Racial Justice

A list of readings on Black liberation and economic democracy.

Jessica Gordon-Nembhard talks about her research into the history of African-American co-ops.

Reem’s California is a worker-owned restaurant. It is democratically run by local workers. Using worker-ownership, the restaurant challenges the long-standing inequality and violence prevalent in the restaurant industry, and provides an empowering and transforming workplace for those who have faced the most barriers–people of color, queer, formerly incarcerated folks, and undocumented individuals.

In 2022 Rhode Island passed the Rhode Island Cannabis Act. This made cannabis legal for adult use and mandated that a cannabis retailer license will be awarded to one social equity applicant and one worker cooperative per zone. There will be four licenses per geographic zone which means that half of the licenses are meant to create racial and economic justice within the cannabis industry in Rhode Island. A total of 12 licenses are specifically reserved for social equity applicants and worker cooperatives.

In this video, our panel of experts in the cooperative cannabis industry discuss challenges and opportunities to expand ownership and give reparations to those impacted by the War on Drugs.

In his 50-year career as a lawyer full of foundational work for worker cooperatives, agricultural cooperatives and democratic ownership, Arrington helped Southern black farmers’ agricultural cooperatives save their lands, developed a community economic development program in Tanzania and later became involved in the African Development Bank, supported a black construction workers in Los Angeles (APR Masonry Arts), generated capital for U.S. worker cooperative startups, and advised co-op loan funds.

Connie Canney was a white woman who I believe epitomized what real solidarity is, long before people even called it that. Solidarity is how you live your life in support of human beings – even when you could lose a lot taking the right stance.

Bayard Rustin, who was one of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s key advisors, as well as a planner of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a leader in social movements for peace, civil rights, non-violence, and LGBTQ+ rights, is famous today for organizing the 1963 March on Washington. In those days, owing to him being gay, Rustin’s name and accomplishments were hidden from public view. It led him to be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2013.

Practical tools to build real diversity, inclusion, and racial justice, and need for a cultural shift- planned by CWCF's Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion ("JEDI") Committee as part of their action plan.

Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard summarizes her work on solidarity economics and worker cooperatives.