#BlackTrust: Black Utopias, Then & Now

Join us for a special #BlackTrust with Aaron Robertson, author of The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America and Stacey Sutton, Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Policy at University of Illinois, Chicago, and co-director of Solidarity Economy Research, Policy & Law Project.

Presented on the occassion of the launch of Aaron Robertson's The Black Utopians, this event explores the histories and ongoing legacies of Black utopian movements in America. Robertson will be in conversation with Stacey Sutton, whose latest body of work, Real Black Utopias, examines the infrastructure and ideology of Black-led cooperatives and solidarity economy ecosystems across cities, from Chicago to Boston. As Robertson's work meditates on how African Americans have envisioned utopia and transformed their lives, this conversation engages with their reflections on liberation, community-building, and radical social projects.

This event is organized in collaboration with just book-ish. The event is free and open to the public.

✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦

Aaron Robertson is a writer, an editor, and a translator of Italian literature. His translation of Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon was short-listed for the 2020 PEN Translation Prize and the National Translation Award, and in 2021 he received a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, n+1, The Point, and Literary Hub, among other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Stacey Sutton is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Policy at UIC and serves as the Director of Applied Research and Strategic Partnerships at the university’s Social Justice Initiative. She leads the Solidarity Economy Research, Policy & Law Project, advancing interdisciplinary research, policy, and community alliances to strengthen solidarity economy ecosystems. Her scholarship centers on racial and economic justice, cooperative cities, economic democracy, and the disparate impacts of punitive urban policies. Sutton’s work critically examines the role of worker-owned cooperatives and community wealth building, particularly in Black-led cooperatives. She collaborates with grassroots organizations on anti-displacement and participatory democracy efforts, and her research explores transformative urban strategies that intersect with social movements. Sutton holds a joint Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Sociology from Rutgers University.

✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦

About Black Trust

Black Trust: Chuck Turner Arts and Lecture Series brings community together to discuss concepts which frame the relationships in a community — trust, belief, and faith. Black Trust is creating a space for people to learn, trust, and believe in each other.

About the Boston Ujima Project

THE BOSTON UJIMA PROJECT is a democratic, member-run organization building cooperative business, arts and investment ecosystem in Boston, with a mission to return wealth to working class communities of color. Ujima is bringing together neighbors, workers, business owners, investors, grassroots organizers, and culture-makers, to create a community-controlled economy in our city.

Host or Publisher Boston Ujima Project