Why Your Neighbors Matter More Than Your Government

When government systems fail, who catches you when you fall? In Minneapolis, volunteers at Dios Habla Hoy church spend their weekends preparing food packages for immigrants facing deportation raids. In Philadelphia, neighbors pool money for a family whose breadwinner got injured. In Oakland, residents organize free clothing exchanges for anyone who needs them.

This isn't charity. It's mutual aid—and it's as old as humanity itself.

The Forgotten History of Taking Care of Each Other

Tyesha Maddox, a Fordham University professor who studies mutual aid history, traces these practices back to early immigrant communities in America. But the roots go deeper. "Caribbean societies followed a mutual aid ideology that they inherited from groups in West Africa," she explains.

The term itself comes from 1800s anarchist Peter Kropotkin, who defined mutual aid as "an egalitarian, self-directed project" where people take responsibility for themselves when government institutions fall short.

In 19th century America, this wasn't theory—it was survival. Free Black communities in the North created schools for formerly enslaved people. Chinese immigrants in San Francisco formed worker compensation funds decades before official workers' comp existed. Jewish communities in New York established rotating credit circles called "susu" in Caribbean communities—everyone contributed money, and members took turns accessing larger sums for rent, mortgages, or emergencies.

These weren't just financial arrangements. They were lifelines for people navigating a new country, often alone.

From Black Panthers to Pandemic Neighbors

Mutual aid didn't disappear when government programs expanded in the 20th century—it evolved. The Black Panther Party wasn't technically a mutual aid organization, but they embodied its principles: free breakfast programs for children, legal aid education, even ambulance services for communities the system ignored.

Some of the Caribbean mutual aid societies Maddox studied from the 1920s still exist today, nearly a century later. They've outlasted multiple economic crashes, wars, and political upheavals.

Then came 2020. When COVID-19 hit and government response stumbled, neighbors stepped up. Food drives, prescription deliveries, childcare networks—all organized through social media and sustained by the same principle that drove 19th century immigrant communities: we take care of our own.

The New Geography of Care

Today's mutual aid looks different from its historical predecessors. Instead of organizing around shared ethnicity or country of origin, modern groups form around neighborhoods and immediate geography. A Brooklyn mutual aid network might include families from Honduras, Bangladesh, and Kentucky—united not by heritage but by zip code.

The tools have changed too. Where earlier generations relied on face-to-face meetings and handwritten ledgers, today's organizers coordinate through WhatsApp groups and Venmo transfers. But the underlying logic remains unchanged: when institutions fail, communities fill the gaps.

Maddox sees this shift as both practical and philosophical. "There is this sense that no one is going to save us but ourselves," she observes. Recent reductions in FEMA assistance and other government support have pushed more communities toward self-reliance.

When the System Becomes the Problem

The current surge in mutual aid reveals something uncomfortable about modern society. If communities are increasingly taking care of themselves, what does that say about our institutions?

For immigrant communities facing deportation raids, mutual aid isn't just about food packages—it's about walking children to school when parents are afraid to leave the house. It's about creating networks of care that operate outside official channels, sometimes necessarily so.

This creates a tension. Mutual aid can be a powerful force for community resilience, but it can also become a substitute for systemic change. When neighbors organize food drives instead of demanding living wages, when communities provide healthcare instead of fighting for universal coverage, mutual aid might inadvertently let failing systems off the hook.