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Racial Justice

October 31, 2024

I Got 5 On It: Co-op Rhody Turns Community Proverbs into a Cannabis-Based Business Model

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.

October 28, 2024

Community Ownership and Racial Justice in the Cannabis Industry

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.

October 24, 2024

Clark Arrington’s Legacy

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.

October 14, 2024

Remembering Connie Canney, a Justice Warrior

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.

March 11, 2024

Bayard Rustin: The Links in Our Lives

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.

 

January 18, 2024

Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Worker Co-ops

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.

November 20, 2023

The Pioneers of Cooperativism and Climate Justice: Owen, Fourier, Du Bois

In response to the ambitious call of the Platform Cooperative Consortium, I will seek to examine them through the lens of environmental scholars. Can these cooperative pioneers also provide insights into climate justice?

October 30, 2023

When Frederick Douglass Came to Rochdale a Slave and Left a Free Man

Douglass spoke at the Public Hall in Rochdale in 1846, five times between October 10 and 14, and twice more on November 10 and 11. On October 12, Douglass returned to Manchester to speak to 4,000 people at the Free Trade Hall.

October 23, 2023

Halena Wilson - 2023 Unsung Cooperative Hero

A co-op educator and activist, Halena Wilson used her position as president of the Chicago Ladies' Auxiliary to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters to show Black women the path to economic self-sufficiency through cooperation.