Jessica Gordon-Nembhard

Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Ph.D., is Professor of Community Justice and Social Economic Development, Chair of the Africana Studies Department, and Director of the McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. She is the 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). 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. Gordon-Nembhard is a member of the board of directors of Green Worker Cooperatives, the Association of Cooperative Educators, Grassroots Economic Organizing Newsletter, Organizing Neighborhood Equity DC; and a co-founder of the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy and the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. She is the proud mother of Susan and Stephen, and the grandmother of Stephon and Hugo Nembhard.