Apr - May 2026

Panel of African and Caribbean leaders discussing reparations and racial justice, moderated by Colombian Vice President Francia Marquez, center, at the CELAC-AFRICA Forum in Bogota, Colombia, March 18-21. Photo: Office of the Vice President of Colombia

In this issue, we explore recent efforts by Black world leaders and local cooperatives to build connections across the multiple divides that have long separated communities of the African diaspora from each other and Africa itself. Keep scrolling for the newest news and resources across the global Black solidarity economy, and the latest on what we’re up to at Collective Diaspora.

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Maroon Dispatches

News from across the global Black solidarity economy

Vice President of the Republic of Colombia, Francia Márquez meets with Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Thandi Moraka in Bogotá, Colombia during the CELAC-Africa High-Level Forum held March 18-21, 2026.

🗣️Africa-Latin America-Caribbean Unite!

by Omar Freilla

The Trump regime’s use of war, kidnapping, assasination, and starvation–all in service of a white supremacist agenda–has accelerated a shift toward a more multipolar world, as countries that have relied on the US for financial or military support now fear they may become its target. Today, across Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, governments are seeking new alliances as a matter of survival and self-determination.

Such alliances follow a long history of non-governmental Pan African organizing efforts, of which Collective Diaspora is a part. In this context, Colombia’s first Black Vice President, Francia Márquez, convened the first high-level forum between the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the African Union. Held March 18–21 in Bogotá, Colombia, the forum marked a major step toward strengthening political, economic, and cultural ties across the Global South.

The forum was grounded in recognition of shared histories of colonialism and a commitment to Global South–South cooperation and racial justice. But it was also grounded in a recognition that cooperation must be institutionalized, financed, and operationalized.

Key outcomes included the launch of a new maritime trade corridor connecting Cartagena, Colombia, and Tema, Ghana—transforming historic routes of slavery and extraction into pathways for exchange and investment. The forum also advanced a call by Ghana to recognize slavery as a crime against humanity at the United Nations, setting the stage just a few days later for a historic vote of the UN General Assembly recognizing slavery as “the gravest crime against humanity” and calling for reparations.

The CELAC-AFRICA Forum issued calls prioritizing inter-regional collaboration on food security, climate action, and infrastructure. For Black communities across the diaspora, the forum signals more than diplomacy—it is a reminder of the power we already have within our own communities, and the pan African dream of pooling that power across borders in order to be able to meet collective needs, which is the very nature of cooperative practice.

Beat The Drum: Calls for Support

  • Donate to Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms: The Sudan Benefit Fund (SBF) provides displaced Sudanese families throughout the Sudan, as well as Egypt and Chad with food, water, shelter, critical medical services, and essential hospital medical equipment.

     

  • Join a Work Brigade or Donate to Hurricane Melissa Relief for Jamaican Maroon Village: Collective Diaspora member GreenFeen Organix, a worker cooperative composting service in the Bronx, has joined Friends of Accompong USA’s post–Hurricane Melissa recovery efforts in the Maroon State of Accompong, a sovereign community in Jamaica’s Cockpit Country. Help is requested to launch the Accompong Resiliency Center—a community-rooted, solar-powered hub grounded in indigenous wisdom, cultural integrity, and collective healing. Immediate priorities are security, solar installations, and rebuilding a vital soup kitchen for elders and vulnerable residents. 

Collective Diaspora News:

The latest on our progress and upcoming activities.

Our First International Tour – Chocolate, Cooperatives and Culture of Trinidad – an International Success

From February 27 to March 4, Collective Diaspora convened our first international tour in Trinidad, in partnership with the Alliance of Rural Communities and the Cross Atlantic Chocolate Collective. More than a visit, the tour was designed to connect Black cooperators from the U.S. with their Trinidadian counterparts, deepen relationships between the Global South and Global North, and grow an appreciation for the true cost of getting products such as chocolate to international markets.

Scenes from Chocolate, Cooperatives, and Culture Tour 2026.

Photos by Jonathan Hooker and Omar Freilla

Across the island, we engaged cooperatives of all types, cacao producers, artists, the Cipriani College of Labor and Cooperative Studies and other community institutions that all demonstrated cooperation as a lived practice. From Tranquillity Credit Union to the Siparia Deltones Steelpan Panyard, we saw how communities organize shared resources to sustain both culture and economic life. Time on the land with cacao growers grounded us in a critical lesson: chocolate is not just a product, but a process shaped by unequal exchanges, a colonial legacy, and the labor of workers who are part of vibrant communities. Understanding that process—and the true cost behind it—reframed how we value what we consume.

The tour sparked constant conversation about the challenges faced by Pan African initiatives involving the Global North. We heard from many Black cooperators and community organizers in Trinidad about their challenges dealing with the culture of individualism and paternalism present among well meaning people from the Global North, even those who are also Black. Perhaps even more than issues of logistics, these cultural challenges are the kinds of differences that make Pan African collaborations difficult to sustain.

The tour created new opportunities for exchanges, deepened old relationships and created even more new ones, all affirming a shared commitment to a Black solidarity economy across the African diaspora.

Upcoming: Report Back in Brooklyn

Those of you in the New York City area can join us Monday, April 13th at 1PM for Chocolate, Co-ops & Culture of Trinidad: A Report Back in Brooklyn—an opportunity to hear reflections of US-based Black Cooperators on their time in Trinidad, while learning about Trinidad’s cooperative movement and efforts to decolonize the chocolate industry.
This event will feature a chocolate tasting by Chocolate Rebellion, the brand of the Cross Atlantic Chocolate Collective.

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Global Black Solidarity Economy in the News

News articles/essays/press covering any aspect of the Black solidarity economy

 

Resource Library:

Podcasts & Videos

Report and more

  • Grasping at the Roots: Grasping at the Roots is a 35-minute documentary from the Climate Justice Alliance following Black frontline communities living next to refineries, bearing the brunt of a warming climate, and building something different. Stops include Cooperation Jackson, Urban Tilth, and the Detroit Black Community Food Solidarity Network. If it moves you to act, CJA will help you move capital toward local non-extractive loan funds. Watch it for free here
  • Resisting Capitalism: A Black Mutual Aid Resource List: Did you know that the Underground Railroad was a mutual aid network powered by Black American fraternal orders and secret societies? Download this resource list to learn how these formations enabled each other to free themselves, reunite with family, provide healthcare and life insurance, create dignified work, and launch the First Cooperative Era despite enslavement and Jim Crow– the foundations of U.S. authoritarianism.
  • Black Employee Ownership: A Pathway to Wealth Building and Economic Opportunity: This report by Project Equity, Morehouse College and UC Riverside examines how historical inequities, structural barriers, and contemporary policy environments shape access to employee ownership for Black workers and entrepreneurs. Through longitudinal data analysis, interviews and surveys of Black workers and entrepreneurs, a comprehensive policy audit, and case studies of Black-led employee-owned businesses, the report illuminates both the promise of employee ownership as a tool for shared prosperity and the barriers that limit Black participation.
  • The Collective: Expanding Black Employee Ownership: Journal of the International Comparative Labor Studies program at Morehouse College. Special Issue on Black employee ownership.
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No Movement Without Art

Songs, Film, Murals, and Paintings

Trinidad Carnival - Monday Night Mas with TantiBlak and poem "D Road Make to Walk" by Abeo Jackson / Vulgar Fraction

Jobs

Graphic Design & Digital Content Associate (Sudanese Diaspora Network)

Upcoming Events

  • April-June - Black CoopNomics Academy (Baltimore, MD & Washington, DC, US). The Black CoopNomics Academy is a 10-week learning experience by the Network for Developing Conscious Communities and is designed to strengthen cooperative leadership, community-owned enterprise development, and Black-led economic transformation. Each session is 2 hours, held in person and virtual in both Baltimore and Washington, DC

  • April 13 - Chocolate, Co-ops & Culture of Trinidad: A Report Back in Brooklyn (Brooklyn, NYC, US). Join us in New York City for an opportunity to hear reflections of US-based Black Cooperators on their time in Trinidad, while learning about Trinidad’s cooperative movement and efforts to decolonize the chocolate industry. This event will feature a chocolate tasting by Chocolate Rebellion, the brand of the Cross Atlantic Chocolate Collective.

     

    April 17 - Federation of Southern Cooperatives Co-op Symposium 2026 (Epes, AL, US). Participants will convene in state-based breakout sessions during this year’s symposium to explore the policies, challenges, and opportunities shaping cooperative development in their regions. Through collaborative dialogue, attendees will help define a shared vision and set of advocacy priorities to strengthen and sustain cooperative businesses across the South.

     

    April 18 - Governance for Liberation: Between Solidarity & Sociocracy Training (Chicago, IL, US). This is a full-day, participatory workshop focused on practical tools for democratic decision-making, shared leadership, and effective governance.

     

    April 21 - Supporting Justice, Equity, Diversity, Decolonization & Inclusion in the Worker Co‑op Movement (online). Worker co‑ops are powerful tools for community wealth‑building — but systemic barriers continue to limit access for many equity-denied groups and communities, including women, non-binary, Black, Indigenous, Of Colour, immigrant and refugees, and people with disabilities. This workshop by the Canadian Worker Co-op Federation provides practical support, research‑based insights, and pathways to help equity‑denied groups thrive in the co‑op movement. 

     

    Jun 26-27 - Remote International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) Annual Conference (online). Guided by the theme “Feminist Economics and Transformative Change: Ideas, Policies, and Movements,” the 2026 conference, organized by the International Association for Feminist Economics will spotlight feminist ideas, movements, and policies that drive transformative social and economic change.

     

    Jul 9-11 - In Person International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) Annual Conference (Cali, Colombia, US). Guided by the theme “Feminist Economics and Transformative Change: Ideas, Policies, and Movements,” the 2026 conference, organized by the International Association for Feminist Economics will spotlight feminist ideas, movements, and policies that drive transformative social and economic change.

     

    Oct 1-16 - Ghana Coop Culture Tour 2026 (Ghana). Travel with a dynamic group from across the United States as we move intentionally through three regions — from the capital city of Accra, to the Royal Ashanti region of Kumasi, to a home stay experience in the Upper East for true cultural connection — all while learning how cooperative systems function collectively in Ghana. 

Thank you for reading this month’s Global Black Solidarity Economy Newsletter. Have a news tip? Email omar@diaspora.coop.

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