From Theory To Practice: How Return To The Source Is Building the Conditions for Transformative Change in the South

We envision a future where Black and working-class communities are self-sustaining, politically conscious, and actively dismantling oppressive systems while constructing cooperative, sovereign, and liberated alternatives. 

Return To The Source (RTS) is a worker-owned cooperative that grounds itself in the principles of collective care, equity, and justice, and strives to cultivate a culture of resistance and self-determination through education, strategic organization, and collective governance. Our vision extends beyond borders in solidarity with Indigenous, Latiné, and oppressed and working-class communities worldwide as we collectively fight for liberation and justice on a global scale. 

Founded by organizers who returned to the South with diverse backgrounds in labor, education justice, and food sovereignty, RTS serves as an incubator for a panorama of groups from artist collectives to labor and land justice initiatives, and curates space for political education, organizer training, and Black-led movement infrastructure.

 

Cooperative structures are rare in the South, and we didn’t want to fall into the non-profit industrial complex where the workers do the work, but the folks who have decision-making power do not. We wanted to have a grounded, cooperative model that allows members to hold power and decision-making to be able to make a quickly shifting agile organization that meets the needs of the moment. Co-ops are supposed to be communities, not entities that sit in communities and extract from them. The worker and the community member are the same folk relating to one another. For us, it’s really about creating nonextractive ways of being. 

Our approach is also rooted in deep collective study of political theory as we integrate the history of international and revolutionary movements into our praxis. The weapon of theory is indispensable when it comes to making change in our own communities and grounds us so we’re not just guessing or opportunistic. As Amílcar Cabral taught us, we must return to the source of theory when building our organizations, invest in collective study, planning, and learning from history, so we can build resilient and visionary movements. 

We began our incubation process in May with ten groups that completed the first phase – building the foundation necessary to create a functional organization with organizing skills that center on basebuilding, elevating leaders, and co-creating a collaborative mission and vision. We learned how to engage in generative conflict, provide constructive criticism, and bring others into our organizations in ways that are rooted in relationships, trust, and collective needs. Next year, we’ll move to the second phase with our groups and organize an in-person gathering to continue building together. We are honored to be in partnership with the Esther Cooper Jackson Book Study, baby mxma, Symbodied, The Core, Odinga Land, Odú Project, Hate Free Schools, Truth Village Farm, The Griot, and Psychology Warfare Family. 

Though our work is rooted in the U.S. South, we are committed to building international solidarity and breaking down the constructed national barriers through relationships of reciprocity in the Global South. The history of revolution and national strikes in places like Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, and Brazil were strategically excluded from our curricula in the U.S., so we are here to call this history back into our collective consciousness and engage in thought leadership with our international comrades. 

In the Fall of 2024, we launched our first outward-facing project by partnering with Witness for Peace and Symbodied to bring Deyanira Peña Carabalí on a speaking tour from Colombia to talk about Indigenous movements in Colombia and the way those movements have had an impact at the governmental level and democratization. Next year, we plan to have another speaking tour with former political prisoners and Black Panthers. By leaning into relationships we have with local organizations, it ensures our values are rooted in the community so we are not just raising money for hotels and cars. Rather, our tours are another extension of our base building work. We nourish local relationships that offer their homes for folks to sleep, potluck the food, promote the event, and have a direct hand (and stake) in the organizing of it. This way, we extend the folks we collaborate with a chance to explore their own capacity, commitment, and connection to the work. 

When it comes to our collective capacity and resourcing, we move as worker-owners. We know that martyrdom is a fascist tendency, and we cannot work our individual selves into the ground. That’s not how an organization works, it’s not the way to build power, and we can’t do it alone. In our co-op structure we also foster a culture of collective decision-making. This requires us to move at the pace of trust, sometimes slowly. It’s something beautiful we’ve been building as another resistance practice to the urgencies created by capitalism. 

Time, though, is not infinite nor is our present capacity. We still struggle with navigating capitalism, as most of our owner-members have to labor for pay outside of their work with RTS. We still need to figure out how to sustain our own liberation movements in ways that are not extractive. As Amílcar Cabral said, “Never has it been more certain that our victory depends principally on our own actions. Tell no lies, claim no easy victories.” We know this work is hard, and we know we need the collective us to do it. 

As a Black-led organization rooted in the traditions of Black radicalism and collective liberation, we are dedicated to building collective power through political education, organizing, and capacity building. We cultivate transformative movements that center Black liberation, preserve Black and Indigenous traditional wisdom, and advance a vision of self-determination and freedom that transcends borders through Culture, with a capital C. 

“We must act as if we answer to, and only answer to, our Ancestors, our children, and the unborn.” – Amílcar Cabral.

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