Despite a rich history of cooperative economics, the American South is home to few Black-led worker cooperatives. Instead, Atlanta, America’s capital of Black capitalism, and other southern cities, promote the conventional capitalist business structure as the best pathway to Black self-determination. This Essay challenges that position. Despite procedural, structural, and cultural barriers to Black-led worker cooperatives, many of which are entrenched in the law, it argues that Black-led worker cooperatives rooted in a solidarity economy can best enable Black economic freedom and self-determination. Drawing on a recent Atlanta-based study of Black employee ownership, this Essay proposes procedural, structural, and cultural initiatives that movement lawyers, particularly solidarity economy lawyers, should consider to build Black-led worker cooperatives in the American South.

Continue reading As the South Goes: Movement Lawyering for Black-led Worker Cooperatives in Atlanta.