#UjimaWednesdays | Gaining Ground: Building Community on Dudley Street | 4.30

Month Desscription:

This April, we are continuing our yearly theme with From the Ground Up: Building Power With Land, in collaboration with the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and the Kensington Corridor Trust. In this series, we’ll explore how communities are reclaiming land and building grassroots governance as tools for collective liberation.

Through conversations with organizers and practitioners on the ground, participants will explore real-life models of community control, gain insight into the power of land stewardship, and build strategies to root movements in place-based power. Together, we’ll learn how community land trusts and community-led governance structures create pathways for long-term stability and economic justice.

Event Description:

In the last two April workshops, Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative will host a two-part movie screening and discussion of Gaining Ground: Building Community on Dudley Street. The documentary explores DSNI’s innovative grassroots organizing and how a generation of young leaders worked together to prevent foreclosures and create youth jobs in the neighborhood.

Discussions will focus on building and sustaining community wealth and power. Participants will reflect on questions such as: How do movements in the past impact and influence movements of today? What are the lessons we can learn in fighting against the housing crisis, wealth gap, and climate injustice. How are young people of today involved in the struggle? Through observation and conversation, this workshop will highlight the power of collective action and emphasize the importance of continued efforts toward community-driven change.

Facilitator Bio:

The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative's (DSNI) mission is to empower Dudley residents to organize, plan for, create and control a vibrant, diverse and high-quality neighborhood in collaboration with community partners. DSNI was formed by Dudley residents seeking to reclaim a neighborhood that had been ravaged by disinvestment, arson fires and dumping. When many had given up, DSNI organized neighbors to create a comprehensive plan and a shared vision for a new, vibrant urban village. To secure development without displacement, DSNI gained eminent domain authority, purchased vacant land, and protected affordability. This process led to family stability and the creation of a community land trust. Today, the once garbage-strewn lots have been rebuilt with quality affordable houses, parks, playgrounds, gardens, community facilities, and new businesses. Through service on DSNI’s Board, residents lead an effort that includes all neighborhood stakeholders in a democratically-elected, community process. Together, DSNI has created greater civic participation, economic opportunity, community connections, and opportunities for youth. They have built a community across our diversity of language, race, ethnicity, and age. They have invested in our young people and the youth in turn have invested in the community.