Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Ph.D., author of Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice and 2016 inductee into the U.S. Cooperative Hall of Fame (www.heroes.coop), is Professor of Community Justice and Social Economic Development, Chair of the Department of Africana Studies, and Director of the McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program at John Jay College, City University of NY. She is also an affiliate scholar with the Centre for the Study of Co-operatives (University of Saskatchewan, Canada), and the 2017 recipient of the CASC Merit Award for exemplary contributions to the field of co-operative studies (Canadian Association for Studies in Co-operation).
Dr. Gordon-Nembhard is a political economist specializing in community economics, Black Political Economy and popular economic literacy. Her research and numerous publications explore problematics and alternative solutions in cooperative economic development and worker ownership, community economic development, racial wealth inequality, credit unions and community-based asset building, and community-based approaches to justice. Collective Courage (2014 The Pennsylvania State University Press) was a finalist for the University of Memphis Benjamin L. Hicks National Book Award in 2014.
Gordon-Nembhard is a member of the board of directors of: Green Worker Cooperatives, the Association of Cooperative Educators, Grassroots Economic Organizing Newsletter, Southern Reparations Loan Fund, Organizing Neighborhood Equity DC; a co-founder of the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy, the US Solidarity Economy Network, and the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives; and a member of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund. She is the proud mother of Susan and Stephen, and the grandmother of Stephon and Hugo Nembhard.