Fall
2023
Are Capitalism and Militarism Really The Hills We Want To Die On? Choosing life over death in the fight for global liberation
On June 27th, 2023, Detroiters and folks across SE Michigan woke up unable to see more than a few yards down the road and to reports that the city had… Read More
Scheming And Dreaming: Public Art As Activism, Advocacy and Youth Actualization
Meet Cover Artist T’onna Clemmons “Koriand'r's love for plants and planets developed with each journey she took. She read up on tips and tricks of growing healthy plants and experimented… Read More
There is NO Climate Justice Without Disability Justice: Centering the Wisdom and Strength of Surviving a World Not Built With You in Mind
At first thought, it may not be obvious how disability justice is critical to climate justice, but once you dig in, there are crucial points of intersection. First of all,… Read More
praise to the dandelion
praise to the dandelion i too am a low thing, refusing. i too am a gentle summer light waking in the season of disbelief. Gentle to my brothers who spring… Read More
‘Nam and After: William E. Langford III
Young, with lead capped molars, his curling fro is close cropped, kept close, like many a revolutionary called up back then for exigent circumstances: to rumble in a jungle… Read More
Global Heating and Climate Destabilization: The Basics in Context
“No transformation without a crisis.” - Rev. Dr. Barbara Holmes This year is already the hottest year on record. When I share photos and stories about my work in a… Read More
Time
We are gone in ourselves. One second we try and avoid knocking down the spider’s web, only to walk right through it a minute later, unnoticed. We are cut like… Read More
Lights Out
Darkness. Scamper to the window, Swipe aside the dusty curtain. I am not the only one looking out into the night. I hold one of the sets of eyes straining… Read More
A Story of Hope
Hope was a young girl who lived in the land of Gladness. Hope's hair was made of sunshine; her freckles were bits of stardust. Hope's meals came from the Spring… Read More
Permitting Pollution
Siyo, greetings and good day. Jesse Deer In Water here, organizer and speaker for Citizens’ Resistance At Fermi Two (CRAFT). CRAFT is an Indigenous-led, intergenerational, multi-racial, and cross-cultural grassroots organization… Read More
The Balance of Relationship & Responsibility in the Climate Crisis
By Malu Castro & Michelle Martinez, This paper was adapted from a talk given at Detroit’s 2023 Concert of Colors in 2023 and builds on ideas we are teaching at… Read More
#DefendMassaferYatta! We Will Not Be Erased: Creating Community & Building Resistance One Artwork At a Time.
"Nakba" is the Arabic word for catastrophe. It refers to the violent expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their land on May 15, 1948. From May 26 - June 17th… Read More
Art by Nicole Miazgowicz
Artist Statement: These pieces are based on a camping trip I took to Iceland a few years ago. I couldn't believe how varied the landscape was - sometimes even within… Read More
Snapshots of Lila
I still find Lila’s hair pins underneath and between my car seats. I would pick her up at the big, red-trimmed house on Wildemere for meetings. She would always be… Read More
Sacred Spaces “Solvent”
“Solvent” an exhibition by Halima Afi Cassells and Shanna Merola invokes the world between memory, history, collective storytelling, and liberation at the water’s edge. “Mama Lila” Cabbil - October 23rd,… Read More
The Ongoing Presence of Charity Hicks
I fell asleep sheltered by a willow tree that wept for the state of Detroit in 2023. I doze and woke, woke and dozed on a Belle Isle park bench… Read More
Breath
Breathe…Do you feel it? Mother Earth left her soulful whispers in there. You take a deep breath in and feel it. You feel the crud of those who have to… Read More
A Message from Rising Leaders
To many, the climate crisis is not given a thought. And to many, they do not realize that's where you’re caught amidst psychological warfare. A warfare that convinces us that is… Read More
Everyone pays the price when Israel orchestrates the dehumanization of its own people
I will not start by recounting the number of Palestinians Israel has murdered since October 7, nor emphasizing how many of them are women and children. I will not beckon… Read More
End Fossil Fuels! A Photo essay by Valerie Jean
On September 17, 2023, 75,000 concerned people converged on Times Square to demand President Biden declare a climate emergency and end any fossil fuels development and infrastructure projects. We must… Read More
Co-Authored Futures: Youth-led Design-build
On a cloudless summer day in late July, twenty high school students attending Lawrence Tech’s summer architecture camp board a bus from the LTU campus in Southfield bound for Detroit’s… Read More
Mapping Detroit’s Buried Waterways – Part I: Finding the creeks
When I first moved to Detroit in 2014, my orientation to navigate to work, the grocery store, the theater, indeed anywhere I wanted to go, was centered around the freeway… Read More
Where is the Sun? How Climate Change has Changed the Mental Health of Children
On June 26, 2023, the sky did not look right. It was red, full of smoke, and you could not see the sun. There was an alert for high air… Read More
no single path through the mountains
Ali Gali (they/them): I am a queer, non-binary artist, cultural organizer, and space-maker from Antakya, Turkey. In my visual practice and poetry, I trace entanglements of bodies, spirits, and… Read More
A Few Organizations Feeding, Fighting For, Helping to Heal Our Environment & Community
Arboretum Detroit arbdetroit.org Black To The Land Coalition blacktothelandcoalition.com Capuchin Kitchen Earthworks Urban Farm cskdetroit.org/earthworks Clean Water Campaign For Michigan michigancleanwater.org Citizen’s Resistance At Fermi 2 - https://www.shutdownfermi.org Detroit Black… Read More
Who’s Energy? Our Energy! The People’s Power Program Uplifts Activism, Advocacy And Agency in Creating Just Utility Policies
In Fall 2021, DTE Energy, which serves 2.3 million customers across Southeast Michigan, put $50,000 in dark money into the narrative campaign which helped to tank Proposal P. Proposal P,… Read More
When She Found Me
I look out at the Atlantic. This is my view, everywhere I turn. I see it in my waking hour and something in there reminds me that… As much as… Read More
Holding Their Feet to the Fire
ShotSpotter is audio surveillance technology marketing itself as gunshot detection technology. City Council’s approval last fall of the Detroit Police Department’s (DPD) request to extend and expand ShotSpotter throughout the… Read More
Michiganders Unsatisfied with DNR “Denial” of Camp Grayling Expansion and New MOU
Photo credits to Kenny Karpov Camp Grayling is a Michigan National Guard (MNG) training center and part of the National All-Domain Warfighting Center located in Crawford, Kalkaska, and Otsego Counties.… Read More
Making and Baking A Greater Detroit Our Children Deserve
Too many Detroit children have inherited an unfortunate, unfair set of economic and educational inequities. Too often, when we speak or hear of Detroit, we hear or speak of scarcity… Read More
Say His Name: Porter Burks; Say What This Is: Genocide
I vividly remember the bodycam footage of the murder of Porter Burks in the early morning hours last October, shortly before settling into my workday as a psychiatrist who works… Read More
Cocooned and Covered
Author’s Note: Though I am not a member of the trans community, my niece and I co-created this piece about her journey of transition. We offer this story with the… Read More
NCOE Statement Opposing Transphobic, Homophobic, and Gender Violence
Image downloaded from Just Seeds https://justseeds.org/graphic/my-body-my-choice/. Visit Kill Joy and Just Seeds online to learn more and support! On Instagram @kill.joy.land, @la.onda.grafica and @justseeds “…the issues of race and class… Read More
Suicide, Violence, and Abolition
This March, thirty-four organizations in Detroit signed on to a statement in solidarity with the abolitionist #StopCopCity protests in Atlanta, denouncing the police killing of innocent people, calling to defund… Read More
The Return of Afrofuture Fest in 2023: Reflections on the Past and Communal Futures
The Return of Afrofuture Fest in 2023: Reflections on the Past and Communal Futures By Adrienne Ayers Afrofuture Fest originated as a 25th birthday party for myself on Anishinaabe Land at… Read More
Fat On Freedom
“Fat on Freedom” by Megan Douglass As we prepare for the long haul, we asked: What is guiding, fueling, feeding our work? All this conflict is a part of movement,… Read More
An Act of Love
An Act of Love By Laura Bailey Brandon We sat on a patchwork of blankets in a field, hugged by trees. We sat facing each other, knees bent against strangers… Read More
if a tree falls (and No One is around)
if a tree falls (and No One is around) (new liturgies against “representation”) Does it make a sound? The man was white that named the tree “no one,” and so… Read More
Summer
2023
Spring
2023
Special Citizen Empowerment Issue
Fall 2022
Summer
2022
winter/spring
2022
Fall
2021
Summer
2021
Spring
2021
Winter Edition
2021
Winter
2020
Spring
2020
Summer/Fall
2019
Issue 10
Special Surveillance Issue 2019
winter/spring
2019
