On the latest episode of The Next World podcast, we talk with Rukia Lumumba from the People’s Assembly, Jackson, Mississippi. Together, we discuss the state of Mississippi’s attempts to disenfranchise Black political power, and the revolutionary organizing happening now in response.

Rukia Lumumba was named a “New Activist” by Essence magazine and an “Emerging Leader” by the Congressional Black Caucus. She is the daughter of community justice icons, the late Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and Nubia Lumumba, and continues the Lumumba family’s rich history of advancing issues and initiatives that elevate the legal economical, health and educational rights of individuals, families and communities.

For more than 18 years, she has worked within and outside the system to foster justice for all, especially as it relates to criminal justice disparities for people of color. 

A graduate of Howard University School of Law, Rukia clerked for the Juvenile Rights Division of the Washington, DC, Public Defender Service where she represented children and collected data on human rights violations at the former Oak Hill Youth Detention Center, one of the nation’s worst juvenile facilities. She served on the board of directors of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, an association of lawyers, activists and legal workers who defend human rights and expose the criminal justice disparities for people of color. She served as national coordinator of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, a membership-based organization dedicated to promoting human rights and self-determination. She co-founded Katrina on the Ground, an initiative that organized over 700 college students to participate in post-Katrina relief efforts in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. She launched the Community Aid and Development Day Camp, an education and cultural enrichment program for over 200 children ages 6-16 in Jackson, Mississippi.

Rukia currently co-chairs the People’s Assembly process in Jackson, Mississippi which works to increase community access to city government and to institutionalize People’s Assemblies as community governing models that enable a deep democratic participation of people in their own governance. She was selected as one of the brightest and most promising women of color by New York University Wagner School of Public Service and she is a 2011 Youth for Justice Leadership Fellow for the National Juvenile Justice Network.

You can read more about the topics we discussed at these links:
JXN People’s Assembly
People’s Advocacy Institute
JXN Unidivided
Rukia Lumumba on twitter
Makani Themba in The Nation
Article from Mississippi Free Press on Power Grab
Petition from Jackson Undivided
Color of Change Petition
JXN Unidivided on youtube