See below for examples of Mutual Aid from history. Click on the links to learn more.
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Kenmure Street protests
On 13th May 2021, two men were detained by the Home Office for alleged immigration violations. In response, people from various backgrounds and communities spontaneously came together to surround the […]
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UK COVID-19 mutual aid groups
Source: Freedom News, 19 December, 2021 In the early days of the pandemic, Freedom put out a call to found mutual aid groups for helping people struggling under lockdown, which went […]
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Occupy Sandy
Occupy Sandy was a grassroots relief effort that emerged in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which struck the northeastern United States in October 2012. This superstorm caused widespread devastation, particularly […]
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Hurricane Katrina and Common Ground Collective
After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, the government lost control of the city and left thousands of residents to fend for themselves. Dead body parts drifted through flooded […]
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Argentinian horizontalidad
In December 2001, a long-brewing economic crisis in Argentina matured into a run on the banks which precipitated a major popular rebellion. Argentina had been the poster child of neoliberal […]
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Anti-poll tax movement
Mutual aid played a pivotal role in the anti-poll tax movement in the United Kingdom during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The poll tax, officially known as the Community […]
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Women Against Pit Closures
In 1984, a yearlong strike was waged to save mining communities from the closure of pits. Miners’ union leader Arthur Scargill warned that at least 20 pits would be closed, which was […]
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The National Union of the Homeless (USA)
The National Union of the Homeless (NUH) was a grassroots organization in the United States that emerged in the 1980s. It was dedicated to advocating for the rights and needs […]
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The Young Lords
The Young Lords Party was born out of the disenfranchised Puerto Rican community in Chicago in 1968, and then El Barrio (East Harlem), New York City in 1969. From there, the […]
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The Black Panther Party
In 1968, the Black Panther Party introduced its free breakfast program, which within a year feed 20,000 in 19 cities. This was one of 65 “survival programs” created by the […]
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Dutch Provos
The Provos emerged in the early 1960s as a response to the conservative climate of post-war Netherlands. Fueled by a desire for social change, these young activists set out to […]
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Spanish Civil War Collectives
During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), anarchist and socialist groups in Republican-controlled areas established agricultural and industrial collectives. These collectives aimed to create a society based on mutual aid, self-management, […]
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Young Negroes’ Cooperative League
Founded in 1930 by the black Anarchist George Schuyler, the Young Negroes’ Cooperative League (YNCL) coordinated twenty-four African American-led consumer cooperatives and buying clubs across the so-called “United States.” The […]
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Shinmin autonomous region, 1929-31
From 1929 to 1931, two million Korean migrants ran an autonomous, Anarchist zone in Shinmin, a rural province in Manchuria (in China) across the border from Korea. Residents made decisions […]
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Free territories, 1918-21
Source: Roar Magazine When a significant part of the Ukraine was liberated by the anarchist Makhnovists in 1918, the region soon came to be ruled by confederation of worker unions, […]
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The Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a revolutionary polity of 2 million that ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It was established in the context of the Franco-Prussian War […]
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Black Reconstruction
Reconstruction-era African Americans created thousands of mutual aid groups, such as burial societies, debating clubs, drama societies, and trade associations.[34] The establishment of these groups constituted a form of direct action; […]
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Mutual Benefit Societies for freed African slaves
Mutual benefit societies were organizations that provided mutual aid for “free Africans and their descendants” which emerged after the abolition of slavery in the United States. These Mutual aid societies […]
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Parisian sections
From Janet Biehl, The Politics of Social Ecology: Libertarian Municipalism: In France, the Parisian sectional assemblies of 1793 were the most democratic and radical political institutions to emerge during the course […]
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The Diggers- 1649-’52
The Diggers were a group of English Protestant radicals who emerged during the English Revolution in the mid-17th century. The Diggers’ core belief was that the land should be a […]
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Indigenous Mutual Aid
Klee Benally, project coordinator at Indigenous Media Action, argues that mutual aid is an unbroken tradition among Indigenous people across many cycles of colonialism, maintained through traditional teachings that contemporary Indigenous mutual aid […]