#john zippert

 Sixth in a series about the Federation of Southern Cooperatives

When the group of 22 individuals signed on to the new Federation’s Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws in 1967, their first official act was to choose a leader. Charles Prejean, was an obvious choice. Because of his growing role in cooperative development in Louisiana, Charles Prejean had been invited to be present both at the Mt. Beulah meeting and at the birth of the Federation in Atlanta. Others who would become dynamos of the Southern Cooperative Movement were also in attendance, including John Zippert, Prejean’s sister Carol, Estelle Witherspoon, G. L. (Gonze) Twitty, and Lewis Black.

Charles Prejean in the 1970s, explaining the mission and purpose of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives.

Charles Prejean became an original signatory to the Articles of Incorporation and despite his relative youth—he was only 26 years old at time of the Federation’s formation—he was chosen by the other signatories to serve as the president of the newly formed Board of Directors. It was a prescient choice. Prejean would lead the organization—first as President, then as Executive Director—through its formative and spectacular growth years, as well as through some of its most difficult days. For the next 17 years, Prejean would be at the helm, securing federal grants from the OEO and other federal agencies, attracting substantive funding from leading foundations, and inviting churches and other charitable organizations to help aid the Federation’s social welfare mission.

The Federation’s Mission and Purpose

When Prejean and others drafted the Federations Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws, they spent a substantial time determining the newly forming organization’s purpose statement, what we would now call its mission. The 34 long lines of text—presented as a single sentence—provide a short course in cooperative development. Some excerpts follow.

The purpose for which the Federation is organized are:

for primary and mutual benefit of patrons of the association as ultimate consumers;

to promote region-wide programs and institutions for the training of persons interested in the formation and development of all types of cooperatives;

to act as a clearing house and data bank of information relating to the different types of cooperatives;

to make technical and financial resources available to existing cooperatives and to persons wishing to organize a cooperative or association of cooperatives; 

to aid cooperatives in ascertaining alternative means of supply and distribution;

to engage in research relevant to economic development or cooperative expansion;

to serve as a clearing house for potential resources, financial assistance and technical help for cooperatives;

to promote the organization of state associations of cooperatives;

to assist, defend and protect the cooperative movement;

to engage in any activity in connection with the marketing or selling of agricultural or manufactured products of its members;

to finance by loan, grant or purchase any of the aforementioned activities.

 Clearly the drafters were thinking big, expecting their small group of originating cooperatives to expand in scope while also assuming that the concept of agricultural and handicraft cooperatives and credit unions would catch on as a way for low-income farmers and rural people to create their own institutions, improve their economic situations, and provide meaningful employment for themselves and their communities. It was a revolutionary concept that shattered the stereotype of the shiftless Southern Black agricultural worker who needed an overseer to ensure that any work got done. Here, those very people were taking their destinies into their own hands, working cooperatively for a better future, and inspiring others to do the same.

A caucus of members meet to discuss policy direction for their cooperative at a Federation annual meeting in the 1970s.

The incorporators’ grand vision paid off. In 1968, OEO came through with its first grant of nearly $600,000. “That really was the take-off point for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives,” Prejean would later say. Within a year, the Federation’s membership base had more than doubled, with 45 member-cooperatives, serving about 10,000 low-income families. By the end of 1971, that number had jumped to 110 cooperative members—exactly five times the number of initial incorporators—serving approximately 30,000 families.

A Funding Source to Support Struggling Co-ops

One issue that Prejean identified early in his tenure was the fact that much of the federal and foundation funding was directed for specific initiatives or earmarked for only certain types of cooperative development support, like providing technical advice or training. There were no funds to assist financially struggling cooperatives meet their bottom lines. “The response to the Federation has been great,” he wrote to Leslie Dunbar, former head of the Southern Regional Council who was by now running the Field Foundation, “but I am beginning to become frustrated because we have resources to help with so few of the problems of cooperatives.”

The logo of Southern Regional Council–a 1940s civil rights organization that helped organize the Federation of Southern Cooperatives.

The solution was to create a revolving funding mechanism that would enable co-ops to get grants or loans directly from their own institution rather than having to attempt to obtain loans from banks or other established financial institutions unlikely to loan funds to an organization run by low-income people. In January 1969, the OEO provided a $500,000 grant to the Federation to establish the fund, which became the Southern Cooperative Development Fund (SCDF). At Prejean’s recommendation, the Federation board recruited Father McKnight to become the director of the new entity. The Federation had authority to appoint a majority of the board members to oversee the fund’s operations. Within a few years, SCDF had made loans totaling almost $3 million to Federation member-cooperatives for various operational improvements. Additionally, thanks to grants from the federal government and various foundations, SCDF’s assets had grown to nearly $8 million Thus, SCDF became the financier of the burgeoning Southern cooperative movement, while the Federation provided on-site consulting services as well as some limited grant assistance to ensure its member-cooperatives’ success.

How it All Worked

In the 1971 annual report, Prejean provided a number of success stories from the Federation’s various enterprises. These vignettes offer a glimpse into the fledgling Federation’s scope and impact: 

At Grand Marie Co-op, Sunset, Louisiana, the co-op completed its fifth season (1970-71 crop) in April with a small operating profit of $1,800—the first time the co-op was able to complete a season with profit. This was achieved on a sales volume of a quarter of a million dollars, 55,000 bushels shipped. The success would have been impossible without a loan of $96,000 from the Southern Cooperative Development Fund and the technical assistance and training inputs of the Federation.

In the spring of 1971, with the assistance of the Federation’s Marketing Specialist and a field consultant, the Sea Island Farmers Co-op, Frogmore, South Carolina, was able to market over $80,000 in tomatoes for 45 members at a net operating profit of $13,000. This year marked the first time [that] members stayed together to make a truly cooperative effort to market their crop. Farmers received an average of $2.62 a bushel for their tomatoes, which is more than in past seasons. They are expecting a small patronage refund while re-investing the remainder of their surplus in new facilities to improve efficiency. 

At Miss-Lou Farmers Co-op, operating in the four southwest Mississippi counties and two Louisiana parishes, the co-op had sales of cucumbers and peppers in 1970 of $63,425. This was a 176% increase over the 1969 crop of $23,000. Over the past four seasons of its existence, the co-op has consistently fought for higher prices for its members. For the period from 1967-1971, the co-op raised the price per hundred pounds paid to the farmers for cucumbers by $0.95 or 35.6% in comparison to its competitor’s prices. On an average yield of 7,000 lbs. per acre, this is an increase of $66.50 per acre to growers. On peppers, the co-op has caused the price to increase from 6.5¢ in 1969 to 8.5¢ in 1971, an increase of 23.4% over the past three years. This year as a result of [the Federation’s] membership training sessions, members in two communities purchased their own cucumber grading machines to increase their flexibility and advantage in marketing.

These brief glimpses into the operations of such modest cooperative enterprises demonstrate the power of the Federation’s involvement. By providing training, advice on marketing, crop selection, and cooperative governance, the Federation was able to smooth out some of the rough patches that each cooperative had experienced and help move the co-ops for the first time to profitability. It is also apparent that by combining the output of various individual farms (as in the Sea Island and Miss-Lou examples), the local co-op was able to force the price point for the products to a higher level, putting more money into the individual farmers’ pockets while also generating a margin for the cooperative.

 The Federation also played a critical role in advising co-ops on just how the cooperative enterprise was supposed to work: the role of the Board of Directors in the setting of policy; the role of the co-op manager in day-to-day operations; the importance of the one-member/one-vote democratic governance structure. Federation staff also served as sounding boards for inevitable disagreements that would arise about these finer points of cooperative operations.

Charles Prejean (second from right), along with Federation staff members John Zippert (sunglasses) and Ralph Paige (right) visit with local farmers to discuss their needs. 

By 1971, the Federation was receiving praise from important boosters. At its annual meeting that year, the American Institute for Cooperatives hosted CLUSA’s recently retired president and former U.S. Congressman Jerry Voorhis, who honored the Federation for “doing a job of outstanding importance” for the rural poor. Also that year, the Field Foundation’s Dunbar wrote Prejean to say that “all of us at Field are greatly impressed by what the Federation has accomplished.”

 It is instructive to note that of the 110 members in 1971, 25 of them were credit unions with a combined asset total of more than half a million dollars. That year, more than 2,500 loans had been made to their low-income members. This was micro-lending before the term had been coined, and it is a testament to both McKnight’s and Prejean’s vision that they had the foresight to understand that even small loans could make a big difference in the lives of low-income people with limited access to traditional funding sources.

 Fourth in a Series on the Federation of Southern Cooperatives

Every movement has its poet, its chronicler, it’s creative voice. For the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, that voice—for its entire 50 years—has been Carol Prejean Zippert. As a young girl, Carol became enthralled with Father McKnight and his organizing for black economic empowerment. She and her brother, Charles (who would become the Federation’s first Executive Director), were present when the Federation was incorporated. And she would be part of the Federation’s fabric for its entire first 50 years—and is still active in the organization’s life and work. [She now serves as President of the Friends of Greene County Employees Federal Credit Union, a Federation member.] 

Carol Prejean Zippert in the 1980s, about the time she began writing poetry for and about the Federation of Southern Cooperatives.

 At some point in the 1980s, Carol began writing poetry, some of it focused on the Federation and its work. Her poems became regular features in the Federation’s annual reports and she would be a welcome speaker at the co-op’s annual meeting, reading her most recent creation to an enthralled membership. 

Included below is the poem we chose to lead off the 50th anniversary commemorative book: One Day We Created a New Family. It perfectly summarizes the why and the how behind the Federation’s long and storied history. Following the poem is a brief biographical sketch of Carol and her husband of more than 50 years, activist and long-time Federation employee John Zippert. Be inspired!

 One Day We Created A New Family 

By Carol Prejean Zippert

 One day when we needed

new birth to help us discover

our history, live our culture

and pursue our justice,

we created a new family.

 One day when we needed

to reclaim our dignity and respect,

when we needed to lift our heads

and open our eyes and minds,

we created a new family.

 One day when we needed

to find our sisters and brothers

in struggle and form a bond

for our mutual survival

we created a new family.

 One day when we needed

to save our children

to extend their lives and learnings,

when we needed to prepare them

        as community-directed leaders,

we created a new family.

 One day when we needed

to rediscover God’s earth

and all its gifts, to appreciate the soil,

waters, all living creatures and resources,

we created a new family.

 One day when we needed

to save our land, build our houses,

provide for our healthcare,

secure our right to vote,

and assert our political leadership,

we created a new family.

 One day when we needed

to form a more responsive society,

when we needed to secure more

loving communities,

we created a new family.

 One day when we needed

a new family

for ourselves and for our children,

for our communities and for our nation,

One day when we needed to celebrate God’s world

We created a new family,

We created the Federation –

the FSC family.

 One day we needed

a new family. 

©2017 Carol Prejean Zippert 

Carol’s two volumes of poetry, I Don’t Want to Be Rich, Just Able and Meeting Myself ‘Round the Corner, both published by NewSouth Books (Montgomery, AL) can be ordered by writing to her at  P.O. Box 82, Eutaw, Alabama 35462.

 John and Carol (Prejean) Zippert 

John and Carol met while working in the civil rights and cooperative movement in southwest Louisiana. John was a volunteer and later field staff with the Congress of Racial Equality in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. John was working on registering minority voters, integrating public accommodations and helping sweet potato and vegetable farmers to develop a cooperative to market their produce. 

Carol was working with the Southern Consumers Cooperative while attending the University of Southwest Louisiana. She participated in a special program to study cooperatives and credit unions nationally and internationally in Canada and Turkey. 

When John and Carol decided to get married in 1967, they had to sue the State of Louisiana to remove its miscegenation statute to allow them to get a marriage license. Partners in both life and the pursuit for racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, John and Carol (Prejean) Zippert continue to embody the principles and priorities of the two movements that shaped their lives—the civil rights movement and the cooperative movement.

Rev. A. J. McKnight after officiating at the marriage of John Zippert and Carol Prejean--the first such marriage in the state of Louisiana after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that bans on interracial marriage were illegal.

 Father A. J. McKnight first kindled the couple’s passion and commitment to the cooperative movement. The same year they were married, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives was chartered. John and Carol were involved as community organizers with the cooperatives and credit unions and participated in the meetings that resulted in the formation of the Federation. John and Carol’s lives progressed in parallel with the mission of the Federation and the growth of the cooperative movement in the South.

 For nearly five decades, John has worked for the Federation. For the past quarter century, he has served as the Director of Program Operations for the Federation at its Rural Training and Research Center in Epes, Alabama, where he has promoted cooperative economic development for low-income and minority people in ten Southeastern United States. In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, John expanded the Training Center’s reach to include relief work, enlisting cooperatives to help individuals, families, and other co-ops to recover and rebuild along the Gulf Coast.

 John Zippert speaking on behalf of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives in the 1980s.

 During his career at the Federation, John has trained staff, mentored countless young people and designed programs to further sustainable small farming and cooperative development. The Federation honored John’s dedication with its Staff Award in 1977, 1978 and 1996. 

John serves on the board of numerous state and national organizations, including the Rural Coalition, Rural Development Leadership Network, Alabama New South Coalition, Alabama Black Belt Commission, and others. John has been involved in advocacy and public policy development for family farmers, as well as for rural and cooperative development. He also assisted hundreds of African-American farmers in filing successful claims in the Pigford Class Action discrimination lawsuits.

John and Carol in the late 1960s.

 In 1985, Carol earned her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership, Supervision, and Curriculum Development from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. As a self-described “community worker,” she dedicated five decades to building leadership and developing co-ops with the Federation—where she continues to volunteer—as well as supporting grassroots community groups in their work to achieve social transformation. Carol has served as an adjunct research professor and resource specialist for Tuskegee University’s Community-Based Youth Partnerships. She has been involved with the 21st Century Youth Leadership movement since its inception in 1986 and continues to serve on its board.

 Carol Prejean Zippert (center) serves as president of Friends of Greene County Employees Federal Credit Union. She is standing in front of the credit union’s new headquarters on the Eutaw (AL) town square with manager Joyce Pham (l) and accounting clerk Kiera Epps (r).

 Carol is also president and founder of the Federation of Greene Country Employees (FOGCE) Federal Credit Union. Under her leadership, low-income people of one of the poorest counties in the U.S. built a credit union that has accumulated more than $1.4 million in assets. In addition, Carol’s poetry and leadership in cultural organizations such as the Black Belt Community Foundation and the Greene County Society for Folk Arts and Culture strengthen connections and trust among people, their co-ops, and their communities. 

Since 1985, John and Carol have together published the Greene County Democrat Newspaper, a weekly publication to inform and educate their primarily African-American community.

John and Carol Zippert (center) at the Co-op Hall of Fame induction ceremony in May 2017 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

In 2017, the couple was inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame, the highest honor awarded to cooperative activists, sponsored by the Cooperative Development Foundation and the National Cooperative Business Association.