Mutual Aid in Alabama

Plenty of coverage on conservative politics in the South, but mutual aid programs quietly hum along:

Because of the culture of Alabama, the project is not explicit about its leftist politics and doesn’t do much in the way of conventional political organizing, allowing it to engage with and retain volunteers from a wide spectrum of ideologies, including unrepentant Trump supporters. But, quietly, for some of its volunteers, the AFC is a chance to turn theory into reality. When people ask Henson about his communist ideas, he just points to the shop.

The Alabama contingent was also tapping into a long history of communism in the South, which started, Bolton pointed out, among yeoman farmers, for whom an ad hoc communism was a way of life centered on the harvest, with everyone pitching in to bring in the season’s produce.

The South has been exoticized by movies like Deliverance, and when a liberal journalist drops into Alabama to, say, interview someone about Barack Obama, the writer always seems to choose a racist roofer in a Walmart parking lot. It works to confirm an outsider’s perspective that the working class in the South is not worth the effort.

Where the Sidewalk Ends - Lux Magazine

Meet the rednecks running a mutual aid auto repair shop in Alabama.

lux-magazine.com