The Radical Yes

This essay describes how local anti-racist activists in Charlottesville created the Resilience Fund, a mutual aid project that disbursed money to individuals navigating the criminal legal system and the effects of structural white supremacy. The Resilience Fund came to be through interrelated racial justice struggles over jails, courts, public housing and urban planning, and Confederate monuments. Although #Charlottesville became national news in response to the overt white nationalist violence of the Unite the Right rally in 2017, this essay sheds light on the mundane tasks and everyday practice of fighting the structures of white supremacy and anti-Black racism as they manifest locally. It closes with a conversation among four members of the Resilience Fund, who reflect on the spirit of the project and the sensibilities that made the work possible.

Conversation · Criminology · Economic Justice · Mutual aid · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Racism · Resilience (materials science) · Sociology · White (mutation) · White supremacy · Gender Studies · Law · Public Administration · Race, History, and American Society · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies