Red Emma’s

BoOTS: Liberation in the Masses and in the Margins offers up an approach to the study of historic and contemporary examples of liberation through public, massive and private, marginal methods. Written as a tool for popular political education, this book illuminates the need to squelch the debate about whether “freedom struggle types” are somehow better or worse than others. The author, Eric Jackson (Servant-Director of Black Yield Institute), asserts that 21st century freedom fighters must be concerned with studying all matters of liberation methods.

In this body of work, the people will find inspiring examples of “freedom formations” in pursuit of Black Liberation. Jackson offers a tool for the necessary study of liberation for those who profess and organize toward black liberation. BoOTs, which stands for Black-owned and Operated Territories and Spaces, is one way to frame our “freedom formation” study, in order to inspire current iterations of liberation-forward activities and movement building.”

Eric Jackson is an organizer, educator, and filmmaker, humbly serving as the visionary and a co-founder of Black Yield Institute, committed to building a movement toward Black Land and Food Sovereignty in Baltimore. Currently, he and his team are committed to a 1.25 acre urban agriculture operation and building a cooperatively-owned grocery store in South Baltimore, while also conducting Black-led research, facilitating political education, and organizing an action network. Eric has over a decade of experience working in and with communities operating programming and helping people to build power and address a myriad of issues, including food inequities. A Baltimore native from the Cherry Hill Community, Eric is the recipient of numerous awards and a public speaker who has presented hundreds of addresses and workshops to diverse groups about food sovereignty, building power, and establishing strong organizations to address complex social issues, specific to people of African Descent. He is affirmed in and secured this work through the love of his family and friends.

Ed Whitfield is originally from Little Rock Arkansas and was a long time anti-war and social justice activist before becoming involved in community development, cooperative development and philanthropy. He now spends most of his time trying to help communities build self-reliant economies to meet their needs and elevate the quality of life. Ed was Co-Founder and Co-Managing Director of the Fund for Democratic Communities (F4DC) and continues to serve on the boards of the Seed Commons: A Community Wealth Cooperative and the New Economy Coalition (NEC) Ed spent 9 years as Board Chairman of the Greensboro NC Redevelopment Commission and was the board chair of Greensboro’s Triad Minority Development Corporation before becoming involved with the cooperatives and the world of democratic non-extractive finance. He currently is a Senior Fellow at Seed Commons, a national network of locally rooted, non-extractive loan funds that brings the power of big finance under community control, and serves as a consultant to community groups on matters of community cooperative economic development and community wealth building, as well as working in the arena of organizational anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusion improvement. Ed writes, teaches and lectures on these matters of importance while balancing this work with playing blues and eating barbecue.