The Birmingham Earth Coalition stands in solidarity with the transnational Black Lives Matter movement and the local manifestation of the movement in Greater Birmingham.
With regard to this current moment, we believe that defunding the Birmingham Police Department and departments across Jefferson County is crucial for actualizing an environment where Black people in our community have the right to breathe—without fear of pollution, food and housing insecurity, surveillance, and punishment.
Further, using federal, state, and local budgets to house, heal, and educate—instead of policing and punishing our people—is central to a just and sustainable future without capitalism. Pursuing a participatory budgeting process to shift funding from our militarized police force to alternative institutions upholds the Birmingham Earth Coalition’s core tenants of self determination and economic democracy.
Within the broader and enduring Movement for Black Lives, we align ourselves fully with the Movement for Black Lives’ platform, while also recognizing that the Birmingham Earth Coalition is uniquely positioned to work toward the goal of divesting in fossil fuels and investing in cooperative economies and more just and sustainable food systems for Black communities in the Deep South in particular. And crucially, we share M4BL’s conviction that true justice is only possible by centering the leadership, knowledge, and experiences of Black and Indigenous people, particularly those who are trans, queer, femme, immigrant, disabled, poor, and currently or formerly incarcerated.
We seek true justice for Kindra Chapman, EJ Bradford, and Johnny Robinson, and the countless lives lost as a result of police and anti-Black violence in Greater Birmingham and beyond. We seek true justice for the Black trans and queer, women and femmes whose humanity is undermined and whose lives are stolen under our current system.