Black people have been buying their freedom, often, collectively to escape enslavement. Pooling economic and non-economic resources together to solve personal, family, social, political and economic challenges. Racial solidarity became a major resource for these and future Black organizations and businesses. Collective economics activities such as pooling resources together to purchase freedom from plantation ”masters” often led to political activity such as public policy advocacy to counteract White Blocs and racist policies and racially discriminatory legislation. These interconnected strategies were used to maintain the independence needed to assert wholistic autonomy as human beings. Abolitionist organizing was used to deliberately establish Negro-organized communities and communes to house and teach Black people how to live as ”free people” and run independent communities.

 

Other self-emancipation strategies include buying their freedom, work slowdowns, creation of escape paths, and the formation of separate communities. These kinds of collective resistance measures proved necessary for Black liberation from all angles. The Underground Railroad was one of most prominent examples of high-level social and economic cooperation and collaboration among Black, white and Indigenous peoples. It linked independent Black communities to one another and connected fugitives from enslavement to Black-operated, racially integrated and other kinds of support systems. Maroon communities, mutual aid societies, Black churches are all part of the foundation of economic, and inevitably social and political cooperation, among Black communities.