Economic Justice

Ella Baker is well-regarded as a giant in the Civil Rights Movement, known for her unique participatory grassroots organizing style and also for her ability to galvanize young people to bring a militancy in the struggle to end segregation. But Baker is less known for her innovative organizing prowess before the 1960s – forming a network of self-help cooperatives to bring economic relief to black people during the Depression.Ella Baker is well-regarded as a giant in the Civil Rights Movement, known for her unique participatory grassroots organizing style and also for her ability to galvanize young people to bring a militancy in the struggle to end segregation. But Baker is less known for her innovative organizing prowess before the 1960s – forming a network of self-help cooperatives to bring economic relief to black people during the Depression.

The Co-op Wars traces the history of the food cooperative movement in the mid to late 1970s in Minnesota's Twin Cities. The rapid development of the food co-op network in the area prompted a split between anarchist "hippies" and Bolsheviks who styled themselves as the “Cooperative Organization” and set about taking over the People's Warehouse by force.

Canadian members of the African diaspora make use of traditional forms of group savings, known as susu, to overcome financial and cultural exclusion in the mainstream system. 

The Community Purchasing Alliance is advancing the solidarity economy with the power of cooperative purchasing, shifting $17.9M to minority business enterprise (MBE) since 2017.

In this session, Jessica Gordon-Nembhard will discuss the history of African American mutual aid and cooperative economics, Black cooperative economic thought, the most prolific periods in the US African American Cooperative movement, and contemporary and previous examples of worker-owned cooperatives, lessons learned, and the way forward.

Dario Azzellini tells Theresa Alt about Venezuelan cooperatives.

It is now abundantly clear that the world we have inherited is no longer working, And yet there are many hopeful signs of people imagining and building a different type of future.

At Louder Than Ten, we know that worker-owned cooperatives are scientifically proven to be more sustainable, more productive, and longer-lasting. Our conversion to a co-op was the next logical step in our belief and commitment to an equal power structure—and it just makes practical business sense.

Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Ph.D., Professor at John Jay College, and economic social justice advocate discusses her research on Black women in the U.S. co-op movement, and the Cooperative Development Fund's "Unsung Heroes Project."