BRAXTON INSTITUTE SELECTED BY THE DECOLONIZING WEALTH PROJECT AS A RECIPIENT OF THIS YEAR’S #CASE4REPARATIONS GRANTS IN INITIAL WAVE OF FUNDING SINCE $20 MILLION COMMITMENT IN JUNE 

 
 

Washington, DC - OCtober 31, 2023-

The Decolonizing Wealth Project (DWP) and its funding vehicle, Liberated Capital, today announced Joanne M. Braxton Institute for Sustainability, Resiliency and Joy as one of 34 grantee partners to receive funding through the #Case4Reparations funding initiative. This round of $3 million in grants is the initial wave of funding that the organization has distributed since their $20 million commitment to boost campaigns for reparations unveiled earlier this year, an exciting first step in what will be a five-year, multidisciplinary project.

Beginning in 2014, the Braxton Institute offered in-person trainings and Dialogues on Resisting and Thriving in the Washington, D.C. area and in national and regional contexts. We stand in our own truth as we know it, for each person carries a spark of the Divine. Our work is Repair, Transformation, and Thriving, with a focus on Reparations -- land and money-- for harms done to Black and Indigenous peoples, and special attention to Lakeland, Maryland, a long-term commitment that has evolved over the past decade. We support Lakelanders and the Lakeland community in its efforts to realize repair through Restorative Justice.

The #Case4ReparationsFund is a first-of-its-kind annual funding vehicle to support local, regional and national movement-building and advocacy efforts to advance reparations in the United States. The Braxton Institute is building on these efforts with its REPARATIONS FOR LAKELAND NOW! campaign focused on justice for the Lakeland community in College Park, Maryland. The funding initiative is aimed at fueling and amplifying conversations and campaigns around reparations to address the racial wealth gap facing Black people in the United States. In 2021, Liberated Capital announced the redistribution of $1.7M to its inaugural cohort of 23 #Case4Reparations grantee partners. By the end of 2022, the fund had grown by 18 percent, and already distributed nearly $4 million.

DWP’s #Case4Reparations grantee partners and advocates have taken on incredible challenges in the social, racial, and economic justice space, including: restoring California coastal land at Bruce’s Beach back to its descendants; winning key legal victories for descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre; the delivery of a historic two-year report to state lawmakers from California’s Black reparations task force; the establishment of New Jersey’s Reparations Council; a public hearing in Washington, D.C. on a proposal to pay reparations to the district’s Black residents; and the introduction of new federal legislation calling for $14 trillion in reparations for Black Americans.

“We are so proud of all we’ve been able to achieve in partnership with our #Case4Reparations grantee partners to date, and are thrilled to be able to announce an additional $3 million in funding for the next generation of changemakers,” said Edgar Villanueva, founder and CEO of Decolonizing Wealth Project and Liberated Capital. “It is particularly meaningful for us to be able to award this round of grants as part of our $20 million, five-year long initiative to boost campaigns fighting for reparations.”

“Today, the Braxton Institute is excited to be named a #LiberatedCapital #Case4Reparations grantee partner. CASE4REPARATIONS funding arrives at a critical moment in the Lakeland-College Park, Maryland Restorative Justice movement. We are now well-poised and resourced to serve our Lakeland community moving to the next level of engagement and accountability. Reparations for Lakeland Now!”

Rev. Joanne M. Braxton, PhD

#Reparations4Lakeland Now!

 
 

The 2023 #Case4Reparations grantee partners are:

  • African American Community Service Agency

  • Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII)

  • Black Lives Matter Minnesota

  • Blackroots Alliance

  • California Black Power Network

  • Chicago Torture Justice Center

  • Conrad Worrill Community Reparations Commission

  • DC Justice Lab

  • Equal Justice Society

  • Equity And Transformation (EAT)

  • FirstRepair

  • Get Free

  • International Civil Society Working Group for PFPAD

  • Joanne M. Braxton Institute for Sustainability, Resiliency, and Joy

  • Justice for Greenwood

  • Lowcountry Gullah Foundation

  • Malcolm X Grassroots Movement-NY Chapter

  • Marijuana Justice

  • National Black Cultural Information Trust, Inc.

  • National Conference of Black Lawyers

  • NCOBRA Philadelphia Chapter

  • New Democracy Coalition of Mass Civic Education Fund

  • New Jersey Institute for Social Justice

  • Racial Justice Coalition of Asheville

  • Racial Justice NOW!

  • Reparation Education Project, Inc.

  • Reparations Finance Lab

  • Reparations United

  • The Redress Movement

  • Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University School of Law

  • Truth Telling Project/ Grassroots Reparations Cpgn

  • Where Is My Land

  • Why We Can't Wait National Reparations Coalition

  • ZEAL

For more information about the #Case4Reparations Fund, visit: https://decolonizingwealth.com/liberated-capital/case4reparations/ 

About Decolonizing Wealth Project

Decolonizing Wealth Project (DWP), led by Edgar Villanueva (Lumbee), works globally to disrupt the existing systems of moving and controlling capital using education and healing programs, radical reparative giving, and storytelling. Through its fund, Liberated Capital, DWP moves untethered resources to Indigenous, Black and other people-of-color-led initiatives working for economic and racial justice. DWP’s investment strategy encompasses grantmaking to various Black and Indigenous-led advocacy groups, technical assistance, research and public education efforts, and support for coalition building. www.decolonizingwealth.com