Volume II, Issue II Available for Pre-Order Now
For Cheryl Ife Griffin and all the ancestors, new and ancient, who quietly built the ground we stand on.
MALIK YAKINI SMOOTH-WALKED TO THE FRONT OF THE ROOM, HIS QUIET SWAGGER DRAWING EVERY EYE. He wore a brown T-shirt reading “Self-Love,” the “o” replaced by the map of Africa, and black leather sneakers stamped boldly with the word “Black” on the soles—in case anyone missed the point.
We gathered deep inside one of the blandest hotels I had ever seen in Madison, Wisconsin, a city I knew for little more than its cheese and whiteness. Low ceilings pressed down on us. Forgettable carpets padded our steps. The faint scent of instant coffee clung to everything. Yet on this day, the first in-person, Black-led day at the national Up and Coming Food Co-op conference, we claimed this room as our own.
“We gangsta’d this space,” said Yakini, a Black food sovereignty activist and institution builder, tightening his fist as he stood before the crowd. He traced the history of how this day had been carved out against the grain. The Black and other folks-of-color only space marked the second official Black-led day. More than a meeting, it stood as a reclamation.
The conference sponsors uphold a history of co-op formation that dates back to England. In the 1840s, the Rochdale Pioneers responded to job loss and poverty brought on by industrialization by creating a business model rooted in a simple principle: “Honest food for honest prices.” They codified their values into a framework now known as the Seven Cooperative Principles. Although many Black scholars and activists acknowledge that co-ops existed long before this assembly of white men in Rochdale, England, none of the main conference presentations centered that perspective.
Workshops post-Black-led day echoed that muted history. While one or two bullet points mentioned a Black-led co-op, the narrative remained incomplete. Slides quoted Woodrow Wilson, who promoted self-determination for the white working class, without acknowledging how he demolished the Black working class by segregating the federal government. Another workshop framed General Manager burnouts as inevitable. Clearly, a consequence of capitalist work structures, I affirmed quietly.
I was not surprised by the absence of any serious engagement with Black cooperative traditions. Few, if any, referenced the work of Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard, whose research documents one of the first known co-ops in the United States—the African Mutual Aid Society in Rhode Island, established in 1780, sixty years before Rochdale. Claiming space with purpose, the Black-led day served not only as a gathering place for like-minded Black co-operators but also as a truth-setting hub and historical correction on the roots of co-op development in the U.S.
As the conference unfolded, I recognized how the familiar gaps in the narrative, neglecting Black people’s stake in co-ops, mirrored my own understanding of co-op development.
My co-op journey began out of a practical necessity—to access fresh, organic food in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Becoming a mother made me aware of the harmful pesticides in conventional produce. Over time, I also continued to learn about the racist and capitalist systems that create barriers to fresh, affordable food.
Starting in 2013, I attended monthly meetings at the historic mansion at 375 Stuyvesant for what became the Central Brooklyn Food Co-op. Over six years later, we have worked with consultants, hosted workshops on solidarity economy and board development, and pieced together texts on food co-op best practices. We also learned from the Park Slope Food Co-op, a widely acknowledged gold standard for members-only co-op development.
Throughout this co-op organizing process, there was no centering of Black-led co-op development, and little mention of the pioneers whose work and struggles echoed in the abandoned and underdeveloped structures dotted within the community. I learned about The East, almost by accident, as the son of one of its founders told me how he was connected to Guyana, the country of my birth. When he mentioned that there was also a food co-op in Bedstuy, I was both intrigued and saddened. This history, so tangible in our present structures, was lost in the context of our historical heritage. Kununuana Food Co-op, a part of the sprawling legacy of The East, opened in 1970, three years before Park Slope opened its doors.
Learning about The East disrupted everything I thought possible for our community and our people. Before the 2022 release of the documentary, The Sun Rises in The East, and the 2009 publication of A View from The East: Black Cultural Nationalism and Education in New York City by Kwasi Konadu, few references existed specifically about the Black-led food co-op in Brooklyn.
The origins of The East emerged from rebellion and realization.
What is now known as the Ocean Hill-Brownsville struggle for community control, reflected a culmination of the late 1960s institution-building movement. Inspiration stemmed from many sources, including Malcolm X, the growing pan-Africanist movement, the rise of the Black Power and Consciousness movement, and deep dissatisfaction with superficial reforms, specifically within education. These policies came from government-appointed school boards and white-led groups that either resisted integration outright or offered lukewarm support for school reform.
In Central Brooklyn, the primarily Black community fought to reform the school system, with a particular focus on including Afrocentric history. At the time, white-Jewish principals and teachers made up the majority of the schools, while Black teachers remained underrepresented across the New York City school system. The injustices fueled racism to run rampant. As Fela Barclift, a former member of The East, recalled in the documentary A View from the East, “There was a way of treating the Black children of those schools as if they were not fully human. I never connected with my teachers, and I didn’t feel like they connected with me. They came here to do a job and then get paid for it.”
In 1967, the Ford Foundation released The Bundy Report, a study recommending decentralization and community control as a solution to the ongoing tensions. The Board of Education agreed to pilot the recommendations, selecting the Ocean-Hill-Brownsville district as one of the three sites. Ocean Hill sits between Bedstuy in the north and Brownsville to the south. These primarily Black and Latine communities faced widespread disinvestment, especially in the schools. In response, community members and Black teachers worked together to create a culturally responsive curriculum to implement alongside their regular instruction.
However, the white teachers rebelled. Some actively sabotaged the experiment by delivering subpar instruction, or none at all. In response, Black and Latine parents exercised their power to fire offending teachers. In turn, the United Federation of Teachers organized a strike that began in September 1968 and lasted 36 days. During the strike, parents and Black teachers crossed the picket line to continue educating children, sometimes sleeping in schools to prevent a complete shutdown. That November, the state took control of the schools, reinstated the fired teachers, and ended community control in the schools.
Jitu Weusi, a teacher in the district who witnessed the setup, triumph, and ultimate defeat over nearly a decade, contextualized the experience in A View from the East:
THIS DEMONSTRATION OF COOPERATION, COMMUNITY CARE, AND BLACK NATION-BUILDING, THOUGH FLAWED, DEMONSTRATES A HISTORICAL PATHWAY TO CONCRETIZING A TRUE FOR-US-BY-US VISION.
“The Ocean-Hill Brownsville confrontation of 1968 had the most profound impact on New York City of any incident within the past fifty years,” said Weusi. “The struggles not only served as a unifying force within and between African-descended and Latino communities but, as Mwalimu Shujaa and Hannibal Afrik indicate, the ‘struggles over control of schools in settings such as Ocean-Hill-Brownsville Experimental School District in New York City brought the power of whites to control African schooling into clear focus.’”
Weusi drew radical inspiration from his personal experiences and from attending Black Nationalism conferences, both in the U.S. and abroad. He organized fellow teachers to form the African American Teachers Association (AATA).
According to Dr. Segun Shabaka, the former editor of Black News, the newspaper of The East co-op, and a math teacher at Uhuru Sasa Shule, the school founded by The East, Weusi was significantly influenced by a conference in Newark, New Jersey, that featured poet and playwright Amiri Baraka and controversial author and activist, Maulana Karenga. Weusi learned the Seven Principles of Kawaida, more widely known as the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa or Nguzo Saba.
The AATA met in a room on Fulton Street in Bedstuy, where folks discussed these principles. Quickly outgrowing the small space, the students sought to find a space where they could also plan activities, and found one right around the corner, 10 Claver Place.
Evening classes for adults and young people sparked sewing, African dance, and African history courses. The community claimed the space and used it to the fullest. This organic unfolding led to the realization that creating our own spaces can foster our own community, school, and life services. Thus, The East—standing opposite to the exploitation and extraction of the West—was born.
The underpinnings of Kununuana Food Co-op and The Uhuru Food Co-op, both iterations within The East, were guided by the Seven Principles of Kawaida, and not the Seven Cooperative Principles. This demonstration of cooperation, community care, and Black nation-building, though not without flaws, demonstrates a historical pathway to concretizing a true for-us-by-us vision. The possibility of realizing this vision in the present is ever more possible by a true uncovering and honest reclamation of the past.
This excerpt is part of a longer piece, available in full at landfoodfreedom.com.
