The Village Trust project originated out of a community group called Blexit—a play on Brexit and referring to the need for “Black exit” or economic self-determination. Connelly helped found the group, which aims to cultivate the practice of economic civil resistance. As the group’s website explains, “The Black economy contributes 1.1 trillion dollars to the American economy, not to mention the revenue we generate as victims of racist and predatory practices across public and private sectors. The time has come to shift our dollars in ways that benefit and protect us all.”
The credit union fits into this larger economic self-determination effort. As Connelly explains, “We have communities that are underserved and also taken advantage of by at the most predatory businesses in our state… My dollars should be used to uplift my people. Not destroy them.”
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Consultants, Connelly notes, had informed her group that “we can’t have a credit union of have-nots.” But by the end of 2017, $1 million had been raised and “we had proved the consultants wrong,” Connelly says. Animating the group is not only the desire for economic self-sufficiency, but also the knowledge that the city’s Rondo community once had a Black credit union, until the building of a freeway destroyed the city’s Black business district in a classic instance of urban renewal.
While the organization of the credit union has been going well, Connelly notes that there are still many possible obstacles ahead, including the need for final federal regulator approval before opening. Using the acronym SCIP, Connelly says that white co-op allies can back co-ops in communities of color by supporting, celebrating, insulating, and protecting them.
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