Mutual-aid groups spread in covid-stricken America

For Maurice Cook, a community organiser in Washington, DC, the covid-19 pandemic has brought mostly the worst of times—but in some ways the best.

The poor black neighbourhoods where the burly Washingtonian has spent 20 years trying to improve educational opportunity are among the most ravaged in the country. Plagued by generations of poverty and ill-health, black residents of the capital city have succumbed to the virus at six times the rate of whites. And with government-support programmes running dry, even as many of Washington’s restaurants and other businesses remain...