Liberating Housing: With Cole WIlliams of Greater New Orleans Citizen's Relief Team

04/13/21 • 38 min

Cole WIlliams of the Greater New Orleans Citizen's Relief Team talks with host Max Rameau about liberating homes owned by the city of New Orleans, renovating them, and moving in unhoused people.

Described as having “the heart of Bob Marley, soul of Sam Cooke and grit of Etta James”, New Orleans-based Cole Williams and The Cole Williams Band (CWB) has rooted their sound in the tradition of Gil Scott-Heron, creating songs that reflect the everyday experiences and hopes of Black people all around the world. Their new album, “Give Power to the People'' are anthems of the Movement for Black Lives and certainly for people struggling to make sense out of this dangerous and hopeful moment.

Over the course of her career, Cole has provided vocals and percussion for Joey Bada$$, Chiddy Bang, Beats By The Pound, Aloe Blacc, Little Jackie, Diane Birch, Somi, Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam, Kaissa, Dana Fuchs, Pimps Of Joytime, Holy Warriors (Harold Brown, Bill Summers, Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes), and commercial/tv recordings for CoverGirl, JCPenney, Suave, Smash, and Khloe and Kourtney Take Miami. CWBs’ live performance highlights include The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Joshua Tree Music Festival, French Quarter Festival, Blue Note NYC and opened for India Arie, Emily King, Ozomatli, The Wild Magnolias, Corey Henry and Treme Funktet, and Lauryn Hill.

Following frequent street demonstrations at New Orleans’ City Hall, Williams and The Greater New Orleans Citizens Relief Team organized and succeeded in getting the City to provide emergency housing in empty hotels in August 2020, and now they are renovating City-owned blighted houses with the presently unhoused people that will live in them. “We are calling all creatives to action. Now is the time for musicians, artists, dancers, rappers, poets, actors and actresses to unite and design a culture where we share our gifts, skills, talents and resources with the least of ours, specifically in the unhoused community, to create a world where wealth is shared equally, and white supremacy cannot survive”

The bedrock of The Cole Williams Band’s new album and community organizing follows the course civil rights veteran, Ella Baker, taught that created a successful and historic freedom movement. “Give Power To The People”, articulates the core of their organizing: go to the poorest people, create a shared plan for advancement, raise the spirits and awareness of our people, gain broad support and make it happen. “We believe the practice of humanity is the blueprint for freedom and equality”.

See more of the work of host Max Rameau at pacapower.org. Stay subscribed to The Next World for more news from the frontlines of movements for justice and liberation.

You can read more about the issues we explore on our podcast and much more at dignityandrights.org, the website of Partners for Dignity & Rights.

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Previous Episode

Police Free Schools: With M. Adams of Freedom Inc in Madison, Wisconsin

M. Adams, Co-Executive Director of Freedom, Inc, talks with host Max Rameau about Black-Asian solidarity, lessons from multiracial organizing in a mostly white Midwest city, and their recent victory in removing police from schools in Madison, Wisconsin.
M. Adams is a community organizer and co-executive director of Freedom Inc. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Adams has been in Madison since 2003. Adams’s dad has been incarcerated most of her life and she comes from a community that has been the extreme targets of police violence. In March 2016, Adams’s mother transitioned after fighting cancer and many forms of violence. Adams is also a parent and sees her family as a primary motivator for her work.

As a queer Black person, Adams has developed and advocated for a strong intersectional approach in numerous important venues. Adams is a leading figure in the Take Back the Land Movement, she presented before the United Nations for the Convention on Eliminating Racial Discrimination, she is a co-author of Forward from Ferguson and a paper on Black community control over the police, and she contributed to intersectionality theory in Why Killing Unarmed Black folks is a Queer issue.

Freedom, Inc. (FI) is a Black and Southeast Asian non-profit organization that works with low- to no-income communities of color in Madison, Wisconsin. Their mission is to achieve social justice through coupling direct services with leadership development and community organizing that will bring about social, political, cultural, and economic change resulting in the end of violence against women, gender-non-conforming and transgender folks, and children within communities of color. FI works to challenge the root causes of violence, poverty, racism and discrimination. Their belief is that people who are most affected by these issues must have voice, power, resources and choice, in order for true social change to happen.
See more of the work of host Max Rameau at pacapower.org. Stay subscribed to The Next World for more news from the frontlines of movements for justice and liberation.
You can read more about the issues we explore on our podcast and much more at dignityandrights.org, the website of Partners for Dignity & Rights.

Please subscribe, spread the word, and support the show.

Support the show

Next Episode

What is Happening in Haiti? With Mamyrah Prosper of Community Movement Builders - Part One

On this episode, part one of a two part interview, Mamyrah Prosper discusses her personal history as the daughter of a political prisoner in Haiti through her movement activism and work as a scholar, as well as recent Haitian political history, from the Duvaliers through Jovenel Moïse. Stay tuned for part two, as we discuss the assassination of Moïse and the aftermath, as well as grassroots responses.

Mamyrah Prosper is International Coordinator for Community Movement Builders, and Assistant Professor of Global and International Studies at UC Irvine. She immigrated to the U.S. from Haiti at age 15, leaving her parents behind, and moved in with her sister’s family in New Jersey.

Following a family tradition of activism for social justice – her father was a human and labor rights activist – she champions causes including women’s rights, affordable housing and land rights. Her doctoral dissertation focuses on the Haitian Platform for Advocacy for an Alternative Development, a central social movement for social justice in Haiti.

Outside of the classroom, Mamyrah has volunteered at Take Back the Land, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, and the Correctional Association of New York. During her time at FIU, she helped organize two conferences on Afro-Latino social movements and feminist reimaginings of the nation that involved academics, students, activists and performing artists. She also served as a teaching assistant and lecturer. Mamyrah has authored and co-authored dozens of peer-reviewed book chapters, peer-reviewed journal articles, book reviews and encyclopedia entries.
See more of the work of host Max Rameau at pacapower.org. Stay subscribed to The Next World for more news from the frontlines of movements for justice and liberation.
You can read more about the issues we explore on our podcast and much more at dignityandrights.org, the website of Partners for Dignity & Rights.

Please subscribe, spread the word, and support the show.

Support the show