Our name, Beloved Community Incubator, is rooted in Dr. King’s vision of a just, peaceful world rooted in collective action, and DC’s rich history of organizing, mutual aid, and community care.
Beloved Community Incubator was started in 2016 by a group of staff and members at Luther Place Memorial Church, a congregation in DC’s Logan Circle neighborhood in Ward 2. Luther Place has a long history of activism in the neighborhood, including their deep involvement in community support during the DC uprisings after Dr. MLK’s assassination in April, 1968. During that week, more than 10,000 people participating in or affected by the uprisings and the brutal police/federal government response, came through the church’s doors for food and medical care. Read More About Our History
Our work is rooted in Dr. Martin Luther King and other Southern organizers’ vision of the Beloved Community — one where people and communities engage in the work of building a just, peaceful world together through nonviolent, democratic collective action. The Beloved Community isn’t just an abstract vision of a better world – it’s a call to end the current economic systems and practices that keep that world from becoming real in our time.
Dr. King’s commitment to organizing, and his opposition to racism, militarism, imperialism, and economic violence were a core part of his vision until his assassination in 1968. In the months leading up to his assassination, Dr. King was organizing with Black sanitation workers who were on strike in Memphis for better working conditions and equitable pay – a campaign that that was unpopular with people in power on both the local and national levels.
Beloved Community Incubator is rooted in this vision of radical care and practical support for the people in DC, Maryland, and Virginia – especially poor and working class immigrants, people of color, and others most impacted by capitalism and extraction. We believe that just as everyone has a role in building the Beloved Community, everyone also has a role building the solidarity economy. And, like Dr. King, we believe that our efforts to build alternatives to our current system must be focused on creating an economy that prioritizes people and a livable planet, over profit.