Popular education is about motivating people to act. The Cooperative New School for Urban Studies and Environmental Justice is proud to announce the creation of The Automotive Free Clinic, a mutual aid and popular education liberation shop. In January of 2020, The CNS launch it's inaugural Redneck Studies class, which looks at white, working class history from a leftist perspective. The class included a farmer, an artisanal jewelry maker, a translator, and a piercer.
Three of these, including CNS student-owner, Josh Stewart, and faculty member, Dr. Zac Henson, who is also an Automotive Service Excellence certified auto technician, formed the Automotive Free Clinic, which opens on May 8, 2020. Community members receive service from the shop on a pay-what-you-can basis for labor and they must provide any parts needed. The shop is a mobile shop so we service people's vehicles on site. The strategy is modeled after the Original Rainbow Coalition and The Black Panthers. We provide a service to the community and organize them through that service.
Particularly important to our historical rooting is the Young Patriots, a white working class organization that was a part of the Original Rainbow Coalition, which also included The Black Panthers and the Puerto Rican organization, the Young Lords. It was one of the only examples of a multiracial working class coalition in American history. Like the Young Patriots, The AFC is a white working class organization, a redneck organization, in coalition with a number of other organizations throughout Alabama.
If you would like to donate, there are two options: GoFundMe for one time donations and Patreon for more consistent support.
