NASCO Institute 2016 Plenary - From Resilience to Reparations (audio)
Channel: NASCO Videos
Date: 2016-11-23

NASCO Institute 2016 Plenary, delivered by Autumn Brown, Esteban Kelly, Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard, and Ed Whitfield, titled “From Resilience to Reparations.” Ann Arbor, MI - November 13, 2016.

--

Sometimes surviving isn’t enough. For the last one hundred years, Black people in the United States have seized the cooperative model as a means to come together economically and withstand the theft of their land, bodies, and property, and in some cases outright sabotage of their businesses and economic livelihood. African-Americans were resilient. What’s important about this history is that cooperatives created a means for African Americans to not merely endure, but to build a scaffolding for liberation. Through co-ops, Black people experienced autonomy and independence, self-help, financial literacy and participation, and economic democracy– all on their own terms.

In a powerful conversation, Autumn Brown (Anti-Oppression Resource & Training Alliance), Esteban Kelly (US Federation of Worker Cooperatives), Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard (Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice), and Ed Whitfield (Fund for Democratic Communities) explore the prospect of reparations and a vision for cooperatives as a cornerstone of productive wealth-creation in Black communities. Our panel reflects on the significance of the inclusion of cooperatives in the recent policy platform from the Movement for Black Lives, titled “A Vision for Black Lives Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom & Justice.” Together we consider how to move from resilience to reparations in a framework of collective liberation, where everyone is free because everyone is governing their work and their lives.