May: What is the Earth Worth? There Are Black People in the Future.

This May, Ujima Wednesday’s workshop series asks us: How do we own our place in the future? Is The Earth Just One Big $? There are Black people in the future.

We’re challenging ourselves and our community to visualize an AfroSolarPunk future, a living, breathing vision of communities curating an Earth experience on our own terms. Curious what that means? Good. Come build it with us!

This month of workshops will be our first workshops to take place outside of Boston! We’re partnering with the Kensington Corridor Trust to host in-person workshops in Philadelphia, at 3400 J St Unit G12, Philadelphia, PA 19134. Join us on the road!

For our Boston-based membership: join us virtually on this translocal series of workshops and conversations.

5.6: Imagining Solarpunk Futures, Talkback with Jasmin Velez | RSVP

Join us for Imagining Solarpunk Futures, an interactive talkback led by Jasmin Velez of Kensington Corridor Trust. Bridging last April's theme of Black Money Lineages with May’s question, “What is the Earth Worth?," we will explore how communities use land and reinvestment to build collective futures, engaging questions of environmental justice, profit, decision-making, and intergenerational wealth.

5.13: What is Just Transition? | RSVP

What principles, processes, and practices come to mind when you think about Black people’s place in the future? Join us in learning about Just Transition, a framework for change that shifts us from an extractive economy and political system to one that is regenerative.

5.20: Energy, Tech, Finance | RSVP

Join ACE in exploring the connections between energy and finance and tech. Come learn about how all of these are related, how they impact your daily lives and what can be possible if we were able to govern our own systems.

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Facilitator Bios:

Jasmin Velez

Tristan Thomas

Jasmin Velez is a Puerto Rican practitioner-scholar, community organizer, and nonprofit fundraiser rooted in Kensington, Philadelphia. With over a decade of experience at the intersection of land justice, environmental equity, and decolonial community practice, she brings rigorous research and deep relational trust-building to every room she walks into. She is the Development & Communications Manager at Kensington Corridor Trust, founder of Raíces Consulting LLC, and a doctoral researcher in Geography, Environment & Urban Studies at Temple University. Her work asks a single question in many forms: what does it look like for communities to stay, thrive, and determine their own futures on their own land?

Tristan Thomas is a New York native from the Bronx, Tristan obtained a B.S. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Northeastern University and now calls Roxbury home. Currently Tristan serves as the Director of Policy & Law at Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE).  

ACE is a neighborhood based, environmental justice and transit-oriented development nonprofit. They organize Roxbury residents and work with community organizers locally, statewide and nationally to build platforms and offer resources that address systemic injustice. ACE works directly within the frontline communities that are most impacted bringing critical solutions that include advocacy, organizing, legal and regulatory campaigns. They are the first environmental justice nonprofit organization in Massachusetts and have defended the rights of Roxbury residents for over 25 years.