Jasmine Banks
Real Talk about Building Real Grassroots Power
Howdy Y’all,
Thank you for being part of the growing Redneck Gone Green community! A friendly reminder that in addition to this weekly writing, we also broadcast live every Monday at 3pm pacific, 6pm eastern on the Democracy at Work YouTube channel.
Our next live show will be Monday, April 28 at 3pm pacific, 6pm eastern. Our guest will be Jasmine Banks. You can join the conversation and make live comments on YouTube by clicking here
I hope you can join us live, which allows you to make live comments on YouTube. Just click here. If not, remember that you can always access the recording (both video and audio) by becoming a subscriber on the Redneck Gone Green Youtube channel by clicking here.
Below my signature is a short essay about Jasmine, which serves as a “deep dive” companion piece to the live broadcast. Jasmine writes on substack at Salt & Liberation. I am a subscriber and you should be too!
Onward to the world we deserve,
David Cobb, The Redneck Gone Green
Jasmine Banks
Jasmine Banks is a queer Black feminist mother, cultural strategist, and movement organizer whose work lives at the intersection of care, resistance, and collective memory. With roots in Indian Country in Oklahoma and a life shaped by the contradictions of race, class, and culture in the American South, Jasmine brings a deeply personal and political lens to her work. She is a first-generation high school and college graduate who earned a B.S. in Psychology and Communications and an M.A. in Community Counseling from John Brown University in Arkansas.
Jasmine began her professional journey as a licensed therapist and certified crisis responder, grounding her early work in mental health and trauma-informed care. These experiences became a springboard for her movement leadership, where she has since spent over a decade building grassroots power, challenging systems of oppression, and advancing community-rooted alternatives to state violence and extractive philanthropy.
As the former Executive Director of UnKoch My Campus, Jasmine led national campaigns to expose and dismantle far-right influence in higher education—particularly the outsized role of the Koch network. Under her leadership, the organization transitioned into Generation Common Good, a national initiative she co-founded to defend public education, deepen democratic practice, and build grassroots political power. She also co-founded Reconcile Arkansas, a mutual aid and community defense project protecting the rights and dignity of trans youth and their families in one of the most hostile political climates in the country.
In addition to her leadership and organizing work, Jasmine is a writer and speaker whose commentary has been featured in Truthout, The Humanist and The Forge.
Her most recent piece appears in Non-Profit Quarterly: Our Task Ahead: Reclaiming Revolutionary Struggle in Atlanta and the South, which explores the legacy and future of Southern resistance.
Jasmine is also the co-producer of Parenting is Political, a podcast that examines the intersections of caregiving, liberation, and movement-building through a radical lens.
She will be joining the upcoming Resist & Build gathering in Atlanta, May 3–4, for Solidarity at Scale: Converging Our Movements for System Change. We hope to see you there.