Samora Machel, Mozambique’s first president, explained this further, referring to the longstanding mutual aid traditions in rural areas that helped form the country’s civil society and facilitated solidarity-building with other anticolonial struggles elsewhere in Africa. “Solidarity is not an act of charity, but mutual aid between forces fighting for the same objective.”

Usually, mutual aid networks are also less formal than charity or government efforts. Everyone can offer whatever they have to give (groceries, cash, tools, help with yard work, etc.) and request whatever they need. The point is to build community and solidarity among people and meet practical needs.

The concept of mutual aid isn’t a new invention, but something built into the fabric of US history and culture. This heritage is likely part of why these networks have gained traction and been able to make a difference in the United States.

Klee Benally, project coordinator at Indigenous Action Media, views mutual aid as an outgrowth of many North American Indigenous groups’ traditional values and cultures that has outlasted many cycles of colonialism to resurface today. In many Black American communities, mutual aid practices go back to the days of enslavement, when extremely marginalized people found ways to set up networks to protect and support each other. This ethos of community support endured through segregation and the civil rights movement, when groups such as the Black Panthers assisted their communities with programs including free breakfasts for children, and remains today. Various immigrant groups also have long histories of helping each other become established in the United States through mutual aid.

In the United States’ early years as a nation, French writer and tourist Alexis de Tocqueville commented that Americans of all backgrounds tended to rise to challenges together through voluntary group efforts, without waiting for the government (or official nonprofits) to solve problems. When governments or other larger organizations were unwilling or unable to meet the needs of certain communities, people stepped in to help each other directly.

Our response to the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated this aspect of American culture. A survey by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy found that 68 percent of pandemic-era charitable giving bypassed the 501(c)(3) nonprofit framework entirely—flowing instead through informal networks, digital platforms, and mutual aid.

These aid networks, initially developed to respond to the pandemic and the public uprising after George Floyd’s murder, sprang back into action in Minneapolis to protect immigrants during recent ICE raids. Efforts such as Community Driven and the Community Aid Network collect donated food from neighborhoods, cafes, and stores and deliver it to those in need or those afraid to leave their homes for fear of arrest or deportation. Groups including We The Gente have recently connected immigrants with household items and legal assistance in addition to food, while Underdog Rescue has delivered pet food and Cielo Sin Limites (Sky Without Limits) assists with housing costs for those who lost income due to ICE raids. Other community-based protection efforts included hotlines for reporting ICE activity, groups who blew whistles when they saw ICE in the streets, large public protests, and restaurants on Minneapolis’s Lake Street that pivoted to offer food on a donation or pay-what-you-can model.

“What [the ICE raids] did was force us to talk to each other in the most basic sense, and get together as a community to develop these networks that we see really playing out today,” says Daniel Cueto-Villalobos, a Minneapolis doctoral student at the University of Minnesota studying race, religion, and social movements, in an interview with reporter Genna Ware on the podcast The Conversation.

Similar efforts took place in Los Angeles, coordinated by groups such as the Mutual Aid Los Angeles Network (MALAN), which distributes food and other essentials to immigrants in need and provides safety gear to protesters. Recently, hundreds of Dodgers fans gathered outside the stadium protesting possible ICE presence, motivating the team to pledge $1 million to aid families impacted by recent ICE arrests. In New Jersey, community members volunteered to provide legal assistance to immigrants and accompany them to court.

These efforts were not limited to large cities. In rural Maryland, community center workers helped immigrants secure proof of residency in the US and obtain driver’s licenses, and Indiana’s Coalition for Our Immigrant Neighbors (COIN) connects individuals and service providers who wish to come alongside and provide practical assistance for and show solidarity with the state’s immigrant and refugee communities.

While many people and organizations have stepped up to build community safety nets all around the US, mutual aid is no quick and easy solution to the problems American immigrants (or any other marginalized American group) face.

Organizing mutual aid and solidarity efforts for persecuted communities can involve personal risk, as we see from the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. These efforts can also be incredibly labor-intensive and exhausting, whether on the front lines or behind the scenes. COIN has created a flyer for those who wish to start mutual aid efforts among immigrant communities in their own areas, and it encourages would-be organizers to realistically consider what they can sustainably offer to their communities.

Mutual aid is often geared toward specific local areas, which can be good in that those helping out understand the situation on the ground, but limits the assistance available to those who live outside a particular geographic area. And many communities still face a lack of available resources, regardless of their solidarity and determination to help each other.

Given these realities, some mutual aid organizers view their efforts as part of a much larger strategy to advocate for justice, equity, and inclusion.

Allison Scott, the Campaign for Southern Equality’s interim executive director, noted that mutual aid was a key feature of the early days of the LGBTQIA+ movement: “It all began in our community, stepping up and taking care of each other when nobody else will. Before laws were being challenged, or anything else, that’s the first place we started—taking care of each other. Our movement is rooted in this, and this is a moment for us to go back to our roots. It’s a fundamental piece of who we are—we take care of our community first, and then we know we can all get to the bigger win together.”

Harm-reduction group VOCAL-NY, which works to lessen deaths from drug overdoses in New York City, puts it more bluntly. “We can’t build a movement if our people are dead,” said Jawanza Williams, VOCAL-NY’s organizing director. “So, simultaneously, we need to have direct services that are going to immediately mitigate or eliminate premature death.”