Accelerating Justice: Spotlighting the Economic Future We Deserve
Authors: Joi Edwards, Manager of Storytelling and Insights, Marissa Guananja: Vice President of Impact Initiatives
Late this summer, we held a virtual summit, Accelerating Justice: Spotlighting the Economic Future We Deserve, to highlight how women-led, BIPOC community-based organizations are pushing back against systemic injustice and working to close the racial wealth gap by developing powerful solutions that point us to the economic future we deserve.
The work and leadership of the ten organizations in this year’s Common Future Accelerator highlighted how the future we aspire to—a future where our economy prioritizes regenerative systems and practices, collective well-being, and equity—is already underway.
The Panels
Panel 1: Speaking Truth to Power: Grassroots Solutions to Advance Justice
This panel explored how grassroots movements and organizations call us in, lift us up, and propel our collective power to build the future we’re truly worthy of.
Hosted by Common Future’s first-ever Futurist-In-Residence, Trevor Smith, Co-Founder of The Black Liberation and Indigenous Sovereignty (BLIS) Collective, this panel featured Ana Delia Espino, Director of the Grassroots Organizing School of Alabama (GOSA), Frida Ballard of Worker Justice Wisconsin, and Andrea Chiriboga-Flor, Executive Director of Justice For the People Legal Center.
From GOSA’s rebuilding of local organizing power in rural Alabama to Worker Justice Wisconsin closing the immigrant union membership gap, to Justice For the People Legal Center’s emergence as the first organizer-led legal center for land justice in Colorado, these organizations prove how wielding collective power advances the common good.
Panel 2 : Reparative Justice: Addressing Incarceration's Impact on the Racial Wealth Gap
This panel emphasized how reimagining reentry for dignity and belonging unlocks pathways to multigenerational healing and economic well-being.
Hosted by Suzy Salamy, Director of Social Work at The Innocence Project, this panel featured Rokki Bonner and Asegedech Kumnegere, Co-Founders of Fit to Navigate, and Kavita Pawria-Sanchez, CEO of Cannabronx.
Fit to Navigate is redesigning reentry through “well-preneurship” (wellness entrepreneurship) for formerly incarcerated women, and Cannabronx is utilizing New York’s cannabis industry as a vehicle for reparations to communities affected by the war on drugs.
Panel 3: Roots of Resilience: The Legacy and Future of Black Cooperativism
This panel spoke to the life-giving nature of cooperative economics, the resilient power of community ownership, and the abundant investing it requires.
Hosted by Joi Edwards, Manager of Storytelling and Insights at Common Future, this panel featured Elizabeth L. Carter, Co-Founder of WisConnect Holding Cooperative, and Tamah Yisrael, Co-Founder of Cooperation New Orleans.
WisConnect Holding Cooperative supports the growth of local and international self-employed Black women-owned businesses, along with their families and communities, and Cooperation New Orleans is building community power and seeding solutions for climate catastrophes through a Community Loan Fund and mutual aid in a city highly impacted by a legacy of economic divestment and extraction.
Panel 4: Investing in Black Visions and Leaders
This panel uplifted the brilliance of Black voices and visions, and how investing in Black leaders expedites the economic justice, freedom, and flourishing our communities deserve.
Hosted by Karla Monterroso of Brava Leaders, this panel featured Faye Harwitt from Black Wall Street Forward, Maya Blankenship from Black Wildflowers Fund, and Leah Patterson, Chief Innovation Officer from Remix Ideas.
Black Wall Street Forward supports Black entrepreneurs and catalyzes economic liberation by reimagining and developing vibrant Black Wall Streets across the country through action learning networks. Black Wildflowers Fund focuses on removing systemic barriers for Black educators who want to pursue leadership pathways and design innovative schools—without compromising their freedom, power, identity, or financial security. Remix Ideas is building a supportive ecosystem for Black-owned businesses in Arkansas by disrupting cycles of intergenerational poverty and creating pathways for economic mobility through business ownership.
