From Freedom Dreams to a People’s Budget - Our Black August Black Neighborhood Tenant Council Meeting 8/25

Join us for our August 25th BLM Black Neighborhood Tenant Council meeting

This month we meet in west Long Beach, as we gather during Black August, a time of reflection, political education, discipline, and action. In the Black August tradition, we take time to study, fast, train, and prepare ourselves to continue to fight for racial justice, Black liberation, and stronger communities.

This month, our study will turn toward something that shapes nearly every part of life in Long Beach: the City budget.

Inspired by Robin D. G. Kelley’s Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, we’ll practice Freedom Dreaming together. Black freedom movements have never been defined only by what we oppose. They have also been sustained by our ability to imagine what could exist instead: new systems, relationships, institutions, and ways of caring for one another beyond the limits of what we are told is possible.

As Black renters and residents in Long Beach, instead of asking only, “How should City dollars be divided?” we can freedom dream and ask out loud:

What would Long Beach look like if Black communities had the resources, power, safety, housing stability, and public investment we actually need?

We’ll break down the City of Long Beach budget, talk about how residents can participate in budget advocacy, and reconnect with the Black Lives Matter tradition of creating a People’s Budget that centers Black lives, racial and economic equity, housing stability, and community care.

This is an opportunity to move beyond responding to a budget someone else created. Together, we can imagine what our communities deserve, identify where public dollars should go, and explore how to turn our freedom dreams into demands, organizing strategies, and action.

SEE YOU:

Tuesday, August 25, 2026
Dinner at 6:00 PM
Meeting begins at 6:30 PM

@ The Philadelphian 
2640 Santa Fe Ave.
Long Beach, CA 90810

Come ready to imagine, share, and explore what OUR Long Beach can and should become.