By Any Means Necessary 5
Brief Summary of the Jackson People’s Assembly Noel Didla
People’s Assemblies over the years have served as a significant means for Jacksonians to democratically dis-cuss emergent issues, organize responses, and mobilize to address key issues impacting their lives. PAs have emerged out of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and exist to support ongoing selfdetermination and sacred liberatory work of the community, supported by the People’s Assembly Task Force. People’s Assemblies are independent and autonomous vehicles for self-determination and self-governance. The Jackson People’s Assemblies have been vehicles of community processes since the early 1990s. They serve as a means for successfully educating, motivating and organizing Jacksonians on a myriad of issues such as Katrina, State of Public Education, the state government's takeover of Jackson Municipal Airport, One Cent Sales Tax issue, infra-structure issues, Capital Complex Improvement District, etc. As Jackson People’s Assemblies are driven by the needs of the community, they continue to evolve in strengthening people’s participatory engagement in governance, co-governance and self- governance in tune with ultimately building people’s capacity to navi-gate power that is principled and liberatory. Over the last twenty-plus years, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement’s Jackson Chapter has been organizing mass assemblies in the city and driving an understanding of people-centered and place-based decision making processes. Assemblies gained visibility as equitable processes during Chokwe Lumumba’s term as councilper-son for Ward 2 and continued to gain prominence since. Based on years of developing and evolving the assembly processes in the most Jackson and Jacksonian cen-tered ways, it has so far been determined that the impact and scaling of the city-wide assemblies depend on: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
principled and unapologetic grounding of the purpose of the assemblies honoring of the legacies of peoples and places as the context for the assemblies principled and self-determined production of assembly histories and legacies depth and breadth of the people-centered assembly process collective leadership structuring and accountable delivery base building and sustaining of assembly task forces across all 7 wards equity and justice driven intergenerational political education and engagement of the task force principled grassroots approach to imagining and building assemblies as autonomous and independent vehicles of self-determination and self-governance 9. principled structuring of relationship with the legislative and executive branches of the municipality
There has always been a strong response to the assemblies as autonomous vehicles, and since Chokwe Antar Lumumba became mayor, assemblies have gained even more support, as Jacksonians believe in the assembly process as the pathway to developing a deep democratic cultural shift in Jackson. Issues that are a priority to the community were identified by the MXGM-led People’s Assembly Task Force and Democratic Visioning Transition team and a tentative year-long calendar was formulated. City budget, crime, and safety, public education, infrastructure and state of youth were identified as key issues to prioritize as assemblies in 2018. As a result, one assembly on Participatory Budgeting, two Budget Training Sessions, one assembly on Crime and Safety and one on Public Education were organized in 2018.