Visionary Organizing in an Age of Climate Crisis

with Detroit organizer Charity Hicks

Many people feel we live in ecologically destructive, highly unequal and spiritually toxic economies. They crave an alternative. But what should it look like? And how will we get there? Detroit is a city on the front-lines of neoliberal and ecological devastation. It is also a laboratory for alternatives. Detroit organizer Charity Hicks will share lessons about organizing for a transition to diverse, democratic, life-affirming and earth-centred economies. In an age of climate and ecological crisis, she will address the need for a new paradigm of movement-building that affirms place-based, resilient organizing and takes the leadership of Indigenous communities and communities of colour.

Charity Hicks is a writer, researcher, healer, artist, grower, and organizer involved in environmental and food justice, urban agriculture, Africana culture, and restorative justice. She is the policy fellow for Eat 4 Health Detroit and an organizer of the Detroit Food Justice Taskforce to promote a justice-centred food system. She is the policy director of the East Michigan Environmental Action Council, helping to empower the Detroit community to protect, preserve and value the land, air and water.

She is a founding member of several organizations in Detroit including the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, an urban herbalist and ecological awareness group and an African Women’s Society. She was the lead person on the team that wrote the City of Detroit Food Security Policy. She was the Health, Healing and Environmental Justice point person for the US Social Forum in Detroit in 2010. Charity also sits on the board of several social local and regional social and environmental justice organizations, including the Detroit Public Schools Health Council and Peoples Water Board Detroit.