These efforts were short-lived, but they were gestures grand enough to remain in the African American collective memory—whether as an example of how the U.S. government will retaliate if you try to do too much economically for Black people, or as a lesson that collective projects end in embezzlement and financial mismanagement. While the first has much basis in fact—the Ex-Slave Pension Association was hounded by the federal government, as was the Federation of Southern Cooperatives in the 1970s—the second is a misconception that has hindered some in the Black community from becoming more involved in joint ownership and cooperative economics. For some reason, there is not as strong a collective memory about the cooperative efforts that succeeded.
It is worth noting that in addition to economic advancement—or attempts at economic advancement—Garvey’s UNIA supported women’s leadership. Taylor (2002, 45, 87) and others point out the ways in which women, particularly Garvey’s wife, Amy Jacques Garvey, found their place in the organization and practiced “community feminism,” a term that describes the Combahee River Colony and some of the other mutual-benefit societies run by women, which were successful efforts at collective economics.
Early African American Rochdale Cooperatives
In 1898, Du Bois’s assessment of Black business development and cooperative businesses in general was not optimistic: “From such enterprises sprang the beneficial societies, and to-day slowly and with difficulty is arising real co-operative business enterprise detached from religious activity or insurance. On the other hand, private business enterprise has made some beginning, and in a few cases united into joint stock enterprises. It will be years, however, before this kind of business is very successful” (1898, 21–22). Du Bois counted about fifteen emerging cooperative businesses in 1898, and several cemetery associations. He remained pessimistic in 1907: “To some [cooperative business] is simply a record of failure, just as similar attempts were for so long a time among whites in France, England, and America. Just as in the case of these latter groups, however, failure was but education for growing success in certain limited directions, so among Negroes we can already see the education of failure beginning to tell” (1907, 149). Du Bois identified several challenges to cooperative business development, including the lack of capital and the nature of poor people who will not invest because they are afraid of losing their hard-earned money. He also emphasized the lack of trained managers and workers, particularly in democratic business participation. He noted that in some early attempts at cooperation, poor judgments were made. In some cases, a company did not wait until at least 25 percent of the capital stock had been raised, which often resulted in failure. This increased the perception that “promoters of cooperative enterprises were unscrupulous” (1907, 150). Despite his pessimism, Du Bois held a conference in 1907 (the twelfth Atlanta conference at Atlanta University; see chapter 4) titled “Negro Business Development and Cooperatives,” promoting cooperatives and economic cooperation. The conference also launched his latest academic report on African Americans, Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans.
Du Bois documented the existence of 154 African American–owned cooperatives: 14 “producer cooperatives”; 3 “transportation cooperatives”; 103 “distribution or consumer cooperatives,” and 34 “real estate and credit cooperatives,” in addition to hundreds of mutual-aid societies and cooperative projects through religious and benevolent institutions, beneficial and insurance societies, secret societies, schools, and financial institutions in 1907. While most of the cooperative businesses were joint-stock companies or collectively owned enterprises rather than Rochdale cooperatives, he made a case for how often it occurred, how necessary joint ownership was, and how difficult it was for African Americans. He attributed difficulties to poor management, lack of know-how, low levels of capitalization, and racial discrimination. He used the case study of Baltimore to illustrate the kinds of businesses that African Americans engaged in collectively, in some sense of the term. The “successful cooperative businesses” he studied include the Douglass Institute (a social entertainment house), the Chesapeake Marine Railway and Dry Dock Company, Samaritan Temple, the Afro-American Ledger newspaper, and the North Baltimore Permanent Building and Loan Association (1907, 151–78). By the early 1900s, African Americans were forming cooperative businesses based on the international principles of cooperation; these businesses are the subject of the following seven chapters.
Four early African American cooperative businesses that followed the Rochdale principles were the Mercantile Cooperative Company in Ruthville, Virginia, Citizens’ Co-operative Stores in Memphis, Tennessee, the Pioneer Cooperative Society in Harlem, New York City, and the Cooperative Society of Bluefield Colored Institute of West Virginia.
The Mercantile Cooperative Company
The Mercantile Cooperative Company, the earliest urban Rochdale cooperative my research has uncovered (after the nineteenth-century unions and farmers’ alliance co-ops, and the ones mentioned by Du Bois in 1907), was established in Ruthville, Virginia, in 1901. Charles City County, where Ruthville is located, is a relatively prosperous county for African Americans. Until John Craig’s account, however, most historians “ignored the role of the area’s free black population” and “the degree to which community cooperation during the early years of the twentieth century helped move local farmers away from economic dependence on whites” (1987, 133–34). Craig highlights collective efforts in Ruthville and observes that Black farmers’ cooperative activity in the early twentieth century through the Mercantile Cooperative enabled them to “achieve a level of economic independence” that contributed to their later success in achieving voting rights and other civil rights (134).
In the first quarter of the twentieth century, according to Craig’s research, 90 percent of residents in Charles City County owned their own homes and the land they farmed, and fewer than 6 percent of local farms had a mortgage. These statistics stand out during a time when the number of Whites in the county was decreasing; between 1900 and 1930, the Black population of the county rose by 2 percent, while the White population declined by 20 percent (139). Ruthville, a predominantly Black town, had a history of fraternal organizations. In 1901 the Odd Fellows Lodge helped to establish the Mercantile Cooperative Company. According to Craig, this was a Black-run cooperative store chartered by the state. Shares were sold at $5 each, and no one member could hold more than twenty shares. Shares could be bought in installments. Members bought a store outside Ruthville and moved it to the main crossroads opposite the County Training School. They raised $1,300 to buy supplies in Richmond. They decided not to take credit, so that they would not have to rely on outsiders. The cooperative coexisted on cordial terms with a White-owned store across the street (135). By 1923, the Mercantile Cooperative had twenty-eight shareholders. The cooperative then bought trucks and was able to hire three employees. The new United Sorghum Growers Club met regularly above the store (136). The community also founded the Intellectual and Industrial Union, which raised money to build a new school (137–38). Craig remarks on the “strength of community solidarity” in the town and the way the Black community “banded together to overcome common problems.” The cooperative store was an important example of this and a mainstay of the community.
Citizens’ Co-operative Stores
Citizens’ Co-operative Stores of Memphis was established in direct response to a Negro Cooperative Guild meeting in August 1919 (see chapter 4).9 From the details in a Crisis article, we know that the citizens of Memphis eagerly joined the project, as evidenced by the large number of participants and the resounding success of the equity drive. According to the Crisis, the cooperative raised more equity than expected, selling double the amount of shares initially offered. Members were able to buy shares in installments, and no one could own more than ten shares. By