This is the third installment of our Anarchists in the Tenant Movement series. You can find the first installment here and the second here . The interview below was conducted with an organizer named Mario, involved in a tenant union in the US Southeast. We’ve concealed Mario’s specific location at his request.

Like our other series Anarchists in the Labor Movement , these interviews aim to capture insights and perspectives from anarchists who are active in tenant organizing. Some of those we speak to are organizing through established tenant unions, others are building new unions, while others still are launching initial campaigns without a formal union yet.

For Black Rose / Rosa Negra (BRRN), mass organizations like tenant unions play a central role in our strategy . It’s through these kinds of organizations that people create and apply their collective leverage against structures that dominate and exploit us, such as landlordism and private property. By engaging consistently in everyday campaigns members of mass organizations grow their collective confidence and power, enabling them to take on ever bigger fights and ultimately to challenge the very existence of these dominating structures.

In part, the aim of this series is simply to shine a spotlight on the presence of anarchist militants in the U.S. tenant movement. More substantively, we ask participants to critically reflect on their experiences, including both successes and failures, to draw out generalizable lessons.

Most, but not all of those interviewed in this series are members of BRRN.

Answers have been edited for clarity and length.

Mario – Tenant Organizer in the Southeast

Black Rose/Rosa Negra (BRRN): How would you summarize your political beliefs in one sentence?

Mario: I want all people to have autonomy, self determination, and the opportunity to reach their full potential, and I think that’s only achievable through a collective liberation from capitalism, the state, and the social hierarchy that props them up. One sentence is tough!

BRRN: Prior to tenant organizing, did you have any other organizing experience?

Mario: I had done some political activism but nothing that involved convincing people who weren’t already interested in the project to take action or organize together. I started from the direction of organizing for the advancement of black people, mainly with education and things like voter registration drives. I participated in the George Floyd uprisings, and got into anti-policing efforts after that. I also did some mutual aid work, or what’s commonly known as mutual aid (but feels mostly like charity). Both experiences taught me that activists showing up week after week to protest or volunteer doesn’t always transmit to change, and that power doesn’t necessarily flow from large public pressure.

If the only place you interact with people that need aid is at the distro, they continue to only be served at the distro – I noticed often that the people being served were rarely making real decisions or holding power in any way. The closest they got was something like an exit survey asking whether the aid provided was what they needed. I had to step back and process all of it and ended up learning about the tenant union.

I started to research tenant unionism because I’d been interested in labor unions but had never been in a traditionally unionized industry or had a job that felt right to try to unionize, but I’d had plenty of difficulty in tenancy and it seemed like somewhere I could actually do the “mutual” part of mutual aid. The funny thing is that I had participated in multiple walkouts and labor actions that took place outside of a union structure without ever realizing what they were, what they meant or the possibilities that those ruptures could’ve opened up. Even in answering this, I’m just now remembering that they were probably the most militant forms of organizing I’ve engaged in so far.

BRRN: What tenant union are you part of, and about how many people are part of it?

Mario: I’m a member of a tenant union in a mid-sized metro area in the southeast US. We have about 70 dues paying members right now, with a couple of building-level tenant associations.

BRRN: How is your tenant union organized?

Mario: It’s organized into city-based locals made up of building-level tenant associations and at-large members. The locals meet to support each others’ organizing and plan day-to-day activities of the union and make decisions …