A number of mutual aid projects have sprung up in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to provide aid to residents who remain in the storm-ravaged areas of Louisiana and Mississippi and have been largely ignored by local and federal assistance programs.

Food Not Bombs (FNB), a loose-knit network of activists working to feed hungry people in cities across the United States (including Grand Rapids), has undertaken an extensive effort to provide food and other assistance to people in the region. Whereas many charities have been intimidated by FEMA and the military and have not entered the city of New Orleans, FNB has defied the military and is working openly to feed and assist residents. FNB has recently opened a community center in New Orleans and is providing two public meals per day as well as delivering meals to residents who were unable to evacuate the city. Additionally, FNB volunteers have been delivering food and supplies to rural areas outside of New Orleans and are focusing on providing food to areas that have been largely ignored since the storm passed through.

Volunteers have also setup a community-run organization called Common Ground that is offering a variety of services to the citizens of New Orleans and the surrounding area in the spirit of mutual aid. The assistance, all offered free of charge, includes medical and legal help. Activists and medics with the Bay Area Radical Health Collective have been instrumental to this effort with many of its members traveling to New Orleans to provide services to Katrina-affected residents.

While not identified explicitly with anarchism, these mutual aid projects showcase one of the key tenets of anarchism, mutual aid. Mutual aid essentially means that people have a basic respect for each other and a willingness to provide whatever skills or assistance they can to benefit the overall community. This notion, which has frequently been forgotten amidst the historical portrayal of anarchism as primarily being a simple “anti-government” philosophy used to justify bombings and the primary contemporary identification of anarchism with militant street protests, could be emphasized in order to encourage more constructive action within the anarchist community.

For more on these efforts and up-to-date reporting on what is happening on the ground in New Orleans, visit the blog “Real Reports of Katrina Relief.”