This episode continues our tribute to the 2026 Cooperative Hall of Fame Inductees with a special conversation featuring Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Ph.D., Professor at John Jay College and social justice advocate. Dr. Gordon Nembhard will discuss the life and legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer, who will be posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame as an Unsung Hero, including Hamer’s commitment to cooperative economic development.
Fannie Lou Hamer was a powerful civil rights and voting rights leader who also recognized economic independence as essential to community empowerment. In 1969, she established the Freedom Farm Cooperative in Sunflower County, Mississippi, purchasing 40 acres to create a cooperative farming project. The initiative sought to provide food, land, and economic opportunity for Black families in the Mississippi Delta. The Freedom Farm Cooperative became an important expression of Hamer’s belief that political freedom and economic self-determination were interconnected.
Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard is the author of Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, and a 2016 inductee into the U.S. Cooperative Hall of Fame. A political economist specializing in cooperative economics, community economic development, racial wealth inequality, and Black Political Economy, she is a Professor at John Jay College, City University of New York. Dr. Gordon-Nembhard is also a member of the Cooperative Economics Council of NCBA/CLUSA and the ICA Committee on Co-operative Research, an affiliate scholar with the Centre for the Study of Co-operatives at the University of Saskatchewan, and a past board member of the Association of Cooperative Educators.
Join Vernon Oakes and Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard for a conversation exploring Fannie Lou Hamer’s extraordinary legacy and the role cooperatives played in her vision for economic empowerment and community self-determination.