Building A Pro-Black World

What If We Owned It?

Darnell Adams

The story of Black co‐ops and alternative economics in the United States is one of violence and persecution—but it is also a story of hope and determination. The history of Black cooperative economics and its leaders has remained largely—and intentionally—hidden from view, but that knowledge has been brought back into mainstream awareness with the 2014 publication of Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard's gargantuan work of gathering and remembering the histories of Black communities that, despite the ongoing threat of violence, practiced economic cooperation throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.¹ Bolstered by this renewed understanding, many BIPOC communities are creating their own paths for liberation and healing by focusing on the solidarity economy in its many forms. And Black co‐op leaders across the country are playing a key role in innovating new solutions to address the old systemic challenges. One space in which this is happening—the space of food co‐ops—is experiencing something of a renaissance.

Organizing for Sovereignty

I want to know safety and joy more than I know about pain and anxiety. I want wholeness, Black love, held equity based on a membership model, infrastructure that builds an economic base; resources that are not moved into hierarchy but into the streets.

—Erin Dale Byrd, Fertile Ground Food Cooperative, Southeast Raleigh, North ...