This course looks at community-led movements, resistance, resilience, and liberation. This online course will focus on emerging community responses during the COVID-19 epidemic specifically as it relates to Detroit. Detroit is one of the nation's “hot spots” for the virus. What does this mean for a major city that was already battling the impacts of environmental injustice, poverty, racism, and a lack of healthcare access? In this course, we will learn about how different community organizations are responding: some are shutting down operations while others are transforming their organizations completely to meet the needs of the community in innovative and creative ways. Students will have opportunities to join efforts happening in Detroit now and remotely connect with organizations working to respond to community's ever-changing needs. Projects range from helping the efforts to turn the water back on for the 10s of thousands of residents without water to orgs running town halls for mental health and grief and getting families and kids into remote sports activities to keep little league teams (and families) together. Students in this course will have access to a number of online organizer tool kits and class conversations will also cover self-care for yourself as an organizer and providing care for others in the community. Building on decades-long environmental justice organizing in the city of Detroit, everyone will come out of this class making a meaningful contribution to the current crisis in Detroit, build their own “organizers tool-kit” full of activities to take with them into any community organization scenario as well as a number of self-care sessions. Optional in-person tours and activist workshops will be available as add-ons.

Intended Audience:

This course will offered fully online.