Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy, and the Common Ground Collective, Second Edition by scott crow

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Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy, and the Common Ground Collective, Second Edition by scott crow

First edition named one of the “Top 5 Reads" by the Progressive

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 cofounder 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.

The expanded second edition includes up-to-date interviews and discussions between crow and some of today’s most articulate and influential activists and organizers on topics ranging from grassroots disaster relief efforts (both economic and environmental); dealing with infiltration, interrogation, and surveillance from the State; and a new photo section that vividly portrays scott’s experiences as an anarchist, activist, and movement organizer in today’s world.

Praise:

“scott crow’s trenchant memoir of grassroots organizing is an important contribution to a history of movements that far too often goes untold.”
—Amy Goodman, host and executive producer of Democracy Now!

“This revised and expanded edition weaves scott crow’s frontline experiences with a resilient, honest discussion of grassroots political movement-building.”
—Will Potter, author of Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege

“It is a brilliant, detailed, and humble book written with total frankness and at the same time a revolutionary poet’s passion. It makes the reader feel that we too, with our emergency heart as our guide, can do anything; we only need to begin.”
—Marina Sitrin, author of Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina

“This book is a key document in that real and a remarkable story of an activist’s personal and philosophical evolution.”
—Rebecca Solnit, author of A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster

“This is a compelling tale for our times.”
—Bill Ayers,author of Fugitive Days

“The story of the Common Ground Collective is that of one of the greatest triumphs of democratic self-organization in American history.”
—David Graeber, author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years

“Can anarchism actually work? Yes, as a matter of fact. scott crow’s lucid first-hand account is a story that simply must be told. This book should be read as widely as possible.”
—Ward Churchill, author of Wielding Words like Weapons

“…crow is a puppetmaster involved in direct action.”
—Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

Includes unlimited streaming of Demos & Early Trax 1986-1988 (extended) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.