Roots of Resilience: The Legacy and Future of Black Cooperativism
Authors: Joi Edwards, Manager of Storytelling and Insights
We are each other’s business. We are each other’s harvest. We are each other’s magnitude and bond. — Gwendolyn Brooks
Without the promise of economic liberty, or the protection of economic repair, Black communities authored their own declaration of economic interdependence, justice, and power. Though many Black cooperatives began as a means to survive, without restitution or resolution for centuries of psychological and economic violence, Black cooperativism eventually became a reclamation of human flourishing beyond white supremacy’s gaze.
Multinational and multiracial networks of communities economically marginalized organized their power across demographic lines from Montgomery, Alabama to Memphis, Tennessee. This transformation of racialized capital into multilateral social and political power redefined the Southern economy and forever changed the American body politic.
For generations, Black women have been the binding thread across cooperative networks and local economies. From the Combahee River Colony to the Freedom Quilting Bee, the legacy of economic cooperation and reciprocity is their handiwork. We gathered a panel of experts who shared how they’re helping Black communities build economic power by reclaiming their legacy of economic purpose.
Hosted by Joi Edwards, Manager of Storytelling and Insights at Common Future, this panel featured Elizabeth L. Carter, Co-Founder of WisConnect Holding Cooperative, and Tamah Yisrael, Co-Founder of Cooperation New Orleans, both organizations in Common Future’s 2024 Accelerator cohort.
WisConnect Holding Cooperative supports the growth of local and international self-employed Black women-owned businesses, along with their families and communities.
“We're not here to just do business. We're not just here to just create, or make a profit. We're here to make sure that the self-employed black woman worker is sustained over time—not just herself, but her family and her communities.” “We're not here to just do business. We're not just here to just create, or make a profit. We're here to make sure that the self-employed black woman worker is sustained over time—not just herself, but her family and her communities.”
—Elizabeth L. Carter
Cooperation New Orleans, a Community Loan Fund and mutual aid organization seeding solutions for climate catastrophes, is building community power in a city highly impacted by a legacy of economic divestment and extraction.
“New Orleans, like many other cities across the country, has supported an economy that extracts and harms people who work to generate that economy. Cooperation New Orleans is a movement working to create programs, and resources, and start conversations about how cooperatives can put power back into the hands of the people. We include cooperators, artists, organizers, educators, family members, workers, and residents of the city of New Orleans who have the same desire for a more cooperative economy.”
–Tamah Yisrael
The Legacy of Economic Cooperation & Reciprocity
An economy designed for cooperation is about shared power among the many, instead of power incentivized by the wealthy few. Economic cooperation & reciprocity helps communities thrive, not just survive. As both a resiliency movement framework and a legal entity, communities implementing cooperativism frameworks are redefining who has power, choice, and ownership over the economy.
Both Elizabeth and Tamah emphasized how Black cooperation utilizes economic resistance and reciprocity to build generational wealth.
Cooperation resists extractive systems. Describing cooperative economics as “an embodiment of resistance” to harmful systems and practices, Tamah of Cooperation New Orleans emphasized that the growth of mutual aid funds and multinational networks demonstrates how cooperatives redistribute power.
“We've used cooperatives as a way to regain power through mutual aid practices here in the United States to use mechanisms across the diaspora. We lean on each other.”
—Tamah Yisrael
Cooperatives work for the people it’s designed for. Elizabeth of WisConnect added that though Black cooperatives have been structured in various ways throughout history, they were always designed to create thriving communities. Today, Black cooperatives are working towards designing a new system—one that is more responsive and dignifying for Black communities.
Cooperation is a more holistic power praxis. Cooperative stewardship, Elizabeth says, requires responsible leaders who understand that power is a practice, not a commodity. The transformation that Black communities can find through cooperation should be led and exercised with loving intention.
“How are we engaging with the community surrounding us? How are we transforming the broader community? There is an ecosystem–a broad economy–that we have to tap into and be part of. Once we get to a place of sustainability internally, how do we also have concern for the community that provides an opportunity for the broader ecosystem to thrive?”—Elizabeth L. Carter
Investing with Joyful Abundance
To do anything with abundance is to embody the possible. When we invest our time, our labor, and our money with abundance, we give ourselves the justice to know what it means to have joy. Investing in systems change is not a quick fix.
Communities are calling on funders to embody joyful abundance and go beyond considerate capital. Investing with abundance is inclusive and accessible, practiced and embodied, and unrestricted–allowing investors to move capital with communities instead of moving capital to communities.
Resilient communities need resilient capital—and knowledge experts, non-profit leaders, and philanthropic institutions can help fill the gap.
Because cooperative models are often expected to operate under ideologies that are not designed to support them, supporting the growth of Black cooperativism starts with understanding the history of economic cooperation in Black communities.
Unrestricted funding puts more power in the hands of the communities who already know where money should flow. By shifting decision-making power to proximate leaders, funders can build stronger trust with the communities they want to support. To sustain the growth of community cooperation, start by living cooperatively in your own community.
Today, we have more leaders, more solutions, and more opportunities to close the wealth gap than ever before. The future we deserve is underway and needs support that’s built to last.
“While we have really amazing groups that are looking at a reparations base for giving capital, there's still a creative angle on how businesses are curated in most communities of color, like we have the hustlers who don't necessarily fit into a certain business model. How do we create space for those folks who provide a necessary service in a lot of communities?”—Tamah Yisrael
“It's not always about the work technical piece, but actually just living and embodying it. You can always get together, write a white paper and draft a community benefits agreement and make demands, but it starts with the mobilization first because you can't have all those technical items without the people coming together.”
—Elizabeth L. Carter
