Mutual Aid First

In the early twentieth century, many Black men in Montreal worked as sleeping-car porters, away from home for days at a time. In 1902, wives and daughters of these porters founded the Coloured Women's Club of Montreal. Anna Greenup, born in Ohio, was its co-founder and first president. According to Canada's History, the club was formed because white-led charities wouldn't help Black women in need.

The club welcomed and housed Boer War veterans, opened soup kitchens, gave out clothing, cared for the sick, advised single mothers, and helped the homeless and the unemployed in Saint-Henri and Saint-Antoine. It also offered scholarships to Black students and helped families buy burial plots. Its members helped found the Union Congregational Church, now Union United Church, the first major church of Montreal's Black community.

The Canadian Encyclopedia describes it as the first Black women's organization in Canada. More than a century later, its legacy has a name: since 1997, Quebec has awarded the Anne-Greenup Prize for Solidarity, and in 2004 the Habitations Anne-Greenup opened, with 26 social housing units. Mutual aid was not an add-on to the economy: it was the economy of those left outside. Even today, when public help is slow to come, it is often women who organize the common pot.