Collective Courage

A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice

About the Book Club

[On Indigenous People’s Day] we will begin to explore the lessons and the legacy of our ancestors who were forcibly removed from Africa, enslaved to build riches for the Empire, and ultimately forced to make home in a new land through a collective reading of Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard’s 2014 book Collective Courage. Indigenous peoples across the world have been creatively resisting, reclaiming, and transforming the economies fostered upon them by Empires through colonialization, imperialism, capitalism and neoliberalism by maintaining their humanity, dignity, their cultures of right relationship to land and each other.  Are times so different now? The unique experiences of African Americans can provide us with strategies, tools, and models for how politically and economically marginalized communities can fight extraction, exploitation, and violence by building cooperation, co-production, and solidarity.

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How it works

Each week, a reading selection will be posted. You can choose to read the brief (~10-20mins), medium (~1 hour) or full (~2+ hours) reading selection each week.

There will be prompts and questions for each week of reading. We strongly encourage self-organized learning groups. You can just tweet or write blog posts, share links or draw, or make videos of your thoughts or anything else you can dream up. We invite you to share thoughts and responses on any form of social media using the hashtag #CollectiveCourageOBC.

That’s it (this is an experiment).