Initial Network Cohort
The Black Collective (Miami, Florida)
Founded by two Black women, centers the experiences of the African diaspora and is a movement committed to promoting a shared agenda to elevate political consciousness and amplify the economic power of Black communities.
►It is one of the 100+ groups in State Voices Florida, which helps grassroots organizations build year-round, long-term community involvement through civic engagement.
►It is currently one of six Black-led organizations challenging the constitutionality of Florida’s anti-protest legislation.
Equity and Transformation (E.A.T.) Chicago
A non-profit community-led organization founded by and for post-incarcerated people to uplift the voices and power of Black Chicagoans engaged in the informal economy.
►E.A.T. and their coalition partners fought for and won the first recreational cannabis policy to incorporate reparations for the war on drugs ( hb1438, passed in 2019).
►It launched the Chicago Future Fund, the first guaranteed income pilot explicitly for formerly incarcerated people in the nation (2021).
►It recently launched The Vision for Drug War Reparations (2023).
►E.A.T. worked with groups statewide to support the passage of the Breathe Act Illinois (passed 2021), which provides for state-level reforms in the areas of policing, criminal justice, sentencing, drug policy, and incarceration.
►It is on the board of the statewide Fully Free Campaign, which works to dismantle the laws and regulations that govern “permanent punishments” for people with a record.
Free Hearts (Nashville, Tennessee)
An organization led by formerly incarcerated women that provides support, education, advocacy, and organizing families impacted by incarceration, with the ultimate goals of reuniting families and strengthening communities.
►Working with the No Exceptions Prison Collective, it got in-person visitation restored at Nashville’s CoreCivic Facility Support Center.
►It partnered with the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls to get community-based alternatives to incarceration for primary caretakers passed.
►It published with the Vera Institute of Justice a 2022 report, “The Criminalization of Poverty in Tennessee,” drawing on results of Free Hearts’ Decriminalize Poverty Survey.