Gonze Lee Twitty

Inducted: 1991

Gonze Lee Twitty has been active for more than four decades in promoting the cooperative movement among black and poor people in the South. Starting in the civil rights movement, Twitty helped to organize several cooperatives in South Carolina. He was a founder of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives in 1967, as well as the Southern Cooperative Development Fund.

Twitty has provided insightful guidance and leadership to cooperative development nationwide, as well as in the South. He has served continuously since 1967 on the Federation's Board of Directors and has been Board Chair of the Southern Cooperative Development Fund. His contributions on the national level include serving as director of both the National Cooperative Business Association and the National Cooperative Bank Development Corporation, and chairman of the National Congress for Community Economic Development. Twitty, in his many years of cooperative service, has brought hope and help to the many people whose lives he has touched.