What Old-School Grassroots Organizing Can Teach Us Right Now

When people get together to help each other, it works

Volunteers at the Grace Food Pantry hand out cheese, meats, pastries, vegetables and other goods to over a thousand people who line up and wait their turn to get food during the Covid-19 crisis in Everett, Massachusetts on March 20, 2020. Photo: Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images

Today, as the Covid-19 crisis ramps up, communities are mobilizing to serve and support one another. This is good news, because when people get together at the grassroots level, it works. It works because it’s intended to work. Generally, collective action is motivated not…