Federation of Southern Cooperatives
Federation of Southern Cooperatives is based in Atlanta Georgia and Epes Alabama. Carol Prejean Zippert was a founding member.
Personnel
- Shirley Blakely Board President
- Cornelius Blanding Executive Director
Board of Directors
- President Shirley Blakley MISSISSIPPI
- Vice-President Daniel Bustamante TEXAS
- Treasurer Carrie Fulghum ALABAMA
- Secretary Satina James GEORGIA
- Johnny Culbreath SOUTH CAROLINA
- Raymond Olds FLORIDA
STAFF ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF• ATLANTA, GA
- Cornelius Blanding, Executive Director
- Cornel Crawford, Finance Director
- Eboni Thomas, Executive Assistant
- Monica Rainge Director, Land Retention & Advocacy
- Donna DeCaille Director, Communications & Member Relations
- Briar Blakley, Communications & Outreach Specialist
- Terence Courtney Director, Co-op Development & Strategic Partnership
- Gordon Drennan Internal Auditor
- Mark Hardy Accounting Clerk
- Erika Shealey Administrative Assistant
GEORGIA STATE OFFICE • ALBANY, GA
- Cornelius Key, State Coordinator
- Lisha Brown, Outreach Specialist
- Marquis Harris, Outreach Specialist
- Cornetta Williams, Administrative Assistant
- Jamaica Allen, Land Retention Specialist
- Tambra Griffins, Cooperative Development Specialist
RURAL TRAINING & RESEARCH CENTER • EPES, AL
- Freddie Davis III, Director- RTRC
- Pamela Madzima, State Association of Cooperatives Coordinator
- Tiajuana Parker, Administrative Assistant to Director
- Audrey Haskin, Program & Training Coordinator
- Jamestican Parham, Forestry Outreach Specialist
LOUISIANA STATE OFFICE
- Bruce Harrell, Outreach Specialist
MISSISSIPPI STATE OFFICE • JACKSON, MS
- Ben Burkett, State Coordinator
- Myra Bryant, Director of Mississippi Center for Co-op Development,
- Joe Barnes, Outreach Specialist
- Darnella Winston, Co-op Development Specialist,
- Kimberly Crisler, Field Accountant
- Savannah Jackson-Hales, Co-op Development Specialist,
- Lytanya Brown, MS Agriculture Mediation Director,
- Maya Crooks, PHMS Specialist,
- Tremelle Sherman, Outreach Specialist [1]
Tractors for Cuba
Tractors for Cuba with Ed Whitfield.
Maoist friends
Ed Whitfield August 18, 2016 ·
See, I can clean up once a year. With Nikki Marin Baena, Nikki loan officer for the Southern Reparations Loan Fund at the Federation of Southern Cooperatives Annual Banquet in Birmingham Alabama.
— with Nikki Marin Baena.
Zippert
John Zippert is the Director of Program Operations for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund at their Rural Training and Research Center in Epes, Alabama. He has over 45 years experience in community organizing, cooperative and credit union development, community based economic development and rural development in distressed communities. Prior to working for the Federation, he was a fieldworker for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in Louisiana. He has a BA degree in history from the City College of New York; and has participated in numerous training sessions and courses to enhance his skills in rural development.
Zippert has worked with the Federation on the development of affordable housing for low income people in Alabama, including development, loan packaging and construction of over 250 units of single family housing, self-help housing and four rural multi-family projects with 126 units.
Heather Gray
In 2004, Heather Gray, communications director for the Georgia-based Federation of Southern Cooperatives, was interviewed by Sue Webb of the People's World.
- “It’s not just a legacy of discrimination, it’s still very real.” A lot of the same people who have violated African Americans’ rights in the past are still sitting in Farm Service offices, she told the World. “I’ve had guys crying in my office,” over the humiliation they have experienced at the hands of racist government officials. She tied these farmers’ struggles to the struggle over voting rights that is once again being waged in the presidential elections. “It took so long to get voting rights in the South,” she said. “We never knew we were going to have to work so hard to get our votes counted.” [2]
Welcoming Doug Jones
Federation of Southern Cooperatives November 1, 2018 ·
Sen Jones addressing the crowd — in Mount Hebron, Alabama. Doug Jones with John Zippert.
Political friends
Eleanor Holmes Norton and Terri Sewell with Federation of Southern Cooperatives October 2014.
Jackson Rising connection
Jackson Rising Conference was held in Jackson, Mississippi May 2-4, 2014.
Opening plenary: John Zippert, Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Ed Whitfield, Kali Akuno.
When the hundreds of registered participants poured into the huge hall Friday evening and saw it filling up, one could sense the excitement and rising spirit of solidarity amidst diversity. The opening plenary keynote speakers included Jessica Gordon-Nembhard of the US Solidarity Economy Network (SEN), Wendell Paris of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives (FSC) Land Assistance fund, Cornelius Blanding, Special Projects Director of the FSC, Ed Whitfield of the Southern Grassroots Economies Project based in North Carolina, and Kali Akuno of Jackson’s MXGM.
Gordon-Nembhard started off. A professor at John Jay College in New York, she recently published Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, a groundbreaking study on the topic.
Line of March
John Zippert and Carol Zippert were profiled for their work with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives in Frontline, August 31, 1987.
NAARPR
The national National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression Endorsers list for November, 1982 included Federation of Southern Cooperatives.