It is with deep sadness and shock that we inform you that David Cobb passed away yesterday.
David was a member of the RIPESS Board, co-coordinator of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network (USSEN) and staff with the People Land and Liberation Network (PLLN), as well as a committed friend and collaborator of RIPESS. Until the very last moment, he was actively contributing to the preparation of our movement gathering in New York on the social and solidarity economy, as well as the Resist and Build convening planned for October in Denver.
His loss is felt profoundly, both personally and politically. David brought exceptional clarity, constant generosity, strong strategic vision, and deep political commitment to every space he participated in. He helped us deepen our understanding of the solidarity economy as a democratic project, rooted in collective power, community self‑determination, racial and economic justice, Indigenous sovereignty, ecological responsibility, and resistance to corporate domination.
David’s work within PLLN connected community organizations across the United States around a shared commitment: to decommodify land and to restore an ancestral relationship with the Earth, communities, and future generations. His work combined community land trusts for affordable housing, cooperative commercial spaces, food production, community‑controlled regenerative agriculture, worker‑owned cooperative ecosystems, popular political education, and cultural work. David showed us how the solidarity economy is intrinsically linked to territorial justice, including the need to address historic land theft, corporate land grabbing and speculation, and to support Indigenous and Black communities who have suffered dispossession.
For David, land was not a commodity but a foundation of power, history, community, and liberation. His work connected territorial justice, food sovereignty, climate justice, racial justice, and economic democracy, always insisting that the communities most affected by dispossession and environmental harm must be at the center of decisions about land and development. He articulated a vision of democratic, cooperative, locally rooted systems capable of replacing extractive and exclusionary economic relations with solidarity, equity, sustainability, and shared power.
For RIPESS, this also means losing a comrade who was preparing to take on an even greater responsibility within our network, as a possible next intercontinental coordinator. We were looking forward to benefiting from his experience, political vision, and ability to build bridges across territories, movements, and generations. His absence will be deeply felt.
At this moment, we express our deepest condolences, solidarity, and affection to David’s family, his loved ones, his colleagues at USSEN, the member organizations of PLLN, and the many communities with whom he worked and struggled.
We must continue the work David believed in: building democratic, caring, and solidarity‑based economies; decommodifying land; strengthening community control; and advancing collective power from the ground up.
May his spirit fly high, far, and free!!
Onward to the world we deserve!
In solidarity,
Sandra Moreno,
RIPESS Intercontinental executive secretary
