A Crushed 1891 Strike by Black Farmer Cooperatives Holds Keys to Economic Justice Today | Nonprofit Quarterly | Civic News. Empowering Nonprofits. Advancing Justice.

A Crushed 1891 Strike by Black Farmer Cooperatives Holds Keys to Economic Justice Today | Nonprofit Quarterly | Civic News. Empowering Nonprofits. Advancing Justice.

Houston County, TX, December 11, 1886. Sixteen Black men gathered on a farm and started something that would grow into one of the most ambitious economic organizing efforts in US history. They called it the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative Union (CFNACU). Within five years, it had spread across the South and claimed 1.2 million members. Then, in 1891, it was violently destroyed. Most Americans have never heard of it. That is ex…