Jonquilyn Hill

So the groups that I look at, I follow from 1890 to 1940.

And we see the numbers of mutual aid expand exponentially in this period, particularly before World War II.

And then we kind of see a weaning back of mutual aid once we have government institutions that are being implemented.

I think that takes away the need for some of the groups, but not all of them.

And so many of them persist.

After these early groups, where do we start to see mutual aid appear next?

We see mutual aid, I would say, the ideology of mutual aid being applied in many of the social movements that we see in the 50s and the 60s.

Particularly, I think one of the most popular examples would be that of the Black Panther Party.

The Black Panthers were not a mutual aid group, but they definitely practiced many of the ideals of mutual aid in terms of there was like a free ambulance program.

They had free clothing and shoes.

They provided a free breakfast program in schools for children.

And so we see many of the ideologies of mutual aid in, I would say, the social justice movements.

in the 1950s and 1960s and 70s and so on.

I think many of the more modern social justice movements have all had an aspect of mutual aid as part of them.

Are there differences in the way mutual aid functions now versus the way it functioned in the past?

I would say the major difference is the way in which the groups are connected.

So as opposed to being based on where you're from.

So even with the Chinese immigrant mutual aid groups, they were often biased.

based on ethnicity, right?

Where in China were your family members from?