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Ujima Wednesdays

Every week on Wednesday, starting at 6:00PM EST.

We hold financial and political education workshops every Wednesday that are open to the public, where community members come together to co-learn and then later co-create at our member team meetings. Watch all past events on our Youtube.

Together: Organizing for Financial
Governance Power

Join us for our Ujima Wednesdays workshops in 2026, entitled Together: Organizing for Financial Governance Power. We invite members to not just imagine, but to learn hard skills and knowledge around how we can collectively govern finances and build power, so we can fund and invest in futures that serve our communities. From unpacking our personal relationships to finance in February, mythbusting financial literacy in March, digging deep into Black Money Lineages in April, visualizing an AfroSolarPunk future in May, to exploring alternatives to extractive finance this summer, we've unpacked our own personal relationships to finance, governance, and power, and defined these terms together. As we go through fall workshops we’ll continue to ground ourselves in the theories and histories of Black and working-class financial practices; we’ll learn tried-and-true organizing approaches from practitioners who fight for community control; and we’ll learn from and plan with one another. For the first time ever, our workshops this year are also traveling to new cities! We’ll be taking Ujima Wednesdays on the road, to Providence, Philadelphia, and New York, and partnering with staff and translocal partners in each city to co-produce workshops that speak to translocal contexts for organizing. Check out what we've been discussing this year on our Together: Organizing for Financial Governance Power playlist on YouTube down below!

Talkback: In Us We Trust

Donna Bivens, Justin Merrick, Robert "ROB." Kelley-Morgan

COOP Social Club

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September 9, 2026

6:00 PM

We begin this month with a collective reflection on our Fall 2026 workshop series theme: Holy Currencies. Through a conversation on wealth, relationships, interiority, and trust, we’ll build from our summer series on Mutual Aid and open the questions that will guide our fall workshops.
Holy Currencies and Hard Currencies

Noni Session

COOP Social Club

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September 23, 2026

6:00 PM

Join Noni Session in this discussion on how holy currencies offer a path grounded in holistic stewardship, in direct contrast to hard currencies which often rely on extraction and oppression to function. Explore how we navigate and prioritize these different forms of wealth. The "Holy Currencies" framework was originally shared with us by a member through the work of Eric Law and the Kaleidoscope Institute. In contrast, we define hard currencies as the finite, external instruments—such as cash, equity, and debt—that the dominant economic system uses to measure and control value.
Time and Place

Amanda Everic

COOP Social Club

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September 30, 2026

6:00 PM

Join Amanda Everich, Community Facilitator and Education Manager for Black Farmer Fund, in a discussion on how we utilize resources, including land, when we are thinking of time and place. Amanda will explore the history of Black farmers’ and their ongoing existence in the USA, and the history of the Black Farmer Fund. She will share resources, explore the process of socioemotional to concrete investments, and discuss what belonging and land stewardship looks like today.
Truth and Wellness

Donna Bivens

COOP Social Club

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October 14, 2026

6:00 PM

Join Donna Bivens as she discusses wellness as a currency. Reflecting on what people are going through right now. The day to day attacks on people's physical wellness (environmental factors). Disaster relief that’s often withheld (or misplaced), which are tax payer funded. Who actually ends up on the scene? The holistic healers.
Talkback/Transition to Hard Currency

Dr. Jared Ball

COOP Social Club

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October 21, 2026

6:00 PM

What are some hard truths around money? Join us for a talkback with Dr. Ericka Brown and Dr. Jared Ball on what hard currencies are and how we live, interact and navigate the world today. Referencing Dr. Jared Ball’s The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power, and his two part Mythbusting march workshop series, Dr. Ball will revisit the myths we've picked up along the way, and why. Join us as we transition from holy currencies, and practices of bartering to hard currencies.
Monetary Trust

Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard & Amaha Selassie, Jamila Medley

TBD

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November 4, 2026

6:00 PM

What does it look like to have financial systems built on an idea of trust? What happens when we trust each other more, have faith in each other. It's significant even in investment, with funds and money. Monetary trust, especially in relation to trust funds, as a legal financial framework works very differently because it's entrusted, there’s a level of trust. What is Black Trust? When you think of investment, what underlines it really? An excavation, miseducation or re-education. The investment with trust. Objective criteria (stuff that came later) in the beginning was a thought relationship in trust. How it operates for Black people.
History of Money

Chris Desan

TBD

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November 18, 2026

6:00 PM

Join the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, and author of Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism Christine Desan in discussing the history of money and the mechanics of hard money—specifically how finite, external instruments like cash, equity, and debt have been used by the dominant economic system to measure and control value.

Member Teams

Our member teams occur on a monthly, rotating schedule.

The Ujima Member Teams are a self-organized, non-hierarchical group of community members that work to strengthen Ujima’s participatory governance structure, community relations and help the wider public learn about and enroll in Ujima, solidarity economy, and economic democracy.

Archive

Missed a workshop? Catch up on everything on YouTube today!

You can catch up on all the insights, discussions, and moments you missed. Head over to our YouTube channel today and watch the full recordings at your convenience. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share with your community!

#ujimawednesdays | Realizing the Alternative: Black and Brown Women's Experiments | July 15, 2026
45:55
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