BLLI is a program that builds Black leadership, structure, and practice for a land-centered liberation movement. We aim to develop diverse and interdependent strategies that move us away from the current extractive economies which depend on the violent enclosure of land, labor, culture, power, wealth and spirit. We hold movement partnerships and engage wealthy networks in Reparations to create resources that can be collectively governed by land networks. We take on the bridge work necessary to allow for land stewards and land networks to build with each other.
At the heart of our movement is the fundamental right to the resources required to create our own productive, dignified and sustainable livelihoods through our own free labor and self-governance. Key among those resources is land. We endeavor to co-create strategies for transformation which are grounded in a long-term vision, guided in the resilience, culture, and creativity of our ancestry, rooted in our sovereignty, and which we can begin putting into place now.
BLLI supports the creation of Black land infrastructure in three ways:
(1) Creating and piloting models for wealth redistribution and waging bold Reparations experiments.
(2) Incubating Black land networks for 3-5 years, to support the creation of Black land infrastructure and models of collective governance. BLLI resources these incubated networks through our wealth redistribution models. BLLI’s current incubated land network is Drinking Gourd.
(3) Offering project incubation, programming and/or containers that support Black land projects including: connection to fiscal sponsorship, infrastructure consulting, administrative support, and general operating funding.