Jessica Gordon-Nembhard

Author of Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice (2014), and 2016 inductee into the U.S. Cooperative Hall of Fame, Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Ph.D., is Professor of Community Justice and Social Economic Development, in the Department of Africana Studies, John Jay College, City University of NY. Dr. Gordon-Nembhard is an internationally recognized and widely published political economist specializing in cooperative economics, community economic development and community-based asset building, racial wealth inequality, solidarity economics, Black Political Economy, and community-based approaches to justice. She is co-editor, for example, with Ngina Chiteji of Wealth Accumulation and Communities of Color (University of Michigan Press 2006). Recipient of numerous awards in social economics and cooperative studies, she is a member of the Cooperative Economics Council of NCBA/CLUSA; the International Co-operative Alliance Committee on Co-operative Research; a Faculty Fellow and Mentor with the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations; an affiliate scholar with the Centre for the Study of Co-operatives (University of Saskatchewan, Canada); and guest lecturer with the International Centre for Co-operative Management, Sobey School of Business, St. Mary’s University (Halifax, NS, Canada). Gordon-Nembhard is also a past board member of the Association of Cooperative Educators; a past fellow with the Center on Race and Wealth at Howard University; and a member and past president of the National Economic Association. She is the proud mother of Stephen and Susan, and the grandmother of Stephon, Hugo, Ismaél and Gisèle Nembhard.

Major publications include:

Gordon Nembhard, Jessica. 2021. "Building a Cooperative Solidarity Commonwealth." In The New Systems Reader: Alternatives to a Failed Economy, edited by James Gustave Speth and Kathleen Courrier, pp. 273-284(Chapter 18). New York, NY: Routledge.

Gordon Nembhard, Jessica, E. Wyatt Gordon, and Stephen M. Nembhard. 2018. "Engaging African American Youth in Social Change and Community Building through Cooperative Economic Development." Chapter 10 in Strengthening Families, Communities and Schools to Support Children's Development: Neighborhoods of Promise, edited by Edmund W. Gordon, Betina Jean-Louis, and Nkechi Obiora, pp. 159-172, New York: Routledge.

Gordon Nembhard, Jessica. 2018. "African American Cooperatives and Sabotage: The Case for Reparations." The Journal of African American History Vol. 103 No. 1-2 (Winter/Spring): 65-90.

Gordon Nembhard, Jessica. 2017. "Black Women, Cooperatives, and Community."  The Journal of Design Strategies Special Issue "Cooperative Cities," Vol. 9, No. 1 (Fall), pp. 18-32.

Brown, L., C. Carini, J. Gordon Nembhard, L. Hammond Ketilson, E. Hicks, J. MacNamara, S. Novkovic, D. Rixon, and R. Simmons (eds). 2015. Co-operatives for Sustainable Communities: Tools to Measure Co-operative Impact and Performance. Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada and Centre for the Study of Co-operatives (University of Saskatchewan). Altona, MB: Friesens.

Gordon Nembhard, Jessica. 2014. Collective Courage:  A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Gordon Nembhard, Jessica. 2014. "Community Asset Building and Community Wealth."  Review of Black Political Economy Vol. 41 Issue 2 (June), pp. 101-117.

Gordon Nembhard, Jessica. 2013. "Community Development Credit Unions: Securing and Protecting Assets in Black Communities." Review of Black Political Economy  Vol. 40 Issue 4(December), pp. 459-490.

Gordon Nembhard, Jessica, and Mathew Forstater, guest editors. 2008. "Special Issue: Black Political Economy In The 21st Century:  Exploring the Interface of Economics and Black Studies." Journal of Black Studies Vol. 38  No. 5 (May).

Gordon Nembhard, Jessica, and Ngina Chiteji (eds). 2006. Wealth Accumulation in Communities of Color in the U.S.A.: Current Issues. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Gordon Nembhard, Jessica. 1996. Capital Control, Financial Regulation, and Industrial Policy in South Korea and Brazil.  Westport, CT:  Praeger Publishers, 1996.

Epstein, Gerald, Julie Graham, and Jessica Nembhard (eds.). 1993. Creating a New World Economy:  Forces of Change and Plans for Action.  Philadelphia:  Temple University Press.