Why I'm Running

I am running for Congress to give Power to the People, because I believe ordinary people deserve more than the opportunity to choose who governs them. We deserve accountable, durable, and meaningful power to shape the institutions, economies, neighborhoods, and public policies that govern our lives. My convictions did not begin with this campaign. I learned politics first in my home neighborhood of Roxbury in Boston Massachusetts, where like Flint we were abandoned by those in power and left for dead as a community. Local Civic and community leaders taught me to think seriously about citizenship, power, self-determination, and the responsibility people have for building their own institutions. I carried those lessons into ministry, neighborhood organizing, housing justice, Green Party politics, urban agriculture, my career in sustainability, community economic development, and previous campaigns for public office. Along the way, I learned something important: government matters enormously, but government alone cannot build strong communities and nor should it!

I've watched ordinary citizens, my neighbors, rise up and organize against blight and illegal dumping. I've participated in neighborhood government and seen residents demand and exercise real influence over municipal decisions. I've struggled alongside folks fighting to keep families in their homes. I've planted food in cities across this county, helped build farmers markets, organized political institutions, developed community leaders, and explored how local food systems and enterprises can keep more wealth and decision-making power rooted where people actually live. Those experiences changed how I understand politics and the American experiement. Politics is not merely elections. It is who owns land and for what purpose. Who controls capital. Whether neighborhoods have functioning institutions and sincere civic culture. Whether locally owned businesses can survive and ultimately thrive. Whether families can obtain healthy food and know how to actually cook it! Whether citizens possess meaningful influence over development and public spending. Whether communities can organize themselves strongly enough to solve problems instead of permanently waiting for somebody else to rescue them.

That is why my agricultural work is political work. It is why community economic development is political work. And it is why I believe America needs representatives who understand public policy not only from legislative chambers, but from neighborhoods, gardens, community meetings, organizing campaigns, small enterprises, churches, schools, and the places where ordinary people actually live.

My experiences in Flint and Michigan have brought these questions into particularly sharp focus. The challenges facing post-industrial communities like this region demand more than slogans or another election cycle. They demand serious thinking about local economies, infrastructure, food and land, democratic participation, entrepreneurship, public accountability, and how communities rebuild after  nstitutions and industries have failed them. We must have a vision of "what's next", not a fantasy about past industries coming back.

I am not running for Congress because I believe election to office would finally make me a public servant. I am running because my enduring career of public service has already shaped who I am. I am Kwabena "Cubby" Nkromo. I am seeking the duty and honor of representing Michigan's District 10 in Congress! I bring the heart of a grassroots organizer, Green Party believer, Farmer-Citizen maverick, institution builder, and community servant into the belly of the Congressional beast. I will demand that federal power strengthen—not replace—the capacity of communities to govern, produce, organize, own, and build for themselves. And I will demonstrate another kind of political leadership: one that builds institutions rather than personality cults; develops the next generation of leadership rather than staying in office way too long; connects political ideas to real work; and recognizes that winning an election does not make us —and losing one does not break our will to make a difference. At the end of the day, my campaign asks a simple question: How do we give regular people more power to build the communities and world they want to enjoy and leave to the generations coming after them?

That is the work I have been doing for decades. If I'm elected your Congressman, it's the work I will do for you.