Black Land and Liberation Initiative

In 2017, as part of its “40 Acres 40 Cities Juneteenth 2017” day of action, BLLI activists occupied a vacant lot in Oakland as a symbol of the Black-led land reclamation movement taking back what it considers to be Black land. ⁵ The group has also redistributed over $7 million in donations to Black-led land and liberation groups. ⁴

Activities

The BlackOUT Collective, in coordination with partners at Movement Generation, launched the Black Land and Liberation Initiative (BLLI) as a land-based reparations project in 2016. ⁶ From 2016 to 2018, BLLI hosted several national and regional conferences with affiliated organizations to solidify a plan of action to reclaim what is considered to be stolen land. ⁴ These efforts culminated on June 19, 2017, when BLLI activists took over a vacant lot in Oakland, California as part of the group’s “40 Acres 40 Cities Juneteenth 2017” day of action. Despite the name of the event, the occupation of the Oakland lot was the only land reclamation that resulted from this day of action. ^{5  7}

From 2019 to 2022, the BLLI launched a reparations campaign, initially called Reparations Summer. ^{4  8} Through this initiative, BLLI secured funds from white people and white-led organizations and redistributed it to Black-led movements. According to a BLLI report, the group raised and redistributed over $7.6 million in reparations donations to Black land movements from 2020 to 2022. ⁴

Affiliated Organizations

BlackOUT Collective

The BlackOUT Collective (BlackOUT), along with Movement Generation, is one of the founding groups and parent organizations of the Black Land and Liberation Initiative (BLLI). ⁴ The BlackOUT Collective is a direct-action organization founded in 2014 following the anti-police riots that started in Ferguson, Missouri after the police shooting of Michael Brown. BlackOUT offers training and support to anti-police and other radical-left protesters and is associated with the broader Black Lives Matter movement. Although it once operated as a fiscally-sponsored project of the Ruckus Society, another left-wing activist training group, Ruckus ended up becoming a project of BlackOUT in 2017. ⁹

BlackOUT’s central activity is planning anti-police protests, most notably in the summer and fall of 2020 after the police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ^{10  11}

Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO)

The Black Land and Liberation Initiative (BLLI) is, through the BlackOUT Collective, a member of the Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO) network. ¹² The CTWO has also facilitated several grants for the Black Land and Liberation Initiative. ^{13  14  15}

CTWO is a left-of-center advocacy organization that focuses on racial issues and left-wing activism, and operates a hub that provides administrative support to left-of-center and far-left protest groups, including BlackOUT Collective and the Ruckus Society. CTWO is funded by some of the United States’ largest left-of-center grantmaking foundations, including the Ford Foundation, the North Star Fund, and Borealis Philanthropy. ^{16  17  18  19  20  21  22}

Leadership

Chinyere Tutashinda is the Executive Director of the Black Land and Liberation Initiative (BLLI). She is a founding member of the BlackOUT Collective and is the current Executive Director of the Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO). She has a bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Northern Colorado and an master’s in media activism from California State University East Bay. ⁶

Finances

The Black Land and Liberation Initiative (BLLI) does not report its own financial information, as it is a project overseen by several fiscal sponsors. It has, however, received several grants through its various parent groups. In 2017, the San Francisco Foundation issued a $87,500 grant to the Center for Third World Organizing; part of the grant was designated for the BLLI to host a two-day training for black leaders. ¹³

In 2020, Impactassets Inc. issued a $463,750 grant to the Ruckus Society, another Oakland, California-based group, for the purpose of funding the Black Land and Liberation Initiative. ²³

In 2021, the Common Counsel Foundation issued a $20,000 grant to the Center for Third World Organizing and a $10,000 to the Ruckus Society, both designated for the Black Land and Liberation Initiative. ¹⁴ Again in 2023, the Common Counsel Foundation issued a $25,000 grant to the Center for Third World Organizing, designated for the BLLI. ¹⁵