Journal of Co-operative Studies, 59(2), 75-81
Mutual aid as lament
| Open access |  | Reflections on the Black co-operative imaginary (Editorial review) | Published online: November 2026 |
Mutual aid as lament
Irvin Hunt
University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, USA
Vol 59 No 2, pp. 75-81
Abstract
This essay considers the practice of black mutual aid as a form of mortuary politics. It examines a proposal for the creation of a 100-acre cemetery for the black dead that famed writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston sent to famed writer and activist W. E. B. Du Bois in 1945. The cemetery would function as a space for sanctuary, funerary ceremony, and artistic practice. Situating the letter within the history of black mutual aid societies, the essay argues that the interaction between the dead and the living, the purposeful and consequential role the dead play in the life of the living — in other words, mortuary politics — compels us to fundamentally rethink the defining features of mutual aid itself, from its temporality to the communities on which it focuses its care. The assistance in laying the dead to rest was the most important feature of black mutual aid societies since their founding in the early 1600s, and Hurston not only recalls this history of care and resistance, she invites us to reimagine its future.
How to cite this article: Hunt, I. (2026). Mutual aid as lament. Journal of Co-operative Studies, 59(2), 75-81. https://doi.org/10.61869/SPIH3783
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