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Producers’ Note: This series of interviews was conducted before the COVID-19 outbreak. While we engage in mutual aid efforts and digital organizing, we think it’s important to continue releasing stories about community-led institutions that can support New Yorkers through our current crisis, and make NYC neighborhoods more resilient going forward – as we build a new economy that works for all. The next four episodes of Let’s Be Real focus on the NYS Community Equity Agenda, a statewide coalition that is calling for economic development that is community-led and grounded in community wealth-building and racial and economic justice. Each episode zooms in on an Equity Agenda priority, from promoting community-controlled financial institutions to ending wealth extraction throughout New York. This episode, we sit down with Melissa Marquez, CEO of Genesee Co-op Federal Credit Union, a cooperative, member-owned, financial institution based in Rochester, NY. In our interview, we discuss the Equity Agenda’s recent victory, securing the first-ever funding for New York’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, the importance of building statewide power to fight entrenched economic and racial injustice, and why the Equity Agenda coalition is fighting for transformational change. For more information on organizations and projects featured in this podcast: New York State Community Equity Agenda Genesee Coop Federal Credit Union Hosted by Juleon Robinson | Produced by Sarah Ludwig & Juleon Robinson | Graphic by Ben Hagen

In this episode of Let’s Be Real, we speak with Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE. Founded in 1966, UPROSE is Brooklyn’s oldest Latinx community-based organization and has been deeply involved in the climate justice movement for decades. In our interview, Elizabeth discusses what it means for the organization to be community-led, how all organizing in a frontline community is intersectional, and how UPROSE’s community solar project provides a cooperatively-owned alternative to the extractive economy. Hosted by Juleon Robinson | Produced by Sarah Ludwig & Juleon Robinson

In this episode of Let’s Be Real, we speak with Dominga Payano, a tenant organizer with Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition. Dominga represented the organization in the statewide Housing Justice for All Campaign. In an interview recorded just weeks before the campaign won a landmark victory—with the Legislature’s enactment of the strongest tenant laws in New York history—Dominga reflects on how she got involved in tenant organizing, her vision for housing justice in the Bronx, and what’s to come.

In this episode of Let’s Be Real, we speak with two organizers—Fahd Ahmed from DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving), and Sasha Wijeyeratne from CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities—from the Neighbors Beyond Amazon coalition. Reflecting on the landmark victory to keep Amazon’s second headquarters, or HQ2, out of New York, Fahd and Sasha discuss the power of community organizing, what this victory means for the communities and members that work with their organizations, and what’s next for the coalition as they continue to fight for economic development that prioritizes people over corporations.

When the last remaining bank branch on the Lower East Side closed its doors in 1986, local activists took matters into their own hands and organized to establish a non-profit financial cooperative, the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union. This episode features a conversation between New Economy Project co-director Sarah Ludwig and Linda Levy, the credit union’s longtime CEO. They discuss how the credit union got started, and Linda shares her experience organizing for financial justice and the cooperative economy in New York City.

New Yorkers Speak Out: Kenneth Lovell & Patrick Lovell by New Economy Project

This episode, we take a look at a campaign that focuses on the Federal Reserve System and its impact on working people and people of color. We take you to a rally in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York where we spoke with two protesters about how the Fed impacts their communities. Then, we sit down with the Director of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up! Campaign to hear about the fight to put working people and communities of color at the center of the Fed’s decision-making process. For more information: http://whatrecovery.org/ neweconomynyc.org/letsbereal

While the larger fight continues, we're grateful to be working with our network of partners to support DACA recipients in our communities. Please donate to our DACA fund and consider supporting our work today: neweconomynyc.org/Donate

This episode, we focus on the payday lending industry’s most recent attempt to legalize high-cost predatory lending in New York. We feature a conversation with New York State Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou about the importance of standing up for strong consumer protections as a matter of racial and economic justice. We also sit down with New Economy Project’s Campaigns Director, Andy Morrison, to discuss a vision for financial justice for New York City’s communities.

Watch video-podcast here: https://youtu.be/ABgDCYOn-Xo “What’s happening is a major assault on immigrant communities that…will go down in the history of this country as one of the most inhumane moments of discrimination towards one particular group.” That’s how Walter Barrientos, Make the Road’s lead organizer and longtime leader in the immigrant rights movement, described the Trump Administration’s recent termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In the latest episode of our podcast, we speak with Walter and other New Yorkers about this attack on immigrant communities and why it is so critical that people take to the streets and demand justice. For more information, visit www.neweconomynyc.org/letsbereal Hosted by Juleon Robinson | Produced by Sarah Ludwig & Juleon Robinson.

This episode, we feature a conversation with Mychal Johnson, co-founder and leader of South Bronx Unite, about the group's work organizing for sustainable, community-driven development in the Mott Haven & Port Morris neighborhoods of the South Bronx.

Episode 2: Neighborhood organizing for community control, with Northern Manhattan is Not for Sale by New Economy Project

Hear sounds from the teach-in we led on May 9 in the Privately-Owned Public Space at Trump Tower, along with New York Communities for Change, 350.org, and Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir. Being in a POPS, we decided to give a POP(s) quiz on why NYC should divest from banks supporting climate change and harming NYC neighborhoods. For photos and more information, visit: http://www.neweconomynyc.org/letsbereal/

Episode 1: How frontline communities power the environmental justice movement, with Eddie Bautista by New Economy Project

Let's Be Real - promo by New Economy Project