The long tradition of African American cooperation is not well known, and in her book Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, Jessica Gordon Nemhard sets out to remedy that gap in our knowledge. From mutual aid societies to independent fugitive communities and from farmer cooperatives to consumer co-ops, Professor Gordon Nemhard details how people work together in the face of racism and active sabotage to improve each others’ lives in tangible ways. Cooperation has proved a powerful tool against discrimination. In honor of Juneteenth and the Black Lives Matter movement, we’ll survey a small part of the rich cooperative history that Gordon Nemhard chronicles. 

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