Black Communities Have Known about Mutual Aid All Along

Making sure that voting systems are fair and accurate has become a major concern in the wake of rigging allegations in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Homomorphic encryption, now beginning to be used in the financial and healthcare industries, can anonymize voter data while creating a publicly available record that anyone can use to verify election results. The idea is being piloted in Travis County, Texas, the latest move in a push for more trustworthy voting systems.

Copenhagen is a highly livable city, thanks to policies that focus on making streets safe and convenient to walk. The bigger the city, the worse it is to design urban spaces only with cars in mind, says planner and architect Jan Gehl. His top advice is to gather data about people and their movements, making pedestrians as visible in city planning as automobile traffic.

Over two million baby boomers own their own companies, and with retirement looming, the government stepped in with a solution. A portion of a 2018 federal bill included language that will push the Small Business Administration to help baby boomers transition ownership of their companies to their employees if they wish. This will mitigate job loss often associated with a retiring business owner putting the company up for sale. Employee owners on average make a higher salary and have higher job stability, supporting the idea that employee ownership is beneficial for everyone involved, as well as for the econom

Around the world, people are putting out Little Free Libraries—a small birdhouse like box for people to take, leave, or swap books. These libraries have helped create easy access to book ownership and reading as well as community among neighbors.

The first Human Library emerged in 2000 in Copenhagen, and has since exploded in popularity to the point of operating chapters in more than 70 different countries. The concept is that readers should not judge a book by its cover, so in this library, actual people are the books available to read with titles like "Polyamorous", "Soldier (PTSD)", and "Refugee". The 30-minute "reading sessions" (face-to-face conversations) allow people to learn in a judgement-free zone and put a real person behind the story they are hearing.

Voting by mail will increase dramatically due to Covid-19 and drop boxes are one way to collect these ballots. Although fears of fraud have been unfounded, the GOP initiated lawsuits to block or limit drop boxes if they are not monitored so some states and districts place the boxes in government buildings and other places, such as libraries, that are staffed. While this slightly limits the hours that voters can drop off their ballots, it uses existing resources to provide supervision and increases voter confidence that their ballots will be received, especially among ongoing issues with the postal service.

In an effort to help get accurate information to the communities who are being disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, a program called Live Chair Health has started to train barbers "on chronic issues that disproportionately affect Black communities" and teach them "how to have conversations with their clients about the diseases." Aside from providing COVID-19 information, the initiative has helped patrons access primary care and address other medical issues such as high blood pressure.

Bronx shelters have teamed up with industry professionals to put together an after-school program offering students an opportunity to receive mentorship. In the program, which is based around video game-themed writing workshops, students are able to practice their writing skills, while being able to manage pandemic-induced isolation by connecting with other students and instructors.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, in which a white mob killed hundreds of Black residents and destroyed the thriving neighborhood of Greenwood, the Centennial Commission supported a number of initiatives to learn from the past and build a better future. At the base of an ancient elm tree that witnessed the massacre, Up With Trees distributed 100 elm seedlings to children to plant around Tulsa. The commission convinced state education officials to develop a new curriculum on the massacre for K-12 students.

The HIV/AIDS clinical trial network’s 30 sites have spent years building trust among historical marginalized communities so that more clinical trial participants come from communities of color. Educational outreach, awareness-raising efforts, and one-on-one conversations are among the strategies used to make the scientific process more transparent. The engagement model is upfront about abuses from the past and uses straightforward explanations with no medical jargon. Infectious disease experts are using the trust-building model to increase the racial diversity of participants in COVID-19 vaccine trials.