Occupy
On Occupy
Autumn Awakening | Vol. 18, No. 2– 2011 | Credits
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Urban Habitat 3.0
Urban
Habitat staff, board members, allies, and over 2000 equity advocates
from across the country gathered recently at the Equity Summit 2011
convened by PolicyLink in Detroit. There, we saw firsthand the
consequences of decades of displacement and disinvestment on such a
proud city. We heard from an array of advocates and analysts about the
challenges facing Detroit and numerous other regions across the country.
We delved into the current economic crisis and saw how people of
color—the fastest growing segment of U.S. population—are taking the
hardest hits.
We came away better informed and energized to take
on the daunting task of moving our nation toward a more fair
distribution of resources and decision-making power, and into a more
equitable growth agenda. (See RP&E 18-2) We are looking forward to
sharing those discussions and advancing that agenda at the Social Equity
Caucus' annual State of the Region Conference in the Bay Area in April
2012.
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Silvia Federici
"Women have the longest work-week and do most of the world's unpaid labor; they are the bulk of the poor both in the U.S. and around the world..." - Sylvia Ferderici
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Rev. James Lawson
"You can't create revolutionary change without a strategy." - Rev. James Lawson
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María Poblet
“Convergence on joint actions between existing organizations and Occupy is the first step...” —María Poblet
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Steve Williams
“Different people who have been disaffected and disenfranchised by this economic system have had a space to come together.” —Steve Williams
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Angela Davis
“It is important to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world." - Angela Davis
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Organizing for Community Control in Madison
By Cynthia Lin and Sangita Nayak
In February 2011, the city of Madison captured national attention when organizers occupied the Wisconsin state capitol building for several weeks to protest Governor Scott Walker’s attacks on collective bargaining and key social services. Their rallying cry: “Whose house? Our house!” reflected back to a housing reclamation movement that had begun just a year earlier in the city.
In May 2010, a coalition of people-of-color-led groups had organized to help an African American single mother and her two young children move into a long-vacant foreclosed house. Their actions shifted the public discourse into the critical areas of property, control, and economic justice. It was part of a coordinated nationwide series of eviction defenses and housing takeovers meant to reawaken the nation to the Take Back the Land movement, which is dedicated to elevating housing to the level of a human right and securing community control over the land. Politically, Madison may seem like an unlikely site for a radical people-of-color-led direct action and it took many national organizers by surprise. But the movement continues to grow as its actions challenge the contradiction of “houses without people and people without houses.”
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