Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice details African American cooperatives in America during slavery. A cooperative is a company that is owned by the people who use their services. African American’s implementation of cooperatives during slavery proved courageous and dangerous at the same time.
Overview of Book’s Content
We learn from the introduction that the purpose of a cooperative is to provide quality goods and services at an affordable price. As illustrated here, “Consumers come together and form a buying club or cooperative retail store in order to pool their money to buy in bulk the kinds of goods and services they want, and the quality they want, at an …show more content…
Chapter four is titled Strategy, Advocacy and Practice. This chapter emphasizes the importance of education amongst cooperatives and its members. Education is important for economic development and for a business to be successful. The importance of education can be seen here, “The success and growth of many cooperatives appear to depend on education strategies—orientation and training about both what it means to be a good co-op member and how to operate in and manage a particular business.” (Gordan Nembhard, 2014) Cooperatives stressed the importance of on the job training, networking and teamwork, this is best summarized here, “Cooperatives require trust and solidarity, and at the same time create trust and solidarity in the process of developing and maintaining the co-op.” (Gordan Nembhard 2014) Some ways cooperatives educated their members were through, study groups, training, management and leadership development. Chapter five is titled, ‘The Young Negroes Co-Operative League’ or YNCL. Established in 1930 and was founded by George Schuyler. Schuyler often challenged white racism and was known as a black radical. Schuyler believed the future laid in the hands of the youth and wanted to see them succeed despite racism. Schuyler believed participating in cooperatives was the only way for African Americans to gain economic power. After Schuylers call to young African Americans twenty five youths joined his cause. “In addition to its educational mission, the YNCL sought to keep control of the organization in the hands of young people, and “to bring women into the League on [an] equal basis with men.”” (Gordan Nembhard 2014) this best illustrates the goals of the YNCL. Chapter six is titled ‘Out of Necessity” and details cooperatives during the great depression. Most notable the Colored Merchants Association (CMA) was founded in 1927 to support African