https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=618
Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy, and the Common Ground Collective
Author: Scott Crow • Forewords by Kathleen Cleaver and John P. Clark
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 9781604864533
Published: 8/2014
When both levees and governments failed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the anarchist-inspired Common Ground Collective was created to fill the void. With the motto of “Solidarity Not Charity,” they worked to create power from below—building autonomous projects, programs, and spaces of self-sufficiency like health clinics and neighborhood assemblies, while also supporting communities defending themselves from white militias and police brutality, illegal home demolitions, and evictions.
Black Flags and Windmills equal parts memoir, history, and organizing philosophy vividly intertwines Common Ground co-founder Scott Crow’s experiences and ideas with Katrina’s reality, illustrating how people can build local grassroots power for collective liberation. It is a story of resisting indifference, rebuilding hope amid collapse, and struggling against the grain to create better worlds
I read this and really enjoyed it. The timing couldn’t have been better. We need to get organised.