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Chapter 4: Strategy, Advocacy, and Practice: Black Study Circles and Co-op Education on the Front Lines
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We believe that the most important single factor in our progress in Gary so far has been our educational program. We realized from the beginning that if a cooperative business was going to help our people in a large way, . . . they must study its fundamental philosophy, ideals and history. —j. l. reddix (quoted in hope 1940, 40) It is our conviction that we must be trained before trying to lead people. —schuyler (1932, 456) Every African American-owned cooperative of the past that I have researched, and almost every contemporary cooperative I have studied, began as the result of a study group or depended on purposive training and orientation of members . The Consumers’ Cooperative Trading Company is one of the best examples in the United States of the importance of education and training and the use of study circles—but is not unique. Education was and continues to be an essential element of the development and success of the cooperatives that form the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation (MCC) in Spain, for example. The very first activity related to the founding of the Mondragon cooperatives was the establishment of a community-based polytechnic high school in the early 1950s, organized by MCC founder Father José María Arizmendiarrieta. The school taught cooperative business principles along with the technical curriculum and graduated the founders of the first cooperative to form the MCC. Today, several educational institutions are members of the MCC, among them the university Mondragon Unibertsitatea. According to the Mondragon website ,“Training,bothacademicandthatlinkedtoprofessionalrefreshercourses, has always played a key role in the development of our Corporation and constitutes one of our identifying characteristics. Today, MCC has a wide-reaching educational network which includes a number of Vocational Training Centers as well as its own University” (http://www.mondragon-corporation.com/ENG/ This chapter incorporates heavy revisions of Gordon Nembhard 2008a and 2008d. 4 strategy, advocacy, and practice Black Study Circles and Co-op Education on the Front Lines 86 deliberative cooperative economic development Knowledge/Training/Training-in-MONDRAGON.aspx; see also Jakobsen 2000; Meek and Woodworth 1990). Du Bois’s concepts of “intelligent cooperation” and “intelligent democratic control” in economic leaders and institutions depend heavily on public information and member education and training. In Dusk of Dawn he describes his efforts to educate the public through the NAACP’s magazine the Crisis, which he edited for twenty-four years, and through meetings and conferences to discuss and train people about consumer cooperation and cooperative economics (Du Bois 1940). He also explains how important education has been to the advancement of African Americans in general, writing, “the advance of the Negro people since emancipation has been the extraordinary success in education, technique and character” (713). Du Bois believed that education and planning were essential in the development of a cooperative commonwealth. Continuous education is one of the international principles of cooperation and an important strategy for cooperative economic development and business success.1 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. Future co-op business development also depends on reaching young people with knowledge about alternative economic structures and cooperative economics, as well as experiences with entrepreneurship. In this chapter, I explore education as a cooperative resource, particularly in worker-owned cooperatives, and delineate a variety of education strategies used. We then begin the story of African American cooperation in the twentieth century with Du Bois’s attempt to organize a cooperative education and development program through the Negro Cooperative Guild, in addition to his efforts to promote cooperative development in the pages of the Crisis. Models of Cooperative Business Education Human capital is traditionally viewed as a factor of labor in terms of measuring and representing labor’s credentials and skills. It is usually what labor brings with it. The study of working conditions in cooperatives suggests that cooperatives also develop and generate human and social capital—it is not just what is brought to the job. “On-the-job” training in specific industry skills, business planning and accounting, strategic planning, and skills of democratic participation are developed within the cooperative business. Teamwork, meeting facilitation, leadership, and networking are also both [3.230.76.153] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 11:09 GMT) strategy, advocacy, and practice 87 factors of production and outcomes of the association—i.e., they become...