Our Projects
The Collective Courage Fund
The Cooperative Approach to Building Black Independent Political Power
“The history of African-American cooperativism is really a parallel, a sort of a silent partner, to the long civil rights movement. The story is not just about the triumph and the survival of co-ops in the black community, but it’s also about the sabotage and the challenges.”
– Jessica Gordon Nembhard
An image of a group of people protesting during the civil rights movement.
The Collective Courage Fund
The Partnership Fund, The National Black Food and Justice Alliance, Piece by Piece Strategies have partnered with local Black-led cooperatives across the country to develop the Collective Courage Fund. This Fund is committed to building a robust cooperative movement of urban and rural black cooperatives. This fund is named after “Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice' by Jessica Gordon Nembhard. This stellar book has inspired Black Cooperators across the United States by sharing the stories, victories, and challenges of the Black Cooperative Movement in the US.
What is a Cooperative?
Cooperatives are tools to win long term power through economic development and cooperation, while building community belonging and a sense of shared fate. Cooperatives, or co-ops, are organizations democratically owned and controlled by their members - people who work, produce or consume goods at the Co-op. Historically, cooperatives develop when the community cannot get its needs met in the traditional market. These organizations are critical political and economic enterprises. They create community assets (buildings, land, food systems, market systems), educate members (training on nutrition, farming, leadership, management) and build community (gathering spaces, meetings and culture) as core functions of the cooperative. Indigenous peoples across the globe have documented use of these principles and, in post-colonial regions, these were first documented by the founders of Rochdale Equitable Partners Society during the Industrial Revolution and adopted later by the International Co-operative Alliance in 1995. The seven cooperative principles are the core values that guide the cooperative movement.
The Seven Principles
Voluntary and open membership.
Democratic member control.
Member economic participation.
Autonomy and independence.
Education, training, and information.
Cooperation among cooperatives.
Concern for community.
A button from the Emancipation March in 1963
A button from the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee that says WE SHALL OVERCOME in the center.
A train ticket stub from the "Freedom Train" from 1965.
A button from the March on Washington in 1963.