Solidarity Not Charity: Mutual Aid for Mobilization & Survival

November 13 | 3-5pm | NEW LOCATION: Resource Center for Nonviolence

Widespread, effective social movements usually include mutual aid strategies that directly address conditions faced by targeted people, such as providing housing, food, healthcare and transportation.  Examples include the Black Panther Party's Free Breakfast Program, the Young Lords' hijacking of New York's tuberculosis testing mobile unit to high-risk, medically neglected neighborhoods, and feminist organizing to provide underground abortions in the 1970s. This talk will look at why mutual aid is an important part of building participatory movements, and how it intentionally departs from charity frameworks.

Dean Spade is a lawyer, writer, trans activist and an Associate Professor at Seattle University School of Law, where he teaches Administrative Law, Poverty Law, Gender and Law, Policing and Imprisonment, and Law and Social Movements.

Artwork by Seth Tobocman.