Black cooperatives & mutual aid societies have been a vital part of Black history and the fight for economic and social justice.
After the Civil War, Southern black farmers formed co-operatives to resist oppression, Jim Crow laws & benefit their communities.
The Colored Farmers National Alliance and Cooperative Union was founded in Texas in 1886, the organization rapidly spread across the Southern United States, peaking with a membership of 1.2 million in 1891.
They promoted economic self-sufficiency and racial uplift through vocational training. They educated farmers on better tactics & techniques for their trade, set up exchanges in ports across the country where members could purchase discounted items required for farming, and advocated for Members to avoid debt through home ownership.
Although short-lived and little-known today, the Colored Farmers’ Alliance and similar groups in the late 1800s made up the largest black political movement in the South before the modern civil rights movement. These cooperatives not only helped pave the way for later resistance among black sharecroppers, farmers, and other agrarian workers, but tilled the soil for resistance to racial discrimination and inequality.