community and to help in the black community.
My work and my research, which began in 2009 and led to the founding of Magic City Agriculture Project in 2011, has always been founded on this assumption. Thus, MCAP is positioned on the border of the black and white communities, both literally and figuratively. Our role in the white community is to challenge white folks and organizations to think more critically about their role and position within social change efforts and our role in the black community is to help organizations and groups figure out how to put their ideas into practice. The latter we seek no credit for and you will never see us parading out our "success stories" like show horses.
For the record, our organization is majority black, but because the two most visible people in our organization are white, Rob Burton and myself, it is necessary for us to operate in this manner. I say all this because what I am about to describe is a plan to face race in this community in a real way for the first time in a long time, which, if adopted in a widespread way, would most certainly position us in the uncomfortable position as leaders in this fight. White supremacy shapes our organization like it shapes everyone and every organization and we are not unaware of our contradictions. Our situation is not ideal, we are not perfect, and we welcome genuine criticism. Nonetheless, now is the time to move forward.
The next three components in our plan are about creating independent, black-controlled economic institutions that can build wealth in the black community.
While there has been some level of social integration in Birmingham, the situation in the black economic sector is dire. According to the Birmingham Business Journal Book of Lists, the largest white-dominated private business in Birmingham is Regions Bank. It has 6000 employees. The largest black-dominated business in Birmingham is Falls Janitorial Service. It has 80 employees. Only 3.4% of black businesses have employees compared with 25% of all businesses nationally. There is no way for black people to build wealth in their communities if they do not control the economic institutions in those communities, and clearly, they do not control them.
What we propose is to start building that wealth from the ground up.
- MCAP wants to start a cooperative training center. Cooperatives are worker-owned businesses that keep wealth in the hands of employees. Aquaponics is a highly productive agricultural production system that we believe could help sustain a profitable business.
Our cooperative training center will educate apprentices on business practices, cooperative economic principles, and aquaponic agricultural production. These apprentices will train at the center for at least two years. The first year they will be employees of MCAP and the second year they will form a cooperative and work under contract with MCAP so that they can develop business skills without being fully exposed to the volatility of the marketplace. We will help the cooperative secure capital to start their own enterprise, probably from the Farm Service Administration, which makes loans to limited resource and minority farmers. It must be stated that after the apprentices are trained and start their own firm, they will be independent of MCAP. We will still operate as consultants and offer technical assistance to them, but they will make their own business decisions and have to survive in the marketplace like any business.
- We also want to create Community Enterprise Zones in partnership with the City of Birmingham. CEZs have two parts - $10 million in capitalization for a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), and a tiered job credit plan that favors democratized businesses. The zone will encompass an area of 50,000 low-income people, probably somewhere in west Birmingham.
A Community Development Financial Institution is essentially a bank that does micro-lending by giving loans of under $250,000 to businesses and individuals for the purpose of community development. MCAP will insist that a majority of the board of the CDFI include residents from the CEZ. Again, this organization will not be controlled by MCAP, but by residents of low-income communities. We will sit on the board if we are asked. Micro-lending was developed by Muhammed Yunus in Bangladesh as a form of economic development for the poor. He won a Nobel Peace Prize.
- Finally, we want to develop a Community Land Trust, which is a tool for low-income homeownership and land use planning. The key feature of a CLT is dual ownership. The trust owns the grounds upon which a house or business sits, and the homeowner or business owners owns the improvements on those grounds. Representatives from home and business owners control the CLT allowing them to collectively make land use decisions for their communities. To reiterate, MCAP will help black people create these institutions, but will will not sit on their boards, unless we are asked.
None of this is incredibly radical. The three pieces to creating a grassroots controlled, democratic economy are all included in City of Birmingham's comprehensive plan or in the subsequent framework plans. The institutions represent, collectively, the three things you need to have a functioning economy - land, labor, and capital. And, oh, by the way, it costs a fraction of what the city has spent on downtown.
Like Mark Kelly, I believe this city is poised for greatness. I believe that this plan is a step to this greatness, to finally address the single barrier, race and racism, that separates us from our potential.
We want the people of this city to adopt this plan, to take it and run with it. If you want our help, we will help; if you don't, we don't need credit.
We are setting out to achieve this plan because it is the right thing to do, not to pat ourselves on the back, control the city, or build great power. We do it because we have the courage to see white supremacy and to do something about it.
Come with us. Now is the time.
Read the full plan:
