Other Group

Hammer and Hope (Black Radical Project Digital Magazine)

Project of:

New Venture Fund

Founders and Editors:

Jen Parker and Keeanaga-Yamahtta Taylor

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Hammer and Hope (also known as Hammer & Hope) is a far-left digital magazine that promotes a variety of far-left and left-of-center political stances and ideologies regarding economic and racial issues. The magazine was founded by Jen Parker and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and is a project of the New Venture Fund, a funding and fiscal sponsorship nonprofit that makes grants to left-of-center advocacy and organizing projects and provides incubation services for other left-of-center organizations. 1

New Venture Fund is managed by Arabella Advisors, a left-of-center consultancy that has operated hundreds of left-of-center advocacy projects through the network of nonprofit organizations it manages. Hope and Hammer promotes many themes promoted by the Black Lives Matter movement and is funded by multiple left-of-center grantmaking foundations including the Ford Foundation and the Marguerite Casey Foundation. 2 3 4

Background

Hammer & Hope was created as a digital magazine operated by the New Venture Fund in 2023. It was launched with grants supporting the organization made to the New Venture Fund in 2022 to support the development of what was called at the time the “Black Radical Project Digital Magazine,” which according to a grant from the Ford Foundation would “deliver exclusive essays, first-person columns, historical articles, and thought pieces directly to the inboxes of its subscribers.” In 2022, the Black Radical Project, Inc. filed a trademark application for the name Hammer & Hope indicating the trademark should cover “categories of downloadable electronic media, namely, books, stories, and videos to provide commentary and academic analysis in the fields of economic inequality, racial discrimination, and art and culture.” 1 4

The magazine’s founders and co-editors are Jen Parker, a former New York Times opinion editor, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an African-American history professor and activist affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement who published the book From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation in 2016. 5 6

Ideology

Hammer & Hope states that it is inspired by black members of the Communist Party in Alabama during the 1930s and 1940s who were profiled in Robin D. G. Kelley’s book Hammer and Hoe, from which the magazine’s name is inspired. The magazine’s publishers, in their initial article introducing the publication, also stated that the publication was “indebted” to the Black Panthers. 6

The magazine is also closely tied to the Black Lives Matter movement and promotes far-left ideologies associated with race and economics. The founders of the magazine stated that “we live in a time of catastrophe” further stating that “Tyre Nichols screamed for his mother as cops in Memphis beat him to death.” And that “capitalism accelerates the climate crisis — as flash floods wash away towns, and the elderly and disabled people die first during otherworldly heat waves.” 6

The editors of the magazine further praised Black Lives Matter protestors in the summer of 2020, stating that “Millions of people rebelled after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 […] They risked their lives during a deadly pandemic to call for collective care, for an end to evictions, for reinvesting police budgets into housing for all—demands situated in a critique of capitalism.” 6

The magazine expressed plans to publish four times per year and to hire additional full-time staff in 2023. 3

Anti-Israeli Reporting

Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attack against the State of Israel, Hammer & Hope released a post on its X (formerly Twitter) account downplaying the attack and pledged support for the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a founding member of the anti-Israeli  Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as well as a fiscal project of the left-wing Alliance for Global Justice (AGJ). 7 Earlier in 2023, AGJ was removed from the left-wing fundraising platform ActBlue after several Washington Examiner reports showed AGJ had previously provided fundraising efforts for Collectif Palestine Vaincra (CPV), a France-based nonprofit organization that is a partner of the U.S-designated terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) as well as member of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which was designated a “sham charity” by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and a ““terrorist entity” by the Canadian government in October 2024. 8 9 10

Funding

Hammer & Hope is operated by the New Venture Fund, a left-of-center pass-through funding and fiscal-sponsorship nonprofit managed by Arabella Advisors. While donors to the magazine are not made public by the publication, news reports and  tax filings indicate that among the left-of-center grantmaking foundations funding the magazine are the Libra Foundation, the Marguerite Casey Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation gave the project $750,000 in 2022 as part of its “creativity and free expression program.” 4 3

References

  1. “Hammer & Hope Application #97274392.” U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Accessed August 7, 2023.  https://uspto.report/TM/97274392
  2. About.” Hammer and Hope. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://hammerandhope.org/about
  3. McClain, Dani. “This New Magazine Aims to Be a Home for the Black Left.” The Nation. April 11, 2023. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/hammer-and-hope-black-left/
  4. “Core support for The Black Radical Project Digital Magazine to deliver exclusive essays, first-person columns, historical articles, and thought pieces directly to the inboxes of its subscribers.” Ford Foundation Grants Database. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grants-database/new-venture-fund-143219/
  5. “Bio.” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.keeangataylor.com/bio.html
  6. Parker, Jen and Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. “HAMMER & HOPE: TOWARD A RADICAL NEW FUTURE.” Hammer & Hope. Issue 1. Winter 2023. Accessed August 7, 2023.  https://hammerandhope.org/article/issue-1-article-2
  7. Kaminsky, Gabe. “Arabella Advisors dark money group behind black Communist ‘solidarity’ magazine boosting Hamas.” Washington Examiner, December 12, 2024. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/investigations/3257138/arabella-advisors-dark-money-hammer-hope-communist-hamas/
  8. Kaminsky, Gabe. “Major left-wing charity unable to process credit card donations following Washington Examiner report.” The Washington Examiner, February 15, 2023. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2366074/major-left-wing-charity-unable-to-process-credit-card-donations-following-washington-examiner-report/
  9. “Press Release: United States and Canada Target Key International Fundraiser for Foreign Terrorist Organization PFLP.” U.S Department of the Treasury, October 15, 2024. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2646
  10. Kaminsky, Gabe. “Democratic behemoth ActBlue boots anti-Israel group accused of terror ties off platform.” The Washington Examiner, September 7, 2023. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2585296/democratic-behemoth-actblue-boots-anti-israel-group-accused-of-terror-ties-off-platform/
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