Prisons, Prose & Protest

It’s hard to believe that we are only a month away from the 3rd Annual Black Zine Fair. Organized by Sojourners for Justice Press and hosted by Powerhouse Arts, the fair invites visitors to freely gather, trade and sell zines while exchanging knowledge about self-publishing, grassroots print culture, and the traditions of Black radical publishing. This year, we will be joined by over 100 Black artists, writers, publishers, educators, and collectives for a free, public celebration of independent publishing and do-it-yourself culture. Some of the exhibitors include 8-Ball Community, Afi Venessa Appiah, Auto(nomous) Body Shop, Binch Press, Black Salt Press, Bre’s Tiny Print Shop, Hammer and Hope, Marmoris Press (the debut press of Jenna Wortham), MONOLITH, Ralph’s Beach Parties, Shadowbanned Magazine, Support Ho(s)e Collective, The Chicory Project, Third World Press Foundation, and Zoë Pulley, among many others.

A full day of workshops will offer opportunities to learn practical skills alongside the histories and futures of Black publishing, including “Collaborative Screen Printing” with Du-Good Press; “How to Apply to Zine and Art Book Fairs” with Khari-Johnson Ricks; “Justice: The Story of André Aliker” with Bitter Kalli; and “Spiral Binding” with 8-Ball Community.

The fair will also feature the Black Reading Room, curated by artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed. The space extends Rasheed’s archival project gather & disperse, which includes PRESSURE ON THE PAGE, a digital archive of Black printed matter inspired by writer Dionne Brand’s idea that “poetry is pressure on the page.” Through a curated collection of zines, books, and films, the Black Reading Room operates as an intimate, living archive that honors the past, present, and future of radical Black publishing—uplifting freedom traditions and treating printed matter as a collective chorus of memory, refusal, and drafts of other possible worlds.

Registration for the fair as well as our virtual workshops is now open. While participants can register at no cost, we do appreciate donations that will help us to defray our expenses. See you virtually this month and in person next month!

The Warehouse exhibition opened to a packed house at Bedford Library on Saturday. I can’t put my feelings into words but the most meaningful part of the afternoon for me was getting to hug my comrade Stevie Wilson in person. Stevie was finally released from prison in February and traveled from Philly to the opening. It’s such a miracle any time our people get free. The exhibition is open through June 28. Please visit and bring your friends. It’s free and open to the public.

There’s a memorial event for Assata Shakur in NYC on May 30. Come celebrate her life and legacy alongside her comrades, friends and family.

In February 2026, some of you donated $4150.68 [after fees] to the Giving Circle. I donated $4306.37 in February to 12 groups/orgs. $4106.37 went to Minnesota mutual aid projects and organizations. Documentation of the groups that received funds is here.

In this edition of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I share an overview of a book about immigration policing and “sanctuary” policies, recommend two podcasts from the past month, several recent articles and essays, and more…

At the end of 2018, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal put in place an executive directive that established the state as a sanctuary and directed local police not to collaborate with federal immigration enforcement except in narrowly defined circumstances. And yet, according to criminologist and anthropologist Peter Macina’s On the Side of ICE: Policing Immigrants in a Sanctuary City, New Jersey law enforcement agencies continued to work with and abet ICE routinely and in many ways.

Though Macina’s monograph is not explicitly abolitionist, it substantiates and underlines many abolitionist warnings about policing reforms. Police, Macina shows, are active agents in interpreting, shaping, and often simply ignoring laws and regulations meant to restrain them. As a result, reforms, like sanctuary laws, that are intended to limit police power are often ineffectual, or, worse, extend police power by codifying and normalizing it. “[S]anctuary policies,” Macina says, “paradoxically establish a facially ‘pro-immigrant’ immigration enforcement–assistance policing regime.” Mancina refers to this as “sanctuary policing”—a law enforcement mode that can sometimes protect people from deportation, but that is primarily concerned with facilitating agency collaboration in order to police immigrants.

To determine how police on the ground were actually responding to sanctuary city laws, Macina reviewed 50 videos of archived body-worn camera (BWC) footage of immigration or potential immigration stops. Sometimes, he found, local police simply ignored sanctuary city policies outright. The first video described in the book is a March 2020 traffic stop in which a cop discovers the driver lacks valid ID and contacts ICE to see if the person is in their database. He then provides ICE with information about the driver’s workplace so the agency might arrest him later.

The officer’s actions directly violated the attorney general’s directive. However, they are unlikely to have attracted discipline or reprimand. Macina conducted a separate study of San Francisco and discovered that cops who violated sanctuary policies in that city never received written demerits in their file; at most, they were verbally reprimanded or received training on sanctuary city policies.

“Effectively, San Francisco, during the period that I studied, did not enforce its own highly public policing policies restricting police officers from assisting ICE in immigration enforcement,” Macina writes. He cautions that New Jersey might have stricter enforcement, but the open, flagrant, and casual violation of the sanctuary policy literally recorded on video suggests that officers in 2020 were not worried about being taken to task for working with ICE.

In some cases that Macina analyzed, local police showed more caution, at least to the extent that they sought loopholes and claimed to be complying with the letter of the policy even as they actively collaborated with federal agents. For instance, Macina describes one incident from late 2019 in which ICE contacted local police asking for backup as they attempted to arrest a man who refused to leave his car. The man was being arrested solely for immigration violations, not criminal actions. Nonetheless, the police responded by parking their cars to further prevent the man from retreating. They also turned away or tried to warn off pedestrians—especially immigration advocates.

When confronted by those advocates, the police claimed they were not directly helping in the arrest but were responding to an “exigent” situation—that is, they were keeping the streets safe in a potential emergency. According to the New Jersey directive, police can help ICE in emergencies or where civilians might be at risk.

The immigrant targeted for arrest here had not, in fact, made any dangerous moves, nor threatened to ram anyone; he was just trying to take his child to school. The officers used the exigency clause as an excuse to serve as an “on-hand, ready-to-act, sentry force”, as Macina puts it, helping to intimidate the deportation target and to propagandize neighbors and passersby who might feel more trust in local police than in ICE.

ICE agents also asked police to use their body cameras to record the suspect and the scene to intimidate him and encourage him to come out of the car and submit to arrest. The very technology reformers hope will enforce police accountability, in this case, helped the police circumvent and violate the sanctuary ordinance. Police and their body cameras, Macina writes, served as “force multipliers,” expanding ICE’s reach and capacity.

There are times when sanctuary policing serves as what Macina calls a “force divider”—which is to say, local police refuse to inquire about immigration status and do not contact or rely on ICE. However, Macina emphasizes that this force division does not ramp down policing of immigrant communities and does not intend to do so. Instead, he writes,

the opposite is true—sanctuary policing is a form of intensively policing the immigrant, but dealing with their immigration status as an unknown factor that must remain unknown while they solve the policing problem—which crime was committed, who witnessed it, and all the other information required to determine guilt or innocence. [italics in original]

In other words, the rationale for sanctuary policing is in large part that using local resources to help ICE would undermine local law enforcement efforts. Walling off local police from ICE helps local enforcement by making immigrants more willing to report crimes; it also ensures that local resources are directed to local priorities. Sanctuary city policies are not, then, meant to reduce policing. They are meant to increase the efficiency of policing.

The term “sanctuary” generally connotes an active commitment to providing shelter and protection; a church which offers sanctuary to immigrants is dedicated to protecting them from deportation. Police in sanctuary jurisdictions, however, are not trying to protect immigrants from ICE. On the contrary, Macina shows, they continue to see ICE as an ally and collaborator in policing immigrant communities, sometimes together, sometimes apart, but always with the same broad goal of more efficiency and more control.

ICE’s popularity has plummeted in the second Trump administration, and it’s quite possible that their lawless, chaotic tactics have alienated some local police as they’ve alienated many members of the public. Macina’s research does not address the most recent era of relations between federal and local police in immigration enforcement. But he does show clearly that up to the very recent past, sanctuary city policies often provided little in the way of sanctuary for immigrant communities.

If you come to the Black Zine Fair on May 9, you can buy a special, limited-edition risograph print version of Sojourners For Justice Press’s most recent publication, Black Study: The Influence of David Walker’s Appeal, written by me, illustrated by Ezekiel Robinson, and designed by Neta Bomani.

Black Study situates study as an act of remembrance and revolt. In 1829, David Walker published An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, a subversive pamphlet calling for enslaved Black people to revolt. His words inspired enslaved Africans and significantly influenced future abolitionist movements. Black Study traces this history alongside archival photographs of Black people reading and learning across generations. Black reading, writing, and study have always been forms of political action.

You can join me on April 26 for a discussion about education for liberation and to celebrate the release of our publication. Please bring a copy of a book that has influenced how you think of yourself and of the world. Attendees will work on creating personal collages or maps that depict and chart how they came to know what they know politically. Register here.

Sara Yasin’s introduction of her new publication The Key explores the failures of legacy media to produce thoughtful journalism about Palestine and about our world as it really is. The new magazine is “dedicated to covering Palestine as the core issue at the heart of the modern world”; I plan to subscribe and look forward to its contributions.

My friend Amisha is living with cancer and has written this beautiful essay about how this relates to our current fascist times.

Love this photo essay of regular Minneapolis people who stepped up and continue to step up to protect neighbors from ICE.

A wonderful comic in Jewish Currents depicting the history and lessons of the Chicago resistance to the ICE occupation there.

Tina Vásquez has written a heart-wrenchinging and important essay about her reckoning with the revelations that César Chávez raped movement leader Dolores Huerta and sexually abused the children of United Farm Workers staffers.

My friend Shannon Perez-Darby writes about what the disclosures about Chávez can teach us about addressing sexual violence within movement spaces. “To build movements free from sexual violence is to build movements that rely on collective power and shared, rotational leadership; it will come through millions of us building new practices step by step.”

Molly Crabapple reflects on the long history of women providing jail support, from the women of the Jewish Labor Bund in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to those riding the bus today to visit loved ones incarcerated on Rikers Island. Molly’s book on the Bundists, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Labor Bund, came out this week.

This review of a recent book by John Fabian Witt outlines the story of an early 20th-century fund that was formed to spend down the inheritance of a reluctant millionaire in the service of radical change. Claire Dunning writes that “the book makes a compelling case for how and why philanthropy might support a leftist agenda,” even though modern philanthropy is dominated by liberalism and institutionalism.

I am so energized by this description of Free the Future, a nationwide organizing project for public education, and by the movement’s clarity that we must defend strong public schooling as a key bulwark against authoritarianism.

Another amazing comic, this one Vincent D’s story of hosting a DIY mutual aid swap, with advice about how to follow suit.

I appeared on two of my favorite podcasts this month. I talked with Kelly Hayes, Alison Macrina, and Katie Clark about the fascism-fighting power of public libraries on Kelly’s podcast Movement Memos. And Andrea Ritchie and I spoke with Beatrice Adler-Bolton on Death Panel about how the violence and cruelty that we see from ICE is inherent in policing itself.

“Summons” by Aurora Levins Morales proffers the most beautiful invitation into abolition and the transformation of harm; “There are no leaders who dare to say /every life is precious, so it will have to be us.”

If you’re in NYC between now and June 28, please come to the Bedford Library to see The Warehouse.

As part of the exhibition, abolitionist organizer Parissah Lin will lead a Jail Support 101 workshop at the Bedford Library on April 18 & my friend jackie sumell will host an abolitionist tea party on April 19.

If you are interested in and/or engaged in grassroots public history in NYC, you are invited to join a gathering that I am co-organizing on April 11. Space is limited & registration will close on Friday at 5 pm.

10 Years of Survived and Punished—a virtual celebration on April 28.

This looks like a great virtual talk and fundraiser for the East Bay Meditation Center—on April 25, Dean Spade, Weyam Ghadbian, and René Rivera will discuss connection, conflict, and showing up for each other in these times.

The New York Public Library will be holding an event April 29 to explore the power of oral history and the Rikers Public Memory Project.

The 5th Annual Black Mothers March on the White House— “an opportunity for people fighting against the Family Policing System across the country to come together”—will be May 10.

My friend Tanuja Jagernauth’s new zine, Healing Justice & Our Call to Practice, is indispensable. SJP is honored to publish it.

A new report from The Sentencing Project finds significant evidence that restorative justice diversion programs for young people offer meaningfully improved outcomes for both victims and youth offenders when compared to the traditional juvenile court system, but are still very rare nationwide.

Aorta is offering a free zine series called Five Defensive Strategies Against Fragmentation. The first of the zines, Democratic Decision Making, is available here.

If you have donations that could help the NYC Trans Archives “preserve materials that are significant to the trans community while prioritizing ephemera that is too often overlooked in formal archival collections,” here is their acquisitions form.

Another lovely comic, this one based on a poem by Nikita Gill and drawn by The Oatmeal, with a beautiful message.

Very cool!

Listen.

Well! Enjoy the comments too.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

It’s no secret that I think public libraries are essential institutions. I also believe that incorporating art in our movements for social transformation is important because art can help remove the ceiling from our imaginations. We are living in a historical moment when imagination is more important than ever. As Albert Einstein said: “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”

After artist Vic Liu and my comrade James Kilgore published The Warehouse: A Visual Primer of Mass Incarceration in 2024, I began a conversation with Vic about exhibiting their art in NYC. After some twists and turns, I am excited that an immersive exhibition of Vic’s large-scale paintings will open at Bedford Library on April 4.

At the heart of The Warehouse is a site-specific installation expanding upon Vic and James’s book. The library will be covered with more than two dozen new, full-scale paintings by Vic that examine resistance and survival inside prisons; the emotional and political distance between “inside” and “outside;” and what abolition might look like in practice. The exhibition is spatially divided into two sections:

• The Children’s Wing will include visual work and information design imagining abolition on the outside: care, safety, and accountability beyond punishment.

• The Adult Wing will feature histories and practices of resistance on the inside, grounded in lived experience and collective struggle.

The Warehouse runs through June 27 and is open to visit when the library is. Extensive programming will accompany the exhibition. Please join us on April 4 for the opening reception and a panel at Bedford Library. Check out the exhibition website for other programs and for more information.

I appreciate art for many reasons. Art can encourage dissent and we need more of that in our current moment. Art is important not just because it makes us think and feel differently (which is critical), but also because it helps to disrupt patterns and old ways of thinking. Artists have the power to ask, “Why can’t we do it this way?” “Why don’t we try this?” and “Why is that not possible?” These are the kinds of questions that need to be asked now as we organize to defeat fascism.

I asked Vic some questions about the exhibition, and they generously offered their responses. I hope that each of you in the tri-state area will visit the Warehouse exhibition, participate in the associated programs, and use your radical imaginations out in the world to help end prisons and jails.

Why did you want to exhibit this art in a public library?

Every moment of this exhibition is for the people. It had to be free. I didn’t want it to be in a gallery, in a sterile space with white walls—I wanted it to be a part of our everyday world. I wanted it to be where the people are, not isolated or walled off in a place that people only visit and don’t live. I wanted people to experience the art in conversation with their daily lives, as something that is a part of their world.

There is a powerful poignancy to placing this art about mass incarceration in a public library. In doing so, we are bringing together one of the worst things the state does with one of the best.

What have you learned from incarcerated people about making art?

As my co-author James has said, prisons are a hotbed of art. He wrote four books during his time in prison, two by hand with tiny golf pencils. There is so much incredible art made inside prison walls, like Dean Gillespie’s miniatures, or Carole Alden’s crocheted Fish House.

It makes a lot of sense to me. Art is how I understand and respond to the world. In prison, you are constantly immersed in the best and worst of humans, in both the darkest horrors as well as decency, dignity, and kindness. I understand how this intense proximity with the extremes of humanity feeds an urge to create and dream.

It reminds me of how so much art was also created in concentration camps during the Holocaust. In prison, toilet paper and water can be used to sculpt or build objects like the chess pieces in the exhibition. In concentration camps, people would use chewed bread and saliva to sculpt small figurines or rosaries.

Making art is deeply human. Perhaps it is even one of the best things that humans can do. Humans find meaning and dignity in the darkest of places, and art is one of the ways they do so.

How do you think that art relates to organizing? Do you think art matters under fascism? How?

People often ask, “what makes art good?” Which is a very different question than what makes art expensive, or what gives art status.

Art at its most powerful speaks on the human condition. Art belongs to everyone, in that I think it is an innately human thing to do, to create and dream. When I say art, I don’t mean art as defined by institutions, art with wall plaques and price tags. I mean art like something made by someone meant to express something. The uncomfortable vagueness of this definition is essential, because art is everywhere. Art is an articulation of self, of all of the things that make you who you are, and because of that, art is always political. Art bridges the gaps between us. It connects us, and connection is where we can draw power. Visual art is as much a part of organizing as writing or speaking or gathering.

I sometimes question what art can do while the state wages war against our bodies. It’s a very hard time to be a human (though, arguably, it has always been a hard time to be a human, a fact that inspires me rather than demeans our current struggle). No, you can’t eat a painting. But you also can’t live without art.

Art holds a mirror to who we are as a people. Crucially, because it holds a mirror not only to our flaws but also to our possibilities, it allows us to dream of what we can be. Art is neither neutral nor passive. Inherent in every piece of art is an action, a declaration, an ask of the viewer to re-evaluate the world around them.

Fascism is constantly and deliberately shrinking the definition of who is considered a person. Art, especially art made by and for marginalized populations, does the opposite. It expands and complicates our understanding of the human condition.

Art goes everywhere humans go. The fascists are human too, so they also have art, along with the money and power to elevate it. But art, just like this world, is all of ours. It is ours to create, to dream, to share, to grieve, to cherish, and to change.

What do you hope that visitors take away from the exhibition?

Our visitors will come from a wide spectrum of proximity to incarceration. Some will be formerly incarcerated, some will have family members or friends who have been incarcerated, some people will have deep familiarity with prisons and all of their forms, and some will be very new to the issue.

For the visitors who have been personally impacted by incarceration, I hope that they feel seen by the exhibition. It is for them.

This exhibition is also for visitors who are new to the topic, who maybe haven’t visited a prison or don’t know anyone who has been incarcerated. I want this exhibition to chip away at the massive barrier between life inside prison and life outside. I hope that the exhibition will help visitors see the stories and people that the state desperately wants to hide from us. I hope people walk away with the will to change it.

I want people to join us, to build friendships with people inside, to protest the building of new prisons and new ICE detention facilities (jails), to join or start mutual aid groups, to meet their neighbors and do the hard work of building community and being there for each other. I want people to talk about incarceration and prisons. I want people to not just give a one-time donation to a bail fund, I want them to change how they move through the world. I want them to understand that this issue is theirs too, that we have the responsibility and the ability to rebuild our world without prisons. As they leave the exhibition and continue on with their lives, as they buy their groceries and ride the subway, I want people to remember our community inside.

The opening reception and panel of the exhibition is on April 4. Register here to attend and bring friends.

Our website is live now, thanks to the brilliant work of Dani Blum. Our instagram is also live.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised to dedicate 0.5% of the city’s budget to the city’s library system. His initial spending plan, however, allocates only about 0.39% of the city’s budget to libraries. It represents a cut from the previous fiscal year’s adopted budget.

The NYC Public Library Action Network (NYC PLAN) has forcefully argued that the current budget proposal is inadequate. Several members of our group testified about the FY27 Preliminary Budget and the need for more for libraries at the March 18 hearing of the City Council’s Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries and International Intergroup Relations.

During the hearing, members reiterated the need to fully fund and to stabilize NYC public libraries. We also reiterated our demand that this funding be benchmarked at 0.5% of the city’s expense budget annually.

Testimony from library heads

The hearing opened with chairperson Dr. Nantasha Williams noting that public libraries are “among the most trusted and widely used institutions in our city,” which provide not just books, but “job training, tech access, and educational support.”

Despite their vital role, however, Williams said, “At the preliminary budget stage, the full level of funding libraries require is often absent, creating uncertainty for the systems and the communities that rely on them.” The preliminary plan, she said, did not include the $30.7 million one-time funding added in the fiscal 2026 budget.

The constant failure to fully fund the library system, Williams said, leads to “uncertainty in staffing, programming, and long-term service planning” and makes it impossible for libraries to plan and grow.”

Next the heads of the three NYC Public Library systems testified: Anthony W. Marx of The New York Public Library. Dennis M. Walcott of the Queens Public Library, and Linda E. Johnson of the Brooklyn Public Library.

Marx said that the library heads had been “thrilled” that Mamdani planned to “end the budget dance with consistent baseline funding of .5% of the city’s budget” which would “transform library services.” Marx said that despite Mamdani’s failure to deliver on his promise in the initial budget, talks with the Mamdani administration had been productive and he believes that “the mayor is intent on delivering” on his campaign promise.

Testimony from the public

A number of library advocates spoke to the committee. Emily Drabinski, a librarian and a professor at Queens College CUNY, testified on behalf of Library PAC, noting that while Mamdani in his campaign had “made a clear historic commitment to public libraries” the February financial plan proposes “only $492 million for public libraries, a $36 million reduction from 2026 levels.” This shortfall continues “the very budget dance [Mamdani] once called ‘damaging,’” Drabinski said.

Hal Schrieve, a librarian, noted that ze had knocked 1200 doors for Mamdani in part because of his promise to fund libraries. Hal said ze was “disappointed” that Mamdani had not fulfilled those promises. Funding for libraries, ze said, “is still a really small fraction of the overall city budget, but…would make a huge difference” for the libraries and the New Yorkers who use them as a space to read, to stay warm, to do homework. Libraries, ze concluded, are “a cornerstone of our public life.”

Testimony from NYC PLAN

Dr. Abby Emerson, a New York City educator, testified at the hearing as a member of NYC PLAN. She explained that the .39% budget proposal was “woefully inadequate,” and that it was a reduction from the Adams administration budget of .42%. “Nationally, our public goods are being stripped away at every turn, and we have an obligation to ensure that does not happen at the local level,” she said. “I personally find libraries one of the most emotionally moving spaces in our city. Where else is everyone truly welcome without payment?”

Dr. Emerson’s daughter, Melody, testified that her local library had “only one bathroom and no water fountain” and that “it would be cool if the library had enough money for more programs for younger kids and not just teens.” She added, “Why is Mayor Mamdani breaking his campaign promise? New mayor, same problem.”

Esther Welsh, Claire Park, Steven Pei and Dylan Flesch, all members of NYC PLAN, testified before the committee via Zoom. They reiterated the demand that funding for libraries be established at .5% of the city budget.

Flesch criticized library management for not being more critical of the administration. “Library management is tiptoeing around this conversation because they’re trying to maintain positive relationships with the mayor while they’re doing backroom negotiations,” he said. “We have to stop accepting these crumbs in the budget and fight for more.”

I also testified and in part reiterated words I’d published here a month ago:

“We live in a time of pervasive disillusionment. People are rightly mistrustful of most institutions. The library can serve as one way to show that public goods are actually GOOD and that institutions aren’t meaningless.

I ask that the City Council support the demand of 0.5% of the city expense budget to be allocated to our public libraries.

As Rita Dove wrote: “The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.” New York is a city of possibility and it deserves fully funded libraries.”

Next steps

The City Council will craft their preliminary budget response. Then the mayor will present an updated proposal in late April/early May, the executive budget, which will trigger another round of hearings by the council. Finally the council will negotiate an adopted budget that the council will vote to pass by the end of June.

At each next step, the public has influence and power to shape the outcome. Here are some actions each of us can take.

1. Pay attention to the City Council preliminary budget response.

2. Read the Mayor’s Executive budget when released in late April.

3. Testify at the next round of City Council hearings.

4. Make sure that the City Council hears from you by writing letters, making calls and setting up meetings with members over the next few weeks.

5. Send a short note to the Mayor telling him to honor his campaign promise.

6. Speak to your neighbors and community members about the importance of public libraries. Maybe set up your own Libraries and Lemonade stands this spring.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I went to Saturday’s emergency NYC protest against the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran. I was glad to see that a lot of people came out on short notice. I’m fucking sick of the U.S. and Israel. I don’t know what else to say besides “NO WAR ON IRAN.”

March is Women’s History Month and it’s always a great opportunity to learn about women we may not know. I’ve been making some new zines and publications over the past few months. One zine focuses on the work of Florence Rogers Murray. She was the editor of The Negro Handbook, an almanac compiling information on Black people in the US during and just after World War II. Murray was a newspaper editor, journalist, and civil rights advocate. The Negro Handbook became an important source of information for scholars and activists. While Murray hailed from a well-known Black family (her father was Freeman H. M. Murray), Florence herself chose to disappear from public view. There were no prominent obituaries upon her death and she doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. However, her massive work of compilation, editing, and analysis survives her. I look forward to more people learning about her life and contributions through my forthcoming zine. You can pick up a copy at the Black Zine Fair in Brooklyn on May 9.

I am excited to share that I’ve been collaborating with artist and writer Vic Liu on an exhibition that opens next month. The Warehouse is a collaboration between Vic, the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL), and me. With a full-branch exhibition takeover, the project transforms the BPL’s Bedford Library into a space for public imagination and learning, inviting patrons of all ages to explore what a world beyond incarceration could look like. At the heart of The Warehouse is a site-specific installation expanding upon Liu’s book The Warehouse: A Visual Primer on Incarceration, co-written with James Kilgore. The exhibition opens on April 4 and runs through June 28. There will be wonderful programming to accompany it. You will not want to miss this so please make a plan to visit and to take part in various programs. It’s always urgent to end incarceration; join us in the struggle.

Times are hard and I think that we should send each other gifts without any expectations. I am raffling five (5) letter press prints (8 by 10) by Nicole Manganelli of Radical Emprints (commissioned by me). Anyone who lives in the United States is eligible (international shipping costs are too high unfortunately). The raffle closes on 3/4 at 11:59 pm and the winners will be notified by 3/8. Enter here.

In January 2026, some of you donated $4470.71 [after fees] to the Giving Circle. I donated $4650 in January to 18 groups/orgs. $2650 went to Minnesota mutual aid projects. Documentation of the groups that received funds is here.

In this edition of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I share an overview of a 1964 pamphlet by Anne Braden that remains relevant today. I recommend a podcast about a project documenting Black girlhood in photography and prose, several good recent articles and essays, and more…

I recently purchased a copy of the 1964 pamphlet HUAC: Bulwark of Segregation, written by Anne Braden. I had seen it referenced but never read it before.

As a passionate white advocate for racial equality in the South, Anne Braden knew from personal experience that communist smears could devastate civil rights workers and organizations (even though there was nothing wrong with being a Communist). Her 1964 pamphlet HUAC: Bulwark of Segregation analyzes how white supremacists wielded anticommunism to silence dissent, nullify the First Amendment, and kneecap interracial solidarity and progress.

Anne Braden, Target of Anticommunism

Anne McCarty Braden (1924–2006) was born in Louisville, Kentucky, into a conventional white segregationist family. Her views changed slowly at college and in her early years as a journalist in the South. By her 20s, she had become a passionate advocate of integration and civil rights. In 1948, she married fellow left-wing journalist Carl Braden in Louisville, and the two worked together on many desegregation campaigns.

In 1954, the Bradens agreed to buy a house in Louisville in a segregated neighborhood for a Black couple, the Wades. The white community of Louisville reacted violently, dynamiting the house. Unsatisfied with vigilante violence, the state claimed that the purchase of the house was part of a plan to overthrow Kentucky and the United States, and the Bradens were charged with sedition.

Conviction carried a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Authorities raided the Bradens’ house, seizing books by and about communism and socialism. Two members of the congressional House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) helped with the prosecution, as did professional anticommunist witnesses who made a living testifying in cases like the Bradens’.

Carl Braden stated he was not a Communist when questioned, an admission he later regretted; Anne explained in retrospect that the question was a smear and a distraction and “if you had any principles at all you just did not answer.” The court convicted Carl and Anne’s trial was postponed. He was released on appeal, and the charges against both were dropped 14 months later when the Supreme Court declared state sedition laws illegal. The experience still prevented them from getting work, a serious difficulty since their two children were six and three.

The Bradens believed, based on their experiences and those of others, that anticommunism was being used to destroy the Civil Rights Movement. They worked with a committee to try to abolish HUAC; they also joined the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF), an interracial, integrationist organization that was repeatedly (and falsely) smeared as communist.

It was in this context that Anne wrote the pamphlet HUAC: Bulwark of Segregation to alert people to the dangers of anticommunist smears and teach them how to fight them. SCEF printed thousands of copies to be spread throughout the South.

Braden, an Analyst of Anticommunism

Anticommunist segregationists inevitably targeted Braden’s pamphlet. The FBI obtained a copy before the pamphlet’s official publication. In the summer of 1964, authorities seized a box of the pamphlets when the Bradens attempted to give a civil liberties training session at the National Council of Churches, which decided at the last minute the Bradens were dangerous radicals.

Braden did not know that the FBI was working hand in hand with HUAC. But little else would have surprised her about the ongoing persecution and innuendo directed at herself, her organization, and her writing. As she explained in HUAC: Bulwark of Segregation, communist smears were a core tactic of white supremacists because people who might otherwise support integration—and especially white people who might support integration—were terrified of being accused of treason.

“It is pretty hard to convince Negroes that the freedom movement is a subversive plot,” Braden wrote. “So the net result [of communist smears] has been to keep whites out of action, leave Negroes alone on the front lines, and sometimes to encourage them to suspect the motives of the few whites who are active. Thus,” she concluded, “the gap has been widened between black and white.”

Braden noted that many civil rights organizations and individuals tried to combat the charge of communism by distancing themselves from left organizations, or by breaking ties with people who were accused. She argued that this could not work; since the accusations were not in good faith, there was no way to immunize oneself against them. Moreover, jettisoning allies destroyed solidarity. She pointed out that the 1963 March on Washington was a success in part because organizers refused to abandon chief organizer Bayard Rustin after he was accused of communist ties.

Rather than turning on one another, Braden argued that civil rights organizations should fight back by pushing to abolish HUAC and of similar committees that operated at the state level. Braden noted that the leaders of these commissions were almost always Southern segregationists who owed their seats to the mass disenfranchisement of Black voters.

Braden was careful to acknowledge that the red scare was not solely a top-down phenomenon; vigilantes, neo-Nazis, the KKK, and local freelancing white supremacists all pushed accusations. But the government committees were in a unique position to ratify innuendo and to give lies and innuendo the appearance of official truth. Government actors also could not be sued for libel; that meant HUAC and state committees modeled on it could make outrageous, evidenceless statements without fear of reprisal. Those who quoted those statements were also immunized.

This government power to smear, Braden said, is a direct threat to free speech. “If an American has to fear that speaking his mind, joining an organization, or going to a meeting is going to lead to a summons or a committee listing that can ruin his life, obviously he is not free to speak, join, assemble, or petition.” The back of the pamphlet called on readers to urge political candidates to pledge to abolish HUAC, to contact their congresspeople, and to donate to the National Committee to Abolish HUAC.

Braden’s Pamphlet Today

The government abolished HUAC in 1975. But the network of white supremacists, anticommunists, government officeholders, wealthy donors, and vigilantes that Braden identified as a threat to free speech and civil rights remains.

Braden’s reminder that the US has never lived up to its promise also still feels relevant today. “One reason we find so many violations of these rights today is that all of the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution have often been more dream than reality,” Braden writes. “White people readily forget that, but Negroes can never forget it, because they know that the dream was corrupted from the beginning by their enslavement.”

Braden doesn’t believe that that is a reason to despair. But she says it means that justice is not guaranteed. Whether the US becomes more or less free, she concludes, “depends on each of us and the stand we take…for or against HUAC, for or against freedom, for or against democracy, for or against America.”

Tash Nikol and I have partnered again on a publication called Black Children At Play. This is our fourth collaboration and I am again thrilled at how this one has turned out. Here’s a sneak peek.

You can pick up a copy in person at the Black Zine Fair on May 9.

Mary Turfah writes devastatingly in The Baffler about how Israel desecrates and plunders the bodies of Palestinians it kills in service of its genocidal ambitions.

This is an essential essay by my friend and collaborator Andrea J. Ritchie, grounding us in the need for the abolition of ICE and all other kinds of police in this moment. You can listen to the audio version of the story even without a subscription to The Nation.

Marie Gottschalk reviews four recent books that offer insight into the US’s bipartisan deportation machine and its interconnectedness with other forms of mass criminalization and incarceration.

Myrl Beam maps out a queer abolitionist geography of South Minneapolis, drawing on his collaborative public history project that radiates out temporally and geographically from the burning of the Third Precinct after the murder of George Floyd.

I love this reflection on the centrality of care in antifascist organizing.

In Truthout, Susan Raffo writes a Valentine to the ordinary, unexceptional love that has been on display in her city.

“We must use this opportunity to make clear that there is no such thing as a ‘just’ or ‘fair’ form of immigration policing. ‘Abolish ICE’ is the floor, not the ceiling.”

My good friend Kelly Hayes talked to Minneapolis rapid response organizers about the lessons they have drawn from three months of intense activation, and shares out their thoughts in her newsletter.

This is a great interview with Harsha Walia and Alberto Toscano about how to understand and contextualize fascism in its current iteration.

Stuart Schrader looks at the benefits some local police officers and unions are expecting to see from the surge in federal immigration policing in cities around the country.

I love what Robin D.G. Kelly has to say about Ashley D. Farmer’s new biography of the late Black radical organizer Audley “Queen Mother” Moore. I recommend buying Farmer’s book or requesting it from your local public library.

Listen to my comrades Salamishah and Scheherazade Tillet talk on The Documentary Podcast about their collaborative project documenting Black girls at play through photography and words.

I am reflecting on this Mary Oliver poem as spring approaches for many of us in the northern hemisphere.

March 21 will be the New York City Public Library Action Network (NYC PLAN) Queens People’s Assembly and you should come.

On June 13, New York City Public Library Action Network (NYC PLAN) is hosting a Library Propaganda Fair! Our call for art submissions is now available and open until March 31st. Anyone can submit. Please share with your networks.

My friend Cameron has co-created and is co-facilitating Shifts, a virtual healing and accountability group for men that starts on March 5. “This group is for people who identify as men who have committed physical harm or violence against another person. It is a supportive space to sit with others who share similar experiences to process what led to their behavior, the ways it has impacted others and themselves, and to work towards being accountable for the harm they caused. This is a group for men above the age of 18 who are not currently involved in the criminal legal system. This group draws on transformative and restorative justice approaches and does not engage with the criminal legal system.”

March 26–29: The annual, student-driven Beyond the Bars Conference will be held at Columbia University. It looks like an incredible program this year on the theme of “Rooted In…”

A new edition of the 1 Million Experiments newsletter is here! It’s terrific as usual and includes a new zine, which is a treasure. To jump-start neighborly relations, try one of the 50 (mostly untried) ways to meet your neighbors.

Jane’s Walk 2026 will take place May 1–3. I love this free festival of NYC walking tours. You should apply to lead a walk. Applications close on 3/31.

I have been watching the Singing Resistance project emerging out of Minneapolis with interest, and they’ve put out a great toolkit for other groups interested in their tactics and approach.

A new unmissable Prison Policy Institute report: Following the Money of Mass Incarceration 2026.

This is so great: DIY Guide to Making a Jail Support Plan: A Zine.

This is a great conversation about the importance of place and belonging.

Keep Dancing!

Listening.

Read about Cumberland County, North Carolina, Public Library’s wonderful artist-in-residence program, Creative Collaborations. It combines the desire for more cultural programming at the library with artist needs for work space and other forms of support. “Any equipment, reference materials, or supplies purchased for Creative Collaborations will remain with the library and be incorporated into our in-house or circulating collections. Coupled with their public programming, it’s a way to embed the artist, their work, and their knowledge directly into our collection for others to use.”

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Libraries, like most public institutions, perpetually deal with budget constraints. Mayors propose or threaten to cut library budgets and then, after public mobilization and outcry, sometimes restore funding at levels that do not keep up with inflation. This is a regular “budget dance.” In late 2023, for example, former NYC Mayor Eric Adams proposed a $58 million budget cut to public libraries. A budget deal reached in late June 2024 averted this cut. This destructive dance has long been a source of public frustration. But frustration is never enough to change anything.

Over the past 20 months, the NYC Public Library Action Network (PLAN), of which I am a member, has been strategizing and organizing to stop the destructive budget dance. Our main demand is that the city allocate 0.5% (half of 1 percent) of the expense budget to our public libraries annually. This demand has been amplified by the NYC Public Library system as well.

Zohran Mamdani included our demand in his platform during his campaign for Mayor. After he won, he reiterated his support at an event at Greenpoint Library in December 2025. Yesterday, Mayor Mamdani released his FY 27 preliminary budget. In it, he allocated 0.39% of the city’s expense budget to NYC public libraries for FY 27 which starts on July 1, 2026. This amount is well below the 0.5% of the city’s expense budget that he promised during the campaign and reaffirmed after his election.

In fact, at 0.39% of the expense budget, he has actually allocated LESS than Eric Adams did in his FY 26 preliminary budget proposal (0.42%). This is completely unacceptable and detrimental to our public libraries. It’s deeply disappointing that Mayor Mamdani did not follow through on his commitment.

However, NYC PLAN will fight to ensure that he honors his promise. I’ve been part of many issue-based organizing campaigns in my life and we lose more than we win. But I have learned from all of them that you can’t win if you don’t try and that persistence matters.

The library is a public good, and it is free as a public service. It is an essential component of a 21st-century left political project as an example of both what is already available to us and what can be improved upon in the future. Workers tell stories of people who come to the library and ask to “rent” books. Others inquire about a “monthly subscription fee.” For some people in this country, it is inconceivable that they can access anything without paying for it out of pocket. “What’s the catch? How is this not a scam?” People wonder.

We are not customers at the public library, and many in the U.S. simply cannot fathom any other way of relating to institutions or to the government. The public library is therefore a basis for reclaiming a grammar of the commons for the average person in the 21st century. It is not as Ursula Le Guin has written “a privilege for the already privileged.” Those of us on the left(s) must lean into this. It matters that we take part in library governance and that we incorporate public libraries in our budget fights. More generally, we must actively organize against the defunding of public goods.

We live in a time of pervasive disillusionment. People are rightly mistrustful of most institutions. The library can serve as one way to show that public goods are actually GOOD and that institutions aren’t meaningless. Left politicians should adopt a platform that includes fully funding existing public libraries and building thousands of new ones. People want to rally FOR something. This is something that I thought Mayor Mamdani understood well. He still has a chance to do the right thing with respect to NYC public libraries.

So what’s next?

Now the City Council will facilitate preliminary budget hearings beginning late this month or in early March. The City Council will review the mayor’s proposal and craft their preliminary budget response. Then the mayor will present an updated proposal, the executive budget, which will trigger another round of hearings by the council, before negotiating an adopted budget that the council will vote to pass. There are a lot of steps left to go. Here’s a video by the Mayor himself laying out those steps.

NYC PLAN has been and continues to work to secure support for our 0.5% budget demand from City Council members. We invite NYC residents to join us in reaching out to their council members. We also encourage NYC residents to let Mayor Mamdani know that we expect him to stick to his commitment to increase and stabilize funding for our libraries.

As Rita Dove wrote: “The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.” New York is a city of possibility and it deserves fully funded libraries.

Public Library Related Actions You Can Take

Send a letter to your NYC Council Member to increase and stabilize library funding. It takes 30 seconds. Follow up by calling your member.

Join NYC PLAN for our Queens People’s Assembly on March 21st.

If you are interested in public library issues nationally, follow For the People Leftist Library Project’s (FTP) work. You can read the January newsletter and February newsletter here.

Join FTP virtually for a Friends of the Library Open House on February 19.

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I love February because it’s Black History Month. I always learn something new and find new rabbit holes to fall down.

It’s a busy month for me with a few public events, many meetings, and more. Dr. Jeanne Theoharis and I are in conversation this Tuesday February 3rd at 6:30 pm about her excellent book “King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life of Struggle Outside the South.” Join us in person or via Livestream.

On February 10, I am moderating a conversation at the Center for Brooklyn History about how storytelling and art can lead impacted people and larger society to rethink the systems within the criminal legal system. The event is a celebration of the launch of Letters from Home and will include readings by several poets and writers. The event is free and open to the public.

In this edition of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I share information about the first Black bookstore in the United States. I recommend a couple of podcast episodes about the inspiring organizing happening in Minnesota, several good recent articles and essays, and more…

Last year, I blurbed Char Adams’s engaging and informative book Black Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore. The book offers the first comprehensive history of Black bookstores in the US. One of the bookstores that Char features is D. Ruggles Books, the first Black bookstore in the US.

“Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave,” self-emancipated abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote. It wasn’t just abolitionists who believed that knowledge was a powerful tool against bondage. Slaveholders also believed that their grip on power depended on keeping Black people in ignorance—which is why the man who enslaved Douglass was dead set against him learning to read.

If illiteracy was a key form of oppression, then books were a pathway to freedom. No wonder, then, that Black-owned bookstores have been a central rallying point for Black resistance throughout US history. That resistance started with the very first Black-owned bookstore in the country, D. Ruggles Books, established in New York in 1834 by one of the country’s most courageous and uncompromising abolitionists, David Ruggles.

The Growth of a Radical Bookseller

Ruggles was born the first of eight children in 1810 to a free Black family in Connecticut; his father was a blacksmith and his mother was a well-respected cook. He got an education and learned to read at a religious charity school. David grew up in an integrated community that strongly supported abolition. He went to school with white children and had many white friends.

In 1826, at sixteen, Ruggles moved to New York City. He initially worked as a mariner; then, in 1828, at the age of 18, he opened a grocery store at 1 Cortlandt Street in lower Manhattan. He initially sold liquor, but soon took up temperance and swapped the alcohol on his grocery shelves for something more intoxicating.

Ruggles didn’t stock just any books; he sold abolitionist pamphlets and literature. He also employed two brothers who had escaped slavery, and he supported the free produce movement, boycotting goods made with the labor of enslaved people. He placed advertisements in the first Black-owned newspaper in the country, Freedom’s Journal. Even though his store was not in a heavily Black area, his integrity, business sense, and passion for abolition made the store popular, and he had customers from throughout the city.

But successful Black businesses, and especially defiantly abolitionist Black businesses, were targets for white violence. In 1829, someone broke into his store, stole $280, and set the building on fire. It was not the last time that white racists would attack Ruggles’s businesses.

Ruggles, however, persisted. He turned to abolition full time, becoming one of the few Black agents for the antislavery paper The Emancipator. He traveled throughout the Northeast to give abolitionist speeches, meet with publishers, and encourage subscriptions.

In 1831, Nat Turner led a slave revolt in Virginia in which Black revolutionaries killed 55 white people. Authorities soon captured and executed Turner, but fear gripped white people across the country. Many blamed David Walker’s militant abolitionist Appeal, published in 1829, which Turner probably hadn’t read, as well as the Bible’s antislavery passages, which Turner knew inside and out.

In response to Turner’s rebellion, slavers cracked down on Black literacy. Virginia outlawed teaching free Black people reading or writing; other states quickly followed. In 1833, a white student in Tennessee was publicly whipped for carrying abolitionist literature.

D. Ruggles Books

Abolitionists and Black people refused to be intimidated, however. In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison launched The Liberator, which quickly became the leading abolitionist paper. And in that same year, Ruggles opened another store—this time devoted entirely to books. Historians believe that Ruggles’s business, situated at 67 Lispenard Street in what is now the Tribeca neighborhood, was the first Black-owned bookstore in the country.

Ruggles’s store was promoted in both The Liberator and The Emancipator. It sold stationery and paper—but it specialized in abolitionist pamphlets and the occasional book such as Lydia Maria Child’s virtually banned antislavery book The Oasis. Ruggles also had his own press, and published and sold his own pamphlet, The Extinguisher, which meant that he had the first Black-owned imprint in New York.

White racists targeted Ruggles’s new stores just as they had his first. An 1835 public notice referred to the store as an “incendiary depot” and called for Ruggles to be lynched. Soon afterwards, a mob burned down his office, which was next to the bookstore. White racists then sat outside the store for three nights to intimidate Ruggles and his patrons.

Ruggles responded by condemning the attacks. He offered $50 for any information leading to the conviction of the arsonist and $25 for anyone who could identify members of the mob outside his office. No one came forward to claim the money, but it was almost unprecedented for a Black business owner to even attempt to hold a white mob to account.

Nor did Ruggles close his store. He even expanded, adding a reading room and a lending library. The reading room served, in Ruggles’s words, as a “centre of literary attraction for young men whose mental appetites thirst for food.” He hoped it would keep Black youth from vice—by which he probably meant drink, given his temperance commitments.

Even though most libraries banned Black people, Ruggles insisted they deserved “access to the principal daily and leading anti-slavery papers, and other popular periodicals of the day.” Ruggles Books became an oasis of African American learning, community, and organizing in a city where white people were fiercely opposed to all three.

There was a fee to join Ruggles’s reading room, but he said that “strangers visiting the city can have access to the Reading Room, free of charge.” This was meant to ensure that those who had escaped from slavery could use the space.

Beyond the Bookstore

Ruggles’s commitment to abolition went well beyond selling pamphlets. He was a one-man whirlwind of activism and emancipation. His home was a central stop on the Underground Railroad in New York City, and he helped 600 to 1000 people in their escape from slavery.

Among those he aided was Frederick Douglass, whom Ruggles reunited with Douglass’s fiancée, Anna Murray. They were married in Ruggles’s home; he also gave them money and urged them to settle in the port city of New Bedford, Massachusetts, where there was a thriving free Black community and where Douglass, a caulker, could find work. Douglass later described Ruggles as “a whole-souled man, fully imbued with a love of his afflicted and hunted people.”

In 1835, Ruggles helped found, and served as secretary of, the New York Committee of Vigilance, which aided fugitives from slavery. He was at the forefront of the fight against bounty hunters who illegally kidnapped Black people in the North and sold them in the South. Ruggles fought to secure jury trials and legal representation for victims. He also went to investigate cases of people illegally held as slaves in supposedly free New York and would personally escort them to safety. Not satisfied with these exertions, he launched his own publication, The Mirror of Liberty—the first Black-owned magazine in the US.

Ruggles was a leading advocate of armed resistance to kidnappers when necessary. That position made him a pariah even among many abolitionists and it enraged white racists. Ruggles was himself the target of multiple kidnapping attempts. At least once, a constable arrested him, likely intentionally “mistaking” him for an escaped slave.

Frederick Douglass said that when he first met Ruggles in 1838, Ruggles was “watched and hemmed in on almost every side,” but that “he seemed to be more than a match for his enemies.” This was, unfortunately, wishful thinking. Ruggles suffered from sickness and failing eyesight; by 1841 he was virtually blind. He moved to Florence, Massachusetts, for his health in 1842. It is not clear exactly when he closed his bookstore, but it must have been shuttered by the time he left the state.

Distant from New York and unable to see, Ruggles could not continue to pursue his abolitionist work with the same intensity, though his instinct for business opportunities remained strong. He started one of the first water cure hospitals in the US during the 1840s. He died in 1849 of a bowel infection at the age of only 39.

Legacy

People do not know Ruggles as well as they know abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Sojourner Truth. However, in recent years, his importance has become increasingly recognized. His combination of militant activism and radical commitment to education has served as a blueprint for generations of Black organizers, leaders, and booksellers.

“When tracing the life and history of Black bookstores in the United States, all roads lead back to Ruggles,” Adams writes in Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore. She adds:

“It’s been almost two hundred years since Ruggles opened his little anti-slavery bookshop in Manhattan, but it hasn’t ever really closed. It’s existed over and over through the centuries in the Black bookshops that have dared to position themselves as radical spaces, ones dedicated to the uplift and liberation of Black people.”

For Ruggles, freedom meant free access to knowledge, and knowledge was inseparable from the work of freedom.

I currently have four 2025 zines that are only available as hard copies at Printed Matter:

Charles Ray and the New York Committee of Vigilance by Mariame Kaba, designed by Tash Nikol of Grace Issues Press (2025) - Archival Activations #9

Blocking Traffic: A Brief History of Road Closures as Protest by Mariame Kaba, designed by Cindy Lau (2025) - Archival Activations #10

The Fifth Street Building Takeover by Mariame Kaba, designed by Kruttika Susarla (2025) - Archival Activations #11

The Black Woman’s Bill of Rights: A Manifesto by the National Alliance of Black Feminists by Mariame Kaba, designed by Ann-Derrick Gaillot (2025)

This Deborah Chasman interview with Robin D. G. Kelley situates the murder of Renee Good (and implicitly the murder of Alex Pretti, which occurred after it was published) within the long US history of police murders.

A tapestry of stories and commentary from Minnesotans—snapshots of what it looks and feels like to live through, and protect each other from, a violent federal siege.

Margaret Killjoy visited Minneapolis and reports back with her typical care and acuity on the decentralized, hyperlocally based, leaderful movement she observed there.

In Truthout, Minneapolis organizers Jonathan Stegall and Anne Kosseff-Jones reflect on how abolition—and Minneapolis’s history of building toward it—shows up in the current moment of anti-ICE mobilization there.

Erin West gives a personal account of what it feels like to confront federal agents in the streets alongside an entire city: “Ice vs. Everyone.”

My friend and comrade Holly Krig reminds us how to move in solidarity in this moment: “Abolitionist co-strugglers have …always known that it’s not about guilt or innocence, dangerousness, or all the other claims systems make. Militarized borders and heavily gated pathways to citizenship ensure a permanently exploitable class, much like felony convictions.”

Silky Shah’s analysis is critical to understanding the crisis of anti-immigrant and racist violence we’re in; here, she walks us through the terrifying build-ups of an already-robust deportation infrastructure that have brought us to this moment.

In Nonprofit Quarterly, my friend and comrade Dean Spade talks about one of his areas of expertise: how to move through conflict in movement spaces.

A great article by Astra Lincoln about what cost-free and surveillance-free health care can look like, and about Love Heals, a pop-up, philanthropy-funded clinic dedicated to providing it.

This excerpt from Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s new introduction to How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective is a must-read, as is the new edition of the book itself.

Two terrific podcasts have released important dispatches from occupied Minneapolis.

I’m embracing Diane di Prima’s “REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #100: REALITY IS NO OBSTACLE” as an instruction manual this month.

Junauda Petrus’s “Ritual on How to Love Minneapolis Again” was read a year ago during the announcement that Petrus would be the city’s poet laureate for 2025 and 2026. But the poem somehow tells so much of the story of Minneapolis in the current crisis; of the community connection and rich culture that have become central to the city’s rejection of state violence.

Black Zine Fair 2026 — the application for exhibitors, workshop facilitators, and volunteers is due next Monday, February 9.

February 12, 6:30–8 p.m. ET - Accountability Beyond Punishment Workbook, a virtual session on transformative justice with organizer and transformative justice facilitator Camila Pelsinger Villalba. This session is for people who are practicing or curious about transformative justice, survivor support, and community-based responses to harm—no prior experience required. Registration is free but only sign up if you know you can attend. The session will not be recorded.

Haymarket Books has made three of its excellent titles free as ebooks, so we can all read and think together about migrant justice and border abolition.

February 19, 6:30–8:00 p.m. ET - For the People Leftist Library Project is organizing an open house for people who are interested in joining their local Friends of the Library or Library Foundation group—or are already involved in some way. The purpose of the event is to provide a space to come together and share resources and strategies on how to be an active and effective participant in such a group.

The Samora Pinderhughes: Call and Response exhibition at the MOMA runs through February 15, with several connected performances, and you should go if you are in New York City and able. It uses film, sound, and performance to ask, “What if we built a world around healing rather than punishment?,” from the perspective of an artist who has been working on that question for a long time.

My friend and comrade Monica Trinidad has such a powerful way of talking and teaching about art for social movements.

Beautiful.

A true Lego master.

I have been battling various colds and so have been guzzling dawa (lemon, honey and ginger tonic). This is an immune-supporting tonic that is great to keep flus away or manage their symptoms well. Here’s a recipe.

You are welcome.

An anthem.

I loved this interview with a public middle school librarian in San Francisco who is hoping to use vinyl records collected from neighbors and an inherited record player to draw students into analog music listening. I love her drive to expose middle schoolers to the context around artists and music cultures that comes with listening to music in album form.

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We’re at the start of another year. 2025 was difficult for people across the world. There was terrible violence and also some beauty. Some people took courageous action and others capitulated. I suspect that 2026 will offer more of the same and also will surprise in some ways. Each of us will have to navigate the ups and downs in the best ways we can. My only piece of advice (I am not an advice giver) is to take opportunities to BE WITH OTHER PEOPLE this year.

I gave up on making New Year’s resolutions many years ago. I do end every year by assessing whether I met some personal goals and by setting small goals for the new year. For over 10 years, I have been using Yearcompass for this activity. I appreciate the simplicity of this free tool.

In 2026, I am teaching again. I look forward to it. My work continues at Interrupting Criminalization, where I will be co-organizing many projects with others. Survived and Punished will celebrate 10 years of work this year. I look forward to reflecting on accomplishments and thinking with others about what’s ahead. I will continue to organize with others around public libraries through For the People Leftist Library Project (FTP) and NYC Public Library Action Network (PLAN). I am excited to co-organize the Black Zine Fair (BZF) with Neta Bomani for the third year. Neta and I are also looking forward to another year of making short-form publications through Sojourners for Justice Press (SJP). I will of course continue to make my own zines and am also planning an exhibition for 2027. Finally, I plan to keep publishing this newsletter monthly. There’s a saying that man makes plans and God laughs. I have plans and am also sure that they will change. We’ll see how things go.

Speaking of the BZF, the application for exhibitors, workshop facilitators, and volunteers is open until February 9. We are fundraising to make the fair happen, and we welcome and need donations. It’s been fun to see a broader revival of zine culture.

In November, I emailed Giving Circle members a survey to ask whether people wanted the Circle to continue in 2026 and for ideas about the future. Thanks to everyone who responded. The responses were overwhelmingly positive and people wanted the Circle to continue this year. I will organize a virtual gathering for those Circle members who would like to connect this year. Finally, I will email a form to subscribers later this month to solicit suggestions of organizations that you think the Circle should support this year. Please feel free to join the Giving Circle. Here is the list of all of the groups and people who received funds in 2025. Together we donated nearly $40,000 to 116 groups, projects and people in 2025.

In November 2025, some of you donated $4716.85 [after fees] to the Giving Circle. I donated $4500 in November to 20 groups/orgs. Documentation of the groups that received funds is here.

In December 2025, as I mentioned in a previous newsletter, I used a lot of the Giving Circle funds to support a toy giveaway at Another World in Brooklyn. I also made a few donations to a handful of organizations.

In this edition of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I share an overview of a very good new book about policing and the Civil Rights Movement. I recommend a podcast about the legacy of Jen Angel, several good recent articles and essays, and more…

How Cops Fought Civil Rights, and How the CRM Fought Back

Joshua Clark Davis’s Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back is a vital retelling of the history of the Civil Rights Movement. As the title says, Davis—a professor of history at the University of Baltimore—focuses not on desegregation or voting rights, but on police brutality as a, and even the, key civil rights struggle of the 60s and 70s. In doing so, he shatters a series of interrelated myths about the past and shows the freedom struggle’s continued relevance in the present.

The first crucial myth that Davis debunks is the belief that the most important and iconic acts of police brutality were violent assaults by Southern lawmen. The key figure here is the notorious Birmingham Commissioner Bull Connor, whose department’s use of fire hoses, dogs, and vicious beatings against the 1961 Freedom Riders shocked the world and gained the movement crucial liberal white support.

Other jurisdictions, however, learned from Connor’s mistakes. Police in places like Danville, Virginia, and Houston, Texas, turned over the next decades to what Davis refers to as “slow violence.” He defines slow violence as “unhurried acts of harm, the products of painstaking design that exact damage in such a subtle and drawn-out manner as to not appear violent at all, at least not to many observers.” Slow violence tactics included smearing protestors, publishing their personal information, sustained surveillance, infiltration of civil rights organizations, entrapment, planting evidence, and lawfare—including prosecutions for drug offenses and prosecutions for crimes committed by others at protests. These tactics drained activists of funds and energy and sometimes put them in prison for years. Davis recounts in ugly detail how slow violence devastated vital civil rights organizations like SNCC and CORE.

Most histories of the Civil Rights Movement focus on the FBI as the key perpetrator of slow violence, and especially of espionage. This is the second myth Davis challenges. The “red squads” of local police departments, he reveals, had more agents assigned to political surveillance than the FBI (4700 compared to 3000 by the end of the 60s). Despite being very segregated, local police departments employed far more Black officers than the almost entirely white FBI. This meant that local police were better positioned to infiltrate and surveil civil rights organizations.

Undercover operations by local police had devastating consequences for activists. In Houston in 1968, a court gave Lee Otis Johnson, a charismatic student SNCC organizer, a flagrantly unjust thirty-year sentence for sharing a joint with an undercover officer (he served four years). In New York in 1965, undercover officer Robert Wood convinced three civil rights activists to join him in a half-baked plan to dynamite the head of the Statue of Liberty; they were all arrested and served lengthy prison terms. In Philadelphia in 1966, a carful of white men beat young SNCC staffer Barry Dawson unconscious; he was convinced that they were police in part because he knew police had been surveilling him. He made a formal complaint—starting a wave of slow and less-slow police violence, including probable planted evidence, probable coerced confessions, the seizure of membership lists, and further beatings that terrorized Dawson and his SNCC chapter for two years.

The constant overt and covert surveillance of civil rights organizations for their politics with no evidence of crime effectively criminalized speech and assembly. Police used surveillance to intimidate activists and to mire them in the slow violence of lawfare—and not just, or even primarily, in states like Alabama or Mississippi.

In that vein, another crucial myth that Davis dispels is the entrenched narrative that Southern police were the movement’s most intransigent foes. In fact, the largest cities—New York, Chicago, Los Angeles—also had the largest police departments and the most resources to put into surveillance and slow violence. It was these departments that effectively kneecapped the movement as it pushed for broader gains outside the South.

This is not to say that activists and organizers simply allowed the police to steamroll them. It has become conventional wisdom that civil rights organizers did not seriously or consistently confront police brutality until the Black Lives Matter movement of the 2010s. But this is also a myth, and one that Davis thoroughly refutes. He points out that John Lewis’s famous speech to the 1963 March on Washington was a blistering denunciation of police violence. “We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over again, and then you holler, ‘Be patient.’ How long can we be patient? We want our freedom and we want it now.”

Lewis was far from alone; police violence of all kinds was an abiding concern of movement leaders from before Ella Baker to after the Black Panthers. Organizers also pioneered a range of important analyses of, and tactics for confronting, police violence. Los Angeles activists in the mid-60s, for example, launched “Community Alert Patrols”—volunteers in cars who followed the LAPD in Black neighborhoods to observe and take photographs. Just as ICE agents hate being filmed today, so the LAPD loathed the patrols and saw them as radical and dangerous precisely because they were effective in discouraging brutality and false charges.

In the mid-70s, activists in a range of cities, from Memphis to Chicago, sought to bring lawsuits to force police red squads to divulge their records. That prompted most departments to rush to shred or burn their files—the LAPD alone destroyed 1.9 million records. Davis argues that the lack of extant documentation is one reason the history of police surveillance has largely vanished from public consciousness.

Another reason is ongoing police propaganda; textbooks and museums devoted to law enforcement that present Bull Connor and J. Edgar Hoover as unfortunate, uncharacteristic white supremacist outliers, unrepresentative of policing as a whole. Police launder their past slow violence so that they can continue to perpetrate all kinds of violence in the present. Clark points out that many states, including Florida, North Carolina, and Oklahoma, have criminalized various forms of protest, while Cop City protestors in Atlanta have faced racketeering charges with a maximum penalty of twenty years in prison.

These abuses today, as in the past, prop up white supremacy and fascism. Police Against the Movement is a clarifying, necessary account of how long the police have fought the movement, and why equality and freedom are not possible until they are defeated.

Sojourners for Justice Press will soon publish Black/Study: The Influence of David Walker’s Appeal. In 1829, David Walker published An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, a subversive pamphlet calling for enslaved Black people to revolt. His words inspired slave rebellions and shaped future abolitionist movements. Black/Study traces a history of the Appeal alongside archival photographs of Black people reading and learning across generations. You will be able to order a copy in the next couple of weeks.

Melissa Gira Grant has done great reporting on Chicago’s incredibly effective community-based ICE response. As Grant writes, in addition to the direct and immediate protection these groups are offering neighbors, “this is true movement-building, a project that may endure after this particular threat to immigrant communities, even after this regime.”

I also love this profile by Julia Carrie Wong of five people across the country finding different ways to plug into anti-ICE efforts.

Atarah Israel, a college student and In These Times intern, offers a beautiful and vulnerable review of Assata Shakur’s autobiography in the aftermath of Shakur’s transition. Israel writes, “Her words still retain a warrior-like strength that can only be described in terms of love.”

I loved reading about the community that women with partners incarcerated on Rikers Island have forged, both online and in person.

This is an interesting reading of Joan Didion’s 1968 essay On Becoming a Cop-Hater, as well as an investigation into why Didion never republished the essay in later collections of her work.

The excellent fall 2025 issue of the Barnard Center for Research on Women’s The Scholar and Feminist Online, which I discuss below, contains this vital work of scholarship by my friend & co-founder of Survived & Punished, Alisa Bierria: “Self-Defense Is a Practice of Freedom.”

As it is at most jails and prisons, food insecurity is a serious problem at Cook County Jail in Chicago, where incarcerated people have only two options: unappealing free meals that are usually low in nutritional value, and overpriced commissary items that many can’t afford.

A year ago, I shared an article about the $115-million settlement paid by the US Bureau of Prisons to survivors of systemic rape and sexual abuse by the staff of the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Dublin in California, which had been forced to close in December 2024. Now, community organizations and people formerly incarcerated at the notorious prison are fighting an effort by ICE to turn it into an immigration jail.

This exposé by incarcerated journalist Carla J. Simmons of the regular sexual violence incarcerated people are subjected to during “routine” strip searches is a difficult but vital read.

I recommend the history my comrade Jacqui Shine has written of Louisiana’s traveling electric chair, and the geographic significance it carried as executions moved from public spectacles to private operations.

Snap Judgement made a beautiful episode about Jen Angel, her death, and the ways her loved ones have worked to honor Jen’s deeply felt politics by interrupting the normal course of retributive state punishment.

I am reflecting on this poem as a new year of work and journeying begins.

Sojourners for Justice Press is seeking a Creative Marketing Intern. See the internship description here. Applications are due on January 12.

February 1, 2026, from 3 to 5 p.m. ET—We re-opened registration for the virtual discussion about Open Admissions: The Poetics and Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College by Danica Savonick to include more people. Danica Savonick will be joining us. You can register here to participate.

Interrupting Criminalization is hosting a two-part virtual study group with our Abolition Journalism Fellow Lewis Raven Wallace about his excellent new book, Radical Unlearning: The Art and Science of Creating Change from Within. Thursdays January 29 and February 5, 6–7:30p.m. ET/ 5–6:30 p.m. CT/ 3-4:30 PT on Zoom, with special guests who are featured in the book.

Common Justice is holding a series of virtual community workshops beginning January 14. “We welcome both experienced practitioners and people newly drawn to this work to join us in conversation about how we approach restorative justice and violence, and to explore critical questions about safety, accountability, and racial equity in the context of addressing serious violence.”

I recommend the entire Fall 2025 issue of the Barnard Center for Research on Women’s The Scholar and Feminist Online. In partnership with Haymarket Books’s Books Not Bars program, the issue—“Abolition Feminism and the Politics of Reproduction”—was given a limited print run for free distribution to incarcerated readers “in an effort to facilitate intellectual exchange across prison walls.” Follow this link to request a copy for an incarcerated loved one.

New toolkit—invaluable for everyone, and of special interest for New Orleans and Twin Cities folks and other cities facing imminent federal surges: How We Dealt With Border Patrol from Siembra NC’s Defend & Recruit. The toolkit includes learnings and how-tos on crucial elements of rapid response including running ICE Watch and similar trainings, and planning patrol shifts and zones. So much experience and wisdom in one document.

This is a cool work of collaborative art.

The Queer Liberation Library is such a wonderful project—a digital library with free membership that connects “LGBTQ+ people with literature, information, and resources that celebrate the unique and empowering diversity of our community.”

Made this and it was actually delicious.

Wake up and fight.

This cracked me up. Anyone who happens to be near Darlington, WI, should patronize Johnson Public Library there.

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This is my final newsletter of 2025 and what a year this has been for all of us. The genocides in Gaza and Sudan continue. The U.S regime continues to exert fascist control over the federal government. Our neighbors are being kidnapped daily by ICE and Border Patrol. The list of terribles is long. At the same time, I am encouraged by the persistent and ongoing organizing and resistance happening at the local level across the world. People are fighting. There remains a world to win. I thought about what I wanted to share in this last newsletter of the year and decided that I want to share some thoughts about archives, publishing, and Black/Study.

Saint Heron Press, Solange Knowles’s publishing company, made a zine titled “AZUREST BLUE: The Life and Legacy of Amaza Lee Meredith.” Edited by Knowles, the publication explores the life of architect, artist, and educator Amaza Meredith through archival materials, essays, and visual art. Along with an interview with Solange, Architectural Digest offers more context and information about the publication. When asked, “Why is publishing this type of text important to Saint Heron’s overall mission?,” Solange responded, in part:

Saint Heron has transitioned into a lot of printed matter over the past six years because I feel such an urgency in preserving the way our history is documented. There are endless stories that need to be protected and documented, but with the time we have, these are the ones that feel urgent to us and feel like a guiding light for what we can become if we continue to allow our imaginations to dream as big as Amaza’s.

I’m interested in this publication because I enjoy learning about Black women I don’t know. But I’m particularly interested in it because of how it relies on and incorporates archival materials. Some people say zines function as a community archive. I also think that they can be mini-exhibits that include archival materials, visual art, text, and anything else you want to assemble, as shown by the Meredith publication.

We just celebrated five years of Sojourners for Justice Press (SJP) a couple of weeks ago. In that time, we have published a dozen zines and booklets, and archival materials have anchored and informed most of them.

In 2023, I launched my own Archival Activations zine series, which is a multiyear project for activating my personal collections through publications. I feature specific documents and records and provide historical context. I write some publications, and others are by commissioned collaborators. I hope that the featured content in the publications of the series will have some contemporary relevance for readers. Many of the publications are available to engage online, though some are not. You can read about all 11 zines (so far) and our Anguilla massacre art book in this new pamphlet designed by Trevor Messersmith.

So, to close out 2025, I thought I would write a bit about the importance of archives and of archiving. Before doing so, I am excited to announce that the 3rd Annual Black Zine Fair will be on May 9, 2026, and hosted again by Powerhouse Arts.

I am co-organizing a holiday toy drive with Another World this month. We are seeking donations of toys and other gifts. After trying various options to create a wishlist, I had to return to Amazon. The toy wish list is here and the teen gift wish list is here.

If you are in NYC, you can drop off toys and gifts to Another World from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST on December 18 and 19. The actual toy drive event is on December 20.

In this issue of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I discuss one of my all-time favorite topics—community archiving by marginalized groups. I recommend a two-episode podcast exploration of a Japanese psychiatric treatment model, several good recent articles, and much more…

One powerful reason to preserve documents and other artifacts is to remember, celebrate, and preserve communities and community memory. Archivist Geoffrey Yeo argues that “the acts of record making, keeping and using may themselves be pivotal to the construction of communities.” In other words, communities are actually created through time by preserving materials that document their existence. Group identity is created through memory, and archives are a crucial way in which that memory is preserved and renewed.

Photographer Chester Higgins, who worked to preserve an archive of work by Black photographers, has noted that archives of images of Black people are vital because of the use of demeaning stereotypes in white mainstream depictions. Marginalized people also often are shut out of history books, newspapers, and mainstream culture. In that context, archival work is a lifeline from the past to the future, and vice versa. “The elders talked about their fear that all of their past, their meaning, their knowledge would be lost…,” Higgins wrote. “They hoped that through these pictures we would reach the younger generation of black children and inform them of the unique values and life-styles of the generations who preceded them.”

Novelist Frank M. Robinson expressed similar hopes for the archive of his friend and colleague Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. At one time, Robinson wrote, gay children “had no heroes,” because gay identity, from Shakespeare to Leonardo Da Vinci, tended to be erased from historical memory. But the Harvey Milk Archive gives “the young kid from Altoona” a chance to explore for himself Milk’s life and accomplishments. “[P]erhaps that’s the true purpose of any type of archive,” Robinson suggests. “To preserve the past so that anybody can search it for the meaning it may hold for the present.”

Sometimes archivists can have competing views or visions about the purpose and goals of archiving. One example is a debate in a 1978 edition of The Gay Insurgent between Jim Monahan of Chicago’s Gay Academic Union and writer and editor Joan Nestle.

Monahan argued that the major aim of archiving gay history should be “integrating gay history into history.” For Monahan, the goal of archiving was to provide research materials for historians and professional researchers, who could then use the archives to better understand how LGBT history affects historical understanding broadly. He argued, therefore, that materials relating to LGBT people should be stored in academic archives.

Restricting materials to specialist collections outside academic institutions, Monahan said, would lead to “parochialism” and would pose security risks. Academic archives, he said, were already equipped to address sensitive material—for instance, the University of Illinois at Chicago had protocols in place to protect juvenile records.

Monahan also believed that established archives could better handle issues of access. He worried about vandalism, either casual or homophobic (“gay materials would only invite angels of retribution”), and suggested that academic institutions could ensure that only qualified researchers accessed the collection. Academic institutions, for Monahan, were better equipped to deal with preservation needs and to deal with government intrusions like subpoenas.

For Monahan, then, an archive should primarily be focused on preserving knowledge and materials for professionals and researchers who can use the materials to advance an academic project of broad, collective knowledge.

Joan Nestle, an editor, writer, and one of the founders of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, strongly disagreed. She argued that an archive should not be for historians and academics, but for the community that the archive addresses and preserves. “Academic institutions are mostly both educational and cultural failures, even for the students they seek to serve,” she said. “A people must experience their own history in such a way as to change history.”

The Lesbian Herstory Archive, Nestle said, was “for researchers…but more importantly it is for all of us, all lesbians who need to touch their past for whatever reason, to get through the day, to keep a child, to write a poem, to see a face of another time, to recover the fullness of ourselves in all expressions.” Accessibility was vital, she believed, and security was best maintained by the community itself. In a reflection on the debate in 2010, Nestle pointed out that the Lesbian Herstory Archive, which was located in a Brooklyn home, had allowed access to all lesbians who were interested for three decades and had not experienced theft.

“The archives must never be a dead place, a worshiping of the past,” Nestle wrote, “but it must show its connection with the Lesbian present, with the struggles and glories of each Lesbian generation….The archives in the deepest sense is a political act.” Whether to remember people/events or to create accountability, archives preserve memory so that we know who we are, and what that means, now and in the future. Archives must be for everyone.

References

Bastian, Jeannette A , and Ben Alexander, eds. Community Archives: The Shaping of Memory. Facet Publishing, 2009. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Community_Archives/sdsqDgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=importance+of+archives&printsec=frontcover.

Higgins Jr., Chester, and Orde Coombs. Some Time Ago: A Historical Portrait of Black Americans from 1850–1950. Anchor Press, 1980.

OutHistory. “An Early Conversation about Gay and Lesbian Archives: From the Pages of The Gay Insurgent, 1978.” Accessed June 11, 2025. https://wiki.outhistory.org/wiki/An_Early_Conversation_about_Gay_and_Lesbian_Archives:_From_the_Pages_of_The_Gay_Insurgent,_1978.

Robinson, Frank M. “Harvey’s History – And Ours.” The Harvey Milk Archives Newsletter 1, no. 1 (January 1983).

Segrest, Mab. “Lesbian Herstory Archives.” Feminary: A Feminist Journal For The South X, no.2. (1979): 18–19.

Earlier this year, Ola Akinmowo asked me to contribute to The Free Black Women’s Library (FBWL) Canon Zine Project. Each project participant was invited to choose from a list of books in FBWL’s canon or to select another book of our choice written by a Black woman or gender expansive person. I chose Christina Sharpe’s Ordinary Notes (2023) as my inspiration. Ordinary Notes, now available as a paperback, is a book that lingers. It’s a book to read slowly while returning to particular sentences. It takes a lot of work and talent to make something read effortlessly. I didn’t hesitate to select Christina as my thought-partner and guide for this project. I shared my zine at an event in March at the FBWL. I’m grateful to Christina for the inspiration and to Ola for the invitation. You can read the zine here if you would like.

We need to keep reading and circulating accounts of what peoples’ daily lives look like in a devastated Gaza which is enduring an ongoing genocide. Rami Abu Jamous writes that “from the outside, it may seem that life is returning to Gaza, but in fact, it is not life. It is only non-life that is beginning again. We cannot speak of life if the pillars of life—education, health, housing—are not in place.”

At the same time, we need to keep reading about and lifting up Gazan creativity and world-building, which persists through genocide and atrocity. In Prism, Ghada Abu Muaileq profiles three talented Gazan young people who continue to find ways to create beauty.

In Inquest, Jonathan Booth situates the Stop Cop City movement in the history of 150 years of Black-led resistance against Atlanta’s racist policing and governance structures.

As the kidnapping, detention, and deportation project known as Operation Midway Blitz tapered off, Chicago organizers immediately pivoted to sharing with cities around the country the lessons they learned resisting the fascist federal occupation of their city.

In Chicago as well as Los Angeles, the efforts to protect neighbors from brutal antimigrant crackdowns have brought Black and Latine residents together in solidarity, a dynamic chronicled last month by Martin Marcías Jr. and Maxwell Evans for LA Public Press and Block Club Chicago.

Seventeen women have filed a claim with the city of San Francisco stating that while they were being held at a San Francisco jail, they were forced to undress while sheriff’s deputies laughed and filmed them. In 2019, the city paid $53 million to settle a similar claim brought by a different group of women.

The New York Times has published an important investigation into violence perpetrated by guards against incarcerated people in New York state prisons. The report links an apparent spike in already-climbing violence against inmates to the ongoing labor conflicts involving New York’s correctional officers. The reporters detail beatings in harrowing detail, but it’s important to bear witness when we can in order to know what we are up against. Importantly, we need to take ACTION to stop this from continuing.

This is a great, no-nonsense primer from Dan Sinker on the logistics of distributing whistles for ICE Watch purposes. Yet another Chicagoan spreading the wisdom of experience.

Sarah Leonard eulogizes the radical, accessible, loving politics of Teen Vogue for the Columbia Journalism Review. Condé Nast’s effective cancellation of this iconic publication is, as Leonard makes clear, a tragic loss.

I really enjoyed this interview with Ashley D. Farmer about her new biography of the Black nationalist activist Audley Moore, who was better known as Queen Mother.

More on the archival work Solange Knowles and her Saint Heron Library are doing.

Margaret Killjoy’s podcast Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is always worth listening to, but I especially appreciated this two-episode history of a radical psychiatric group home approach developed in Japan in the 1980s, largely by the home’s schizophrenic and otherwise mentally ill residents. Margaret and guest Samantha McVey dig into what the model teaches all of us about the importance of centering autonomy.

In “Lives of Others,” Patricia Fargnoli articulates the everyday miracle of interconnectedness.

Three of my children’s books are currently available from Haymarket Books at 40% off until January 2.

As always, we are doing a lot of generative work at Interrupting Criminalization (IC). Read about a recent convening that we hosted about community-based crisis response last month here.

We’ve also put out a new IC resource on the multitude of ways we can defend our communities and disrupt the execution of ICE’s cruel agenda: Block It! Don’t Build It. Don’t Fill It. Don’t Fuel It. A Mini Toolkit for Interrupting the Abduction, Detention, and Deportation Machine.

December 4 (that’s this Thursday!) at 8 p.m. EST: The For the People 2026 Library Board Candidate Cohort Open House. Register here to learn more about our 2026 library board cohort and ask questions from past participants. Anyone interested is welcome to join the Open House.

The deadline to apply to For the People’s 2026 library board candidate cohort is December 18: Apply here!

Join the Justice Beyond Punishment Collaborative (JBPC) on 12/5 from 6-8 pm in NYC to feel the joy of community, share a meal, and real talk about the power of punishment at a moment in which punishment is central to governance in the country. Register here.

In 2024, Damon (Dame) and Daniel (Kiss), my friends and comrades at Respair Media, hit the road to screen the One Million Experiments film (which was co-created and co-produced with Interrupting Criminalization). While on their travels, Dame and Kiss met with partners featured on the One Million Experiments podcast and took the opportunity to grab some behind-the-scenes footage. The result is Respair Media’s In the Field travel show series. Check out what my friends at Respair Media and Soapbox Productions cooked up!

Primary Information has collected the entire print run of Thing, a radical queer Black zine that launched out of Chicago in 1989, into an over-400-page publication. I purchased a copy at Printed Matter a few months ago. You can get yours here.

This video shows the best way to hang posters without damaging the walls or the posters.

The FreeHer Institute, the think tank of The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, has put out an excellent inaugural report, Work to Be Done: Women’s Incarceration in the 21st Century. “This report asserts what has too often been ignored: that the specific vulnerabilities and strengths of women must be central to any serious conversation about justice. Women’s health needs, their roles as caregivers, and the economic precarity that funnels them into the criminal legal system require attention—not erasure.”

Love this.

Going into 2026 like this.

Chicago Public Libraries offers a coloring map of its 81 locations that encourages residents to “track your visits, explore new neighborhoods, and celebrate the power of libraries across Chicago!”

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After November 5th, 2024, I sprung into action mode. Action mode is my default state. After it was clear that Trump would be back in power at the Federal level again, I knew that this time would be different. The regime was coming in with a plan and previous experience. In the immediate aftermath of the election, I heard from so many people I love and care about who were reeling. I also heard from strangers online. For the online strangers, I immediately went to work organizing a series of workshop sessions intended to offer a soft place to land and ideas for future action. They were well attended, and people told me they found the sessions useful. Inspired by and building on a list by Frontline Medics, I created a list of actions that people could take that went viral. Throughout this year, I hosted an informal monthly co-working space for activists and organizers. Our final session is on Sunday.

My conversations with comrades and friends were different. Grief and exhaustion permeated those discussions. There was also rage and uncertainty. Would we be prepared for what was to come? How would our lives need to change?

A year later, I sense that many people I know who live in the U.S. feel a little disappointed in themselves. Somehow, if we imagined living under full-blown fascism at the Federal level, we believed we would be different. Perhaps braver, more focused, taking bigger risks, becoming world-defining actors. But most of us remain just ordinary humans. Not everyone is rising to the occasion because the times you live in do not immediately shape who you are and what you do. The other truth, I believe, is that you rise to the level of your training and practice, not to the level of your imagined self.

I have been thinking again in these times about Mr. Rogers, who used to share the following anecdote:

“A young apprentice applied to a master carpenter for a job. The older man asked him. “Do you know your trade?” “Yes, sir!” the young man replied proudly. “Have you ever made a mistake?” the older man inquired. “No, sir!” the young man answered, feeling certain he would get the job. “Then there’s no way I’m going to hire you,” said the master carpenter, “because when you make one, you won’t know how to fix it!”

I think that a lot of us are young apprentices who believe that we know our work at this moment except that we’ve never fully practiced that work because we’re afraid to make mistakes. We are learned people but lacking in practice.

I’ve been telling my loved ones that rather than trying to do a lot of things, focusing on one or two things is more realistic and sustainable. I get the sense that some of them don’t like to hear this because it doesn’t feel like enough. But I believe that going an inch wide and a mile deep in our actions (i.e., our practice) is actually a good thing to do right now. We need to be in a consistent mode of practicing.

A friend recently told me she feels like she is tiptoeing through fascism. I’ve been thinking about her words for a couple of weeks because I don’t feel like I am tip-toeing. But I am acutely aware that I am limited in what I can do daily. It can feel terrible to know that our influence only extends so far and that we have control over only a few things at the scale of our own individual lives.

Worse, it can be a shock to encounter the reality that who you are is who you have always been. And that who you are is just an ordinary human being. There are times, I suppose, when external conditions might quickly transform us. But for now, most of us are probably just the same as we were a year ago. And perhaps this is deeply frustrating for some of us. On social media, people seem to express this frustration by saying, “Someone should really do something about all of this.” I suspect those saying this know that *someone* is them. The frustration that we feel, I think, is that we know the limitations that we see in others mirror our own. We sometimes direct our rage outward because we are also furious at ourselves for not being more.

For as much as some humans talk and think about taking courageous stances, the reality of being a person in the world is that most of us don’t want to stand apart. To stand apart risks being alone. We don’t want to be alone and we’re very aware that there’s strength in numbers. Though some reject the premise, many humans also desire to be led. But many of us are followers who are deeply suspicious of leaders. If the word, *leader* rankles then replace it with *guide.*

Looking out at the current landscape, visionary leaders or guides are in short supply. Who are the people in our current moment who are focusing on the transformed worlds we could have? Those who are not settling for shrunken horizons under the guise of so-called realism and pragmatism. Who in public life regularly says: “Be realistic - demand the impossible?” The world as currently constituted can be changed. I don’t think enough people truly believe this though and we really need people who help us to see past the current moment towards something different and better.

My father often encouraged me to fail big because it was a guarantee that I would fail at certain things that I tried. And he said that since failure was built into living, it was best to do so boldly and audaciously. And by taking big risks, I would increase the likelihood that I might also sometimes exceed what I thought were my limits. Right now, I think we need public figures we respect telling us not to settle for crumbs and not to allow ourselves to be convinced that what’s on offer is the best that can be done. It isn’t.

We need leaders calling us to a standard in excess of the prescribed pragmatism of these times. We need to be encouraged to take some big swings with others, and that means we will make mistakes. The current construct seeks to limit our imaginations. Who will remind us to shoot for a place beyond the moon? The status quo is unrealistic and impractical. In fact, for most of the planet, it is oppressive and death-making. We want life; we want livingness for all.

We aren’t superheroes, and we cannot individually stop all suffering. The most we might do is to lessen it for someone else. And often this feels insufficient, so why bother? For me, staying focused on the ways I can lessen suffering that are within my actual control provides grounding and some peace. It’s the best I’ve got. Well that and remaining committed to “doing” rather than “thinking about doing.”

I’ve been feeling angry lately. I’ve been letting that anger sit alongside my grief. I’m so mad about the needless suffering around the world. The current horrors are unevenly distributed. Not all of us are suffering the same effects of fascism. We have to do what we can to defend and protect the most vulnerable in our midst. We can do so while keeping grief close and tending to it. Rather than trying to anesthetize or deny my grief, acknowledging it actually opens me up to more love because grief is connected to our love of people and of life. As Heidi Priebe writes: “As long as there is love, there will be grief.” I agree and all I can do is to keep moving through my rage and grief.

At the start of each day, I remind myself that even if my reach is limited I can still act on my own and with others. I think often of the poem titled Stubborn Ounces by Bonaro W. Overstreet:

“You say the Little efforts that I make

will do no good: they never will prevail

to tip the hovering scale

where Justice hangs in balance.

I don’t think I ever thought they would.

But I am prejudiced beyond debate

in favor of my right to choose which side

shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.”

We may sometimes feel powerless, but each of us influences the world in some way. Most of the time, we have limited influence, but it matters. I have a profound commitment to a future for those who are much younger than me and those who will come after them. So I invoke “my right to choose which side shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.”

Recently, a comrade asked me where I thought the U.S. would end up in five years. I said that I did not know. I’m with Thomas Merton, who wrote:

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”

None of us knows where the U.S. will end up, and we don’t know where we will either. This is both deeply unsettling and also an opportunity. I hope that the uncertainty that we will never conquer leads us to lean into more compassion for ourselves and others rather than to make us mean and more selfish. I’m often asked by people if there are times when I despair about the world. I offer J.R.R. Tolkien’s words attributed to Gandalf in the Fellowship of the Ring as my go-to response: “It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.” We do not know where we will end up and I continue to believe that it is possible to transform our conditions through human action. In the new year, let’s embrace making mistakes so we can take more courageous anti-fascist action together.

I am co-organizing a holiday toy drive with Another World next month. We are seeking donations of toys and other gifts. I initially linked a registry list and it turns out that it is not working. My apologies. I have to create a new one.

If you are in NYC, you can drop off toys and gifts to Another World from 11 am to 7 pm ET on December 18 and 19. The actual toy drive event is on December 20.

I will also devote the bulk of December’s Giving Circle funds to this toy drive project. I appreciate all of your support. We want to make sure that families in Crown Heights can give at least one gift to their children this holiday season.

Speaking of the Giving Circle, in October, some of you donated $4027.60 [after fees]. I donated $4040.24 to 14 projects/people. Documentation of the groups that received funds is here. Since January, the newsletter Giving Circle has contributed nearly $30,000 to dozens of people and groups. Thank you to all of the donors. Since I don’t monetize my newsletter, I really appreciate you donating to the Circle instead.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I’m heading into my final few weeks of teaching this semester. I’ve greatly enjoyed learning from my students. They are smart and engaged in the topics we are discussing in class. Unfortunately, as institutions, many universities have not covered themselves in glory over the past few years. Administrators have repeatedly unleashed police against student protesters; they have left some of their students and faculty members unprotected against government tyranny and have acquiesced to fascism; they have revoked degrees and closed down programs and departments considered “woke.” This, of course, didn’t come out of nowhere. Universities are not progressive institutions, contrary to right-wing propaganda.

I’ve been wondering what novel forms universities might take in the future. Many of the best-endowed institutions are currently hedge funds and real estate companies that sometimes also teach students. It doesn’t have to be this way, though.

A few months ago, I purchased a 1971 course catalog for the Center for Participant Education (CPE) at the University of California at Berkeley. The CPE was a student-initiated experimental college that launched in 1967. I had never heard of this center before. I fell down a research rabbit hole, so I decided to share some of what I learned here. I figure that some of you might also find it interesting. We’re in a historical moment when we could probably create thousands of similar programs across the country. Of course, the course offerings should be shaped by our current conditions.

I offer a brief history of the CPE in this newsletter. I hope that you find it as interesting as I did.

The Communiversity that I co-organized will have its final session this year on November 15. Join us for some of the sessions happening on 11/8 and 11/15. I am particularly jazzed about the terrific Youth Day programming that we offered on October 25. It’s been such a pleasure to meet all of the participants and to work with the partners who made this happen.

Preorders for our Sojourners for Justice Press calendar end on 11/16. Pick up your copies before then. It’s beautiful and your purchase helps us to keep going. Our micro-press SJP is 5 years old and we are celebrating on November 22 virtually. Details about that and more are included in this month’s newsletter.

I missed the chance to share last month’s Giving Circle update. In September, some of you donated $4729.77 [after fees] to the Giving Circle. I donated $4500 to 12 projects/people. Documentation of the groups that received funds is here. I haven’t had a chance to tally October numbers yet so will post those at a later date.

I’ve been wanting to read Open Admissions: The Poetics and Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College by Danica Savonick. I decided that it would be great to read it with others so I will be facilitating a virtual book discussion on February 1, 2026, from 3 to 5 p.m. ET and I am excited that Danica Savonick will be joining us. You can register here to participate. Thanks to Colleen for taking on the logistics to make this happen!

In this edition of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I give a brief history of a radical higher education experiment from late-1960s Berkeley. I recommend two podcast episodes, several good recent articles and essays, and more…

The Center for Participant Education (CPE) was a university-supported experimental college at Berkeley in the late 1960s. The CPE encouraged students to design courses on contemporary issues neglected by the standard curriculum.

The CPE’s university support was always tenuous, and after a major controversy involving the proposal for a course taught by Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers, the administration abandoned the program. The CPE continued to inspire other experimental schools, however, and remains a touchstone for radical educational reform and student empowerment.

Educational Reform and the Free Speech Movement

The CPE was born from two major movements at Berkeley—an educational reform effort, and the Free Speech Movement.

The educational reform movement of the early sixties was largely faculty-led. Professors like Martin Trow and Nathan Glazer criticized large lectures and testing-based teaching, which stressed memorization rather than broader learning.

Philosophy professor Joseph Tussman argued that undergraduate education was incoherent and shallow. In 1965, he created an experimental program that focused intensively on a small group of texts, generally reading only one book at a time. Tussman’s program also eliminated grades. Some at Berkely hoped that Tussman’s program could become a model for the entire college, which they hoped to reorganize like UC Santa Cruz, which was hoping to establish several small college programs under the umbrella of the larger university.

The Free Speech Movement was much more radical than educational reform, and much more famous. In the early 60s, Berkeley and many other schools banned students from much political speech on campus. For instance, fundraising for the Civil Rights Movement on campus property was against school rules.

In October 1964, authorities arrested Jack Weinberg, a former graduate student, on campus for promoting civil rights causes. Thousands of students spontaneously protested, surrounding the police car holding Weinberg and stopping it from leaving. Demonstrations continued for months, leading to the arrests of hundreds of students.

The administration eventually backed down, and in early 1965 allowed student political organizing and advocacy on campus, setting a new precedent for campuses nationwide. Backlash against the student protests of this era helped elevate Ronald Reagan, who made bashing Berkeley students a central plank of his successful 1966 campaign for California governor.

The Creation of the CPE

Tussman’s innovations and the FSM pushed Berkeley to consider the need for broad educational changes. The result was the creation of the Board of Educational Development (BED), which was charged with creating and evaluating programs for educational reform.

Students approached the BED with the first proposals for the CPE, an experimental program through which students could propose and develop courses with a faculty sponsor. Courses began in 1967 and covered a wide range of topics. For example, a fall 1969 course catalog for the CPE includes classes titled “Alternatives to Ecological Catastrophe,” “American Capitalism and Socialist Alternatives,” “Pilot Project on Homosexuality,” “Very Contemporary Literature (Poetry),” “Black Community Organizing,” and other offerings on film, women’s studies, and Chicano and Native American issues.

The CPE was controversial from the start. Students radicalized by the FSM saw it as a way to assert students’ rights to control their own education. Many courses countered what activists saw as the university’s reactionary, white, corporate, militaristic agenda. In contrast, faculty were very reluctant to give up authority over classroom standards, and they rejected the idea that the university curriculum was politicized.

Eldridge Cleaver

These tensions came to a head when Berkeley student Larry Magid—one founder of the CPE—invited Eldridge Cleaver, minister of public information for the Black Panther Party and self-admitted rapist, to teach a class titled “Social Analysis 139X: Dehumanization and Regeneration of the American Social Order.”

Authorities had repeatedly imprisoned Cleaver and indicted him for assault with a deadly weapon. His book Soul on Ice advocated for radical Black liberation and excoriated the prison system. Magid and Berkeley, therefore, knew the course would be controversial. This was part of the point; Cleaver, Magid believed, would provide a viewpoint on race and racism that was not represented among Berkeley faculty. The BED asked for some changes to the course description, but approved it for fall 1968.

The university issued multiple press releases in an effort to get out in front of the backlash. They emphasized that four faculty members were overseeing the course and that no university funds were being used.

However, Berkeley significantly underestimated the extent of conservative pushback. Angry phone calls came pouring in. Reagan, now California’s governor, seized on the course; he called Cleaver “an advocate of racism and violence” and said the course was “an affront and an insult to the people of California.” The California legislature followed Reagan’s lead; after threatening to cut off Berkeley’s funds, they voted to censure university officials.

Reagan demanded that the Regents, the governing body of the University of California system, vote to forbid Cleaver from teaching, which they did. They also denied students credit for the course and censured officials and faculty for approving it.

The massive publicity and controversy surrounding Cleaver initially supercharged the CPE. Activists volunteered to teach courses, and student demand was high. However, the university quickly cracked down. It stripped the BED of its ability to approve new offerings, effectively ending the ability of the CPE to offer courses for credit. It replaced the BED with a new body, the Division of Experimental Courses (DEC), which was supposed to be more restrictive.

But the university failed to support even the DEC. Innocuous courses like basket weaving were denied approval; an “Edible Plants” course was blocked “on the grounds that local vegetation may be either poisonous or hallucinogenic,” according to a 1972 report by Larry Magid and Nesta King. The CEP continued to offer classes—a 1970 issue of Jet, for example, reports that a class through the CPE was teaching students how to identify undercover police officers. By the end of 1969, the CPE effectively no longer could offer courses for credit. As scholar Julie A. Reuben wrote, “Students thus lost their ability to directly shape the curriculum.”

The Legacy of the CPE

The CPE was intended to empower students and to offer a radical education unavailable at universities of the time. It offered some of the earliest for-credit courses in Black Studies, Latino Studies, Women’s Studies, Native American Studies, and Environmental Studies, helping to pioneer progressive change in education.

The CPE also, however, demonstrated the power of a reactionary backlash against students, especially when administration and faculty capitulated to political pressure. In that sense, the conservative moral panic about Eldridge Cleaver at the CPE foreshadows the Trump administration’s attack on higher education, its efforts to crush student protest, and its demand that universities like Columbia cater to and promote a right-wing agenda.

My good friend Kelly Hayes has edited a poignant and useful anthology of letters written by organizers. Read This When Things Fall Apart gathers wisdom and advice from veteran organizers about how our movements can navigate and survive fascism as we work to tear it down. I am honored to have a letter in the book.

Buy a copy for yourself and give several copies to others. This will make a great holiday gift.

Toshio Meronek and Eric A. Stanley have written a beautiful and loving remembrance of organizer, Stonewall uprising veteran, and radical icon Miss Major Griffin-Gracy: “To Honor Miss Major, We Fight for the Trans and Queer Spaces She Built.“

Orisanmi Burton has written a beautiful and loving remembrance of another recent ancestor; in “Assata Is Welcome Here,” he tells the story of Assata Shakur’s remarkable life and illustrates some of the ways her work has resonated outward.

The new issue of Hammer & Hope is out and as usual there are several terrific essays featured.

“A Letter from an Organizer on How to Fight While Feeling Broken“ by Aaron Goggans is a beautiful, urgently necessary excerpt from Read This When Things Fall Apart.

Emily Wilder, a journalist who was aboard a boat participating in the flotilla movement to bring humanitarian supplies to Gaza by sea, has documented her experience of being detained for two days by Israel after soldiers intercepted her boat in early October. It’s important to read and absorb these stories of Israeli state violence, big and small.

The violent, fascistic federal raid on a Chicago South Shore apartment building that occurred early September 30 should terrify and infuriate us all. South Side Weekly did a fantastic job of documenting the raid and its aftermath.

This Truthout interview with Ilā Ravichandran of the Policing in Chicago Research Group situates Chicago’s current experience as a laboratory for immigration policing technologies within the city’s long history of overpolicing, surveillance, and state targeting of vulnerable groups and organizers.

Victoria Law, author of the excellent Corridors of Contagion, writes in The Nation about what the latest COVID surge—occurring amid the widespread abandonment of public health measures—looks like for the people we incarcerate.

Read this excerpt from Joshua Clark Davis’s new book, Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Movement and the Activists Who Fought Back, and then order the book or request it from your library!

Life has published an online gallery of photographs showing a series of May 1960 Civil Rights Movement sit-ins and the planning conference and participant trainings that preceded them.

I loved reading about the free Highlander Nursery School in Summerfield, Tennessee, which connected rural families to the integrated, socialist labor movement institution the Highlander Folk School from 1938 to 1953.

I had a blast talking with my friends Kelly and Red about “Making Things Together” under fascism. We talked about zines, old fashioned base building, and our contributions to Kelly’s new book, and I got a chance to reflect on the Communiversity.

I recommend Radley Balko’s new podcast Collateral Damage about the death and devastation caused by 50 years of the so-called war on drugs. The first episode tells the story of the Atlanta Police Department’s murder of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston and the crooked narcotics unit that was exposed after a brave police informant refused to help cover the murder up.

In “Work, Sometimes,” Mary Oliver invites us to notice the reminders around us that “Happiness isn’t…a job well done, but good work ongoing.”

NYC residents, please send a letter to your City Council member. It takes 30 seconds. Support our public libraries & you’ll be eligible for this raffle.

My good friend and colleague Lewis Wallace has a terrific new book out titled “Radical Unlearning: The Art and Science of Creating Change from Within.” As I wrote in my endorsement of the book: “How and why we change our beliefs is an essential question for our times. Radical Unlearning offers thoughtful and generous portraits of people who have changed their minds about important social and political issues. Beautifully written, engaging, introspective, and also outward facing, this book is one I will continue to return to, to better understand my fellow humans and myself for years to come.” Get your copy today!

November 30 - If you are seeking a space where you can reflect individually and with others on your ongoing activism and organizing, feel free to join me on the last Sunday of every month through November on Zoom from 4 to 6 pm ET. The final drop-in session is on Sunday, November 30. This is for people already engaged in some form of activism and organizing. Space is limited: sign up here.

If you’re near Brooklyn on November 15, come learn about the artistic collaborations between artists Faith Ringgold and Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter and women and gender expansive people at Rikers Island at the Paint Me a Road film screening and talk back, 6 to 8 p.m. ET.

The 2026 REBUILD calendar is available for preordering; buy one or buy a discounted pack of 20 to take care of all your winter holiday gifting needs!

My comrade and friend Olly Costello is also selling this gorgeous print featuring my words to raise money for REBUILD.

Take advantage of this amazing political education tool from Healing Justice Lineages—From Lineage to Liberation: History and Conditions For Healing Justice.

A new report found that every single US state incarcerates women at a higher rate than most of our international allies. The US accounts for only 4% of the world’s women, but holds 25% of the women who are incarcerated worldwide. Women are disproportionately criminalized for poverty, disability, and mental health issues, and prisons only worsen their circumstances.

Read about some of the works featured in the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition of Malian photographer Seydou Keïta’s portraits. And if you can, visit the exhibition, Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens, which runs through early March 2026.

Pure joy.

A “free little art gallery” (FLAG) featuring a local artist and built into the Butler, Indiana, Public Library as a collaboration with a local art museum has become a site of inspiration and creativity for the library’s patrons.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Assata Shakur transitioned on September 25. I still don’t have the right words to convey what she meant to me. All I will say is that I loved her and that I am grateful to and for her. In the coming weeks, when I find my words, I might have more to offer. In the meantime, I will share an Assata Teach-In site I made with a couple of comrades many years ago when the Obama administration increased its bounty on her life. It includes many relevant resources including a short curriculum. Defend her legacy, protect her memory, carry forward her work and uplift her family in your prayers. Assata Shakur, Presente! Thank you for everything.

On Saturday October 11, I am facilitating a workshop titled “Grassroots Fundraising for Organizers” as part of our Communiversity. It will be in person and anyone can register.

Philly Zine Fest is on November 1 and I will be there. Stop by if you are in town.

Join me online on November 4 at 5 pm ET for a conversation about zines and archives. I am really looking forward to this.

Here’s a preview of our 2026 Sojourners for Justice Press calendar. It is available for preorders and will ship in the United States in early December. Preorder here until 11/16 to help us keep our press going.

In this edition of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I review a beautiful new book about Eleanor Bumpurs. I recommend a great new season of the One Million Experiments podcast, several good recent articles and essays, and more…

Eleanor Bumpurs’s Full and Multifaceted Life

A Short Review of LaShawn Harris’s Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs & The Police Killing That Galvanized New York City (2025)

Like historian LaShawn Harris, I remember what it felt like to be a child in New York City when Eleanor Bumpurs, an elderly Black woman, was murdered by an NYPD officer evicting her from her public housing apartment. But Harris, who was 10 at the time, lived across the street from Bumpurs.

On October 29, 1984, police officer Stephen Sullivan shot and murdered 66-year-old Bumpurs in her apartment during a city-ordered eviction. The killing outraged Black and poor communities in New York, and led to years of rallies against a system that trapped people in cycles of poverty and then executed them when they could not pay rent.

Like most police shooting victims, Bumpurs’s life and legacy in the public eye are almost entirely defined by her violent death. In her new book, Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs & The Police Killing That Galvanized New York City, Harris—now a Michigan State University history professor—sets out to change that. “Stories focused on violence reduce individuals to one-dimensional portrayals,” Harris writes. “We need histories that render visible victims’ full and multifaceted lives.”

Uncovering those “full and multifaceted lives” is, as Harris acknowledges, difficult. As Saidiya Hartman writes in Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, “Every historian of the multitude, the dispossessed, the subaltern, and the enslaved is forced to grapple with the power and authority of the archive and the limits it sets on what can be known, whose perspective matters, and who is endowed with the gravity and authority of a historical actor.” Harris’s reconstruction of Bumpurs’s life involves both painstaking research and imaginative reconstruction, anchored to interviews with Bumpurs’s daughter Mary.

Harris’s portrait is, then, partly speculative, but it is even more necessary for that. Eleanor, Harris writes, was born on August 22, 1918, in Louisville, North Carolina, the fourth of five surviving children. Growing up, she witnessed KKK assaults on Black people. She also watched her mother die slowly and painfully from the nutritional deficiency pellagra; this circumstance forced her to leave school to care for her siblings when she was 11. She married a farm laborer in the mid-30s and had her first child when she was 21. She helped support her family with backbreaking domestic labor at the Franklin Hotel.

In 1942, Eleanor was arrested for assault with a knife or a gun; family rumors suggest she may have been defending herself from domestic violence. She served eight months, and soon after her release she left North Carolina for New York City. There she had a short-lived relationship with an older man named John Bumpurs, gave birth to Mary, and over the next fifteen years had five more children by different fathers. She worked at the Waldorf Astoria as a chambermaid until the late 1950s, when gallstone surgery forced her into early retirement. Her two sons were abducted by their father in the mid-50s, which caused her intense pain. She never saw them again.

Over the next twenty years, Bumpurs and her family struggled on public assistance, trying to find suitable housing and live day to day. By the mid-70s, Eleanor’s mental health was deteriorating; she talked about seeing her dead brothers walking through the walls. She also had serious arthritis and chronic pain. When she felt threatened, she would sometimes clutch a knife—which was used as an excuse by the police who shot her.

It would be easy to see Eleanor’s story as one only of trauma and hardship. But Harris is careful to highlight the parts of her life that included love and joy. She points out that for Eleanor, as for many who moved north during the Great Migration, the decision to leave the South for a better life was courageous and hopeful. Harris also highlights Eleanor’s love for her children, her pride in her cooking, and her enthusiasm for the latest dance crazes; Mary Bumpurs recalls her mother teaching her James Brown’s “Mashed Potato” when it was a hit trend in the early 1960s.

Even in her 60s, with deteriorating mental health, Eleanor continued to have close ties with her family, who lived near her public housing unit in the Bronx. She also watched her neighbors’ children during the day when they were at work. Eleanor’s, “neighborly act of kindness,” Harris writes, “complicates ideas about mentally and physically disabled persons as being unproductive, incapable of caring for themselves and others, and unfit to contribute to their communities or society at large.”

By reminding us that Eleanor had a past, a community, and a life, Harris reveals what Eleanor and all of us lost when the police murdered her. The book traces the systemic failures, rooted in indifference and racism, that led to Eleanor’s death. Eleanor began withholding rent for uncertain reasons; it seems likely that she believed the building management was responsible for the frightening hallucinations of people walking into her apartment. But the city did not provide mental health resources; did not provide rent assistance, though it was available; and did not even communicate clearly to family members that Eleanor was not paying rent on time.

Police without training for mental health crises were called in to help with the eviction; they were also misinformed about how dangerous Eleanor was. They apparently believed she might throw boiling lye on them, and did not understand how fully her arthritis incapacitated her. Instead of seeing a frightened grandmother, they saw stereotypes of dangerous Black women and of dangerous mentally ill people.

Bumpurs’ shooting, along with those of other police violence victims like Michael Stewart, galvanized the city. Eleanor’s death also inspired Mary Bumpurs, who became her mother’s fiercest advocate and an impressive speaker and activist. The campaign for justice for Bumpurs led to important changes in city housing policy; these prevented 1,354 evictions in 1985. The city also mandated expanded police training for dealing with the mentally ill. And the organizing around Eleanor became an important precursor to the #SayHerName campaign of the 2010s, which focused on Black women victims of police violence.

As often happens in police shootings, however, the legal system did not provide justice. Some housing administrators were demoted, but Sullivan was acquitted of manslaughter in 1987. The federal government refused to investigate the issue as a civil rights case. The closest the Bumpurs family got to recompense from the city was a much-reduced 1990 settlement totaling $200,000 in the end.

A campaign of character assassination perpetrated by the white press and the police union exacerbated the pain of Sullivan’s acquittal. Eleanor’s family was smeared; Sullivan’s supporters claimed they had abandoned their mother and had refused to pay her rent. The press and Sullivan’s supporters depicted Eleanor herself as dangerous, violent, and unstoppable because of her weight and mental illness.

This kind of demonization of victims and of survivors is typical in police shooting cases. After every police killing, white solidarity and white supremacy are deliberately leveraged to erase the histories and suffering of those who have been targeted, and to claim that police shooters are the actual victims. Harris’s book is a direct response to this effort to erase the humanity of Black women. Tell Her Story ensures that Eleanor Bumpurs will be remembered not just for how she died, but for her complicated, difficult, loving, and meaningful life. Read this book!

What If We Let Them Play? is a collaborative youth zine that I commissioned from Woke Kindergarten a couple of years ago. This was one of Project NIA’s final collaborations before our sunset. The project invited young people to think about ways to unmake youth prisons and to envision play spaces instead. Children ages 4 to 18 were invited to submit artwork. Children were encouraged “to think beyond the confines of our reality & to tap into their most wondrous, creative and imaginative freedom dreams for a world in which kids are not in cages, and instead have the opportunity to play in spaces that are safe and contribute to their healing.” Submissions could include anything that could be scanned, photographed and/or uploaded such as drawings, paintings, sketches, collage, writing, photography, sound bites (for the digital version and transcription) and more.

I was excited to debut hard copies of What If We Let Them Play? at the Abolitionist Toyery event that I organized in August. Today, I am sharing a digital version here. Feel free to make copies and distribute in your communities if you’re interested.

The two winners of this year’s Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize for writers who are currently or formerly incarcerated, have been announced. Read the stunning winning essays by Starling Thomas and E.M.

This is such a rich conversation between David Stein and geographer Lydia Pelot-Hobbs about carceral—and anticarceral—geographies in Louisiana since Hurricane Katrina.

This episode of the Reveal podcast tells the story of the 2013 hunger strike against long-term solitary confinement conditions at California’s notorious Pelican Bay prison, the largest prison hunger strike in US history.

Lauren Gill writes in Bolts about local opposition from residents of conservative Franklin County, Arkansas, to an attempt to build a large new prison there. The ongoing struggle has had some successes and has brought unlikely allies together.

Please read this harrowing first-person account of horrific, sadistic abuse occurring in Texas prisons.

There were no homicides in Camden, New Jersey, this summer for the first time in over 50 years, and murder rates have fallen 64% since the city abolished its police department in 2013 and replaced it with a county-wide department.

Most of this review of Who Would Believe a Prisoner? Indiana Women’s Carceral Institutions, 1848–1920 is behind a paywall. But even the few paragraphs that are open access tell a remarkable story about the group of incarcerated scholars who produced this historical monograph from inside prison walls.

A beautiful essay from June about the way LA has mounted a “righteous resistance to defend the sovereignty—and the soul—of Los Angeles” in the face of federal occupation.

In August, n+1 published five searing poems by three young Palestinian poets with Israeli citizenship, along with an introduction that discusses the positionality of these “’48 Palestinians,” as they refer to themselves.

In Truthout, Lewis Raven Wallace, Interrupting Criminalization’s abolition journalism fellow, interviews incarcerated trans activist and writer Rayne Vylette about the worsening conditions for trans prisoners in Florida.

Listen to Season 3 of the One Million Experiments podcast, which is focused on community-based crisis response. The projects featured are a legacy of 2020–21 anti–state violence organizing.

I love this ode to small kindnesses by Danusha Laméris.

October 26 - If you are seeking a space where you can reflect individually and with others on your ongoing activism and organizing, feel free to join me on the last Sunday of every month through December on Zoom from 4 to 6 pm ET. The next drop-in session is on Sunday, October 26. This is for people already engaged in some form of activism and organizing. Space is limited: sign up here.

October 25 - Communiversity Youth Day - If you know a 14–17-year-old living in New York City, encourage them to register for the October 25 Communiversity Youth Day workshops, with topics ranging from zine making to arts-based participatory action research to the role of food in power building and movements.

Oct 9 - This Thursday on Zoom, join For the People: A Leftist Library Project for a discussion of how to build real power around public libraries this Banned Books Week.

Read the September edition of Interrupting Criminalization’s newsletter, This Month in Criminalization; my co-director Andrea J. Ritchie shares hot topics and current legislative and policy developments in criminalization, and points people to calls to action and relevant resources.

This online Grief as Repair workshop by the Accountable Communities Consortium looks incredible—buy a ticket if you’re free October 16.

Solange has launched a free digital archive and physical lending library filled with rare, out-of-print, and first edition works by Black and Brown authors, poets, and artists. In her words: “As the … market and demand for these books, zines, and catalogues rises, we would like to play a small part in creating free access to the expansive range of critical thought and expression by these great minds.” The library runs on an honor system—members can borrow titles for 45 days with a prepaid return label included.

A mini toolkit from Vision Change Win “to support left movement groups in building risk assessments to address safety threats.”

I wrote a few weeks ago about imagination as a terrain of struggle. In that vein, I love this project: “New York 2044, a newspaper that proposes the city we want to inhabit in 2044, and how to get there.”

I also love this series from WePresent that invites “10 rules to live by” from a variety of activists and artists. So much pithy wisdom on so many topics!

Over the course of six months ending in November, New Haven, Connectiut, public libraries have offered nine free first aid classes where residents learn how to perform CPR, use AED machines, and administer Narcan. Libraries literally saving lives!

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I saw this tweet by visionary artist Tourmaline a couple of weeks after police in Minneapolis killed George Floyd in 2020, and it has stayed with me. I’ve noticed over the past few years that more people are placing an emphasis on the importance of imagination. I think that this is a good thing, with some caveats.

I heard writer and organizer Derecka Purnell once say that imagination is neutral, and she’s right. Imagination doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It can create good things or very destructive things. Some people imagined every part of our current oppressive system, and that includes prisons, policing, mass surveillance and permanent war. People always imagine. The question, it seems to me, is how to imagine emancipatory and liberatory presents and futures. As my friend, abolitionist scholar and organizer Erica Meiners, has written: “Liberation under oppression is unthinkable by design.” For me, therefore, it’s so important to cultivate revolutionary imagination.

Just like prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition, imagining is not a solitary project or an individual action; it’s a collective practice. We have to struggle for different visions of society together. We need different words, alternate ways of thinking and of being. Over the past couple of decades, I have been inviting people to join me in collectively imagining another world where policing, prisons, and mass surveillance are obsolete.

Have you felt lately that our collective political and social imagination is stunted and shrunken? It feels that way to me. Our collective response to the question: “What can we grow aside from suffering and punishment?” is uninspiring. The fascists are rejoicing because they want us fearful and clinging to the status quo. A commitment to prisons and policing is the status quo and it means that each of us has to ignore many things. Make a personal list of what you have to ignore to maintain a commitment to these death-making institutions, and you will begin to understand what the commitment is truly costing you and our entire society.

There’s endless money and other resources to build a punishment archipelago while communities have to beg for food and health care. These things are connected. Billions of people want an end to the current Israeli genocide of Palestinians, and yet we cannot impose our will on our governments, which continue to supply endless weapons and money to destroy all life in Gaza. All of this oppression has an awful way of putting a ceiling on our imaginations. Artist and filmmaker Chris Vargas talks about the fact that one of the most destructive aspects of the prison industrial complex (PIC) is that it creates “occupied imaginations.” We are actually in a consistent battle to unleash and free our imaginations in the face of unrelenting oppression. I’m not sure how many of us recognize that imagination is an important terrain of struggle.

As conceptualized by sociologist Thomas Mathiesen, abolition is an alternative in the making. It pushes us to break with the current order, to say “not this” while simultaneously forging new ground, building a different world. PIC abolition is a social, political, cultural and economic project of making, of constantly iterating ideas and of dreaming. Abolition focuses, in part, on building a society where it is possible to address harm without relying on structural forms of oppression or the violent systems that increase it. And it’s also more than this, as Ruth Wilson Gilmore teaches us, abolition means changing everything.

Jeff Chang points out that “cultural change precedes political change.” Further, he writes: “Every moment of major social change requires a collective leap of imagination. Political transformation must be accompanied not just by spontaneous and organized expressions of unrest and risk but by an explosion of mass creativity.”

On August 10, I organized and hosted an Abolitionist Toyery at Bluestockings. First established in the late 1920s, a toyery was a lending library for toys. My toyery was not a lending library; rather, I organized an anti-fascist event that invited people of all ages to play and to imagine amidst our uncertain times.

The Abolitionist Toyery had toys (of course), games to play, coloring to do, zines to make, books to read, and candy to eat. Importantly, it also featured an Abolitionist Community Installation created by 2nd graders. The installation represented the work of a 5-month-long collective visioning and community building project with 65 seven- and eight-year-old students within the visual arts classroom of a NYC school.

The installation was inspired by visual artist Bodys Isek Kingelez, the children’s books Abolition is Love by Syrus Marcus Ware and Alannah Fricker and Prisons Must Fall written by Jane Ball and me and illustrated by Olly Costello. The second-grade students envisioned, designed, and constructed an imagined abolitionist community. Throughout this project, students engaged in transformative conversations that prompted them to think about socialized beliefs like “prisons keep us safe” alongside core values like “all people deserve freedom.” As they grappled with a shifting perspective, they created with each other a community of spaces where prisons didn’t need to exist and all people could feel safe, respected, and free. Watch this video to learn more about the project.

I was so happy to include the children’s art and visions in the Abolitionist Toyery. Their teacher, Ava, shared why it was meaningful:

“Too often, the work students create in school stays inside the classroom, with little connection to the broader communities around them. At [our school], my students and I challenged that norm by making abolitionist art that could inspire conversations about freedom and justice beyond our school walls.

This vision came to life when we exhibited the second graders’ artwork at Mariame’s abolitionist toyery. Seeing their creations celebrated in a new space was unforgettable—my students beamed with pride as they recognized the power of their own voices and visions; and for me, it was a true pedagogical dream. The liberatory, child-centered spirit of the toyery made it the perfect setting to showcase meaningful art made by kids, reminding us all that children’s imaginations are vital to shaping abolitionist futures.”

One of the key questions that has been animating my thinking and practice over the past few years is: What are the ruptures and breaks that allow us to pre-figure another way of living? Part of my life’s work is to encourage people to imagine a world without prisons, policing and surveillance and to organize to make that a reality. The second graders’ installation was a concrete example of visionary thinking for the future to dream up a world grounded in care, love and TRUE abundance [a word that has unfortunately been stolen from us], and I loved it.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the future and about the fact that it exists in our imaginations. Writer Dawna Markova calls the future “a collective story waiting for our voices to express.” I’ve always appreciated that description. The future is also, as Howard Zinn teaches us, “an infinite succession of presents.” This suggests that our current voices, dreams and actions are partly what will build the future. Tiffany Lenoi, who is a healer in NYC, says that “abolition is nonlinear. That’s why we’re able to be changing the present while living in the future now.” I love that as an idea, the living in the future now part.

The future and imagination are important to me because the horizon that I am working towards is one I have never seen: that horizon is a world without policing, imprisonment, or surveillance. As my comrade, writer, artist and scholar Eve Ewing says, “In order to create pathways toward that which we have never seen, we have to lead with imagination.”

Poet Martin Espada tells us that “No change for the good ever happens without it being imagined first, even if that change seems hopeless or impossible in the present.” All the most important and impactful social transformations happened because people fought and struggled for things they had never seen.

As a PIC abolitionist, I am trying to pre-figure the world in which I want to live. I practice abolition every day towards that end. This involves both organizing for the destruction of death-making institutions and for the creation of life-giving and affirming ones.

In this collective abolitionist project, we don’t know if we’re going to win. But in the words of Jayesh Bhai, who I learned about through my comrade Sonya Shah, we’re trying to “act with the urgency of tomorrow and also with the patience of 1,000 years.” This project is a long-term one.

Poet and artist Krista Franklin offers us our marching orders:

“If you find your imagination

cannot stop itself from churning out

the scripts of the Death Machines,

pull its plug. Dismantle it. Reprogram it.

Dream Daylight. Manufacture Daylight.

We are the Magicians

Make Magic.”

Our world can be different and better. Imagination is key to make it so.

I’m excited about two upcoming events focused on our work at For The People Leftist Library Project (FTP). Join us on 9/25 to celebrate the completion of a major data project undertaken by hundreds of volunteers and on 10/9 to hear about the different ways to support public libraries.

Join me on 9/25 as well to learn more about the incredible work of REBUILD.

If you are seeking a space where you can reflect individually and with others on your ongoing activism and organizing, feel free to join me on the last Sunday of every month through December on Zoom from 4 to 6 pm ET. The next drop-in session is on Sunday, September 28. This is for people already engaged in some form of activism and organizing. Space is limited: sign up here.

Finally, if you are in NYC, join NYC PLAN for our second public library People’s Assembly on 10/4. Register to learn more about how our local libraries function and how YOU can help us organize to make them better.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

It’s back-to-school time and this semester finds me back in the classroom teaching for the first time in nine years. I am teaching a college-level Introduction to Transformative Justice and PIC Abolition course. I enjoy the process of creating syllabi so it was fun to conceive a course nine years after having taught a different course about gender and criminalization. There is so much good new information and scholarship available. Teaching while still maintaining a more-than-full-time workload is challenging but I am looking forward to getting to know and learn from my students this semester. So far they seem engaged and great.

For the second year in a row, Sojourners for Justice Press (SJP) has been invited to be part of the New York Art Book Fair (NYABF) and we are happy about it. We know that the process is competitive and are thrilled to be selected for our work. We are also on the short list for the NYABF’s Jason Polan Award. Stop by September 11–14 to visit us at booth A3! I will also have a couple of new non-SJP publications hot off the presses.

Our 2026 SJP Calendar is available for preordering and it’s beautiful.

Giving Circle Update: In August, some of you donated $4686.16 [after fees] to the Giving Circle. I donated $4738.89 to 12 projects/people. Documentation of the groups that received funds is here. Thanks to everyone who has donated in lieu of a paid subscription for this newsletter. I don’t intend to monetize this newsletter on this site, so if you want to support it, please feel free to join the Giving Circle. You can keep track of all of the people and groups that the Circle has supported since January here.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to my book drive for Bluestockings Bookstore. It officially ended on 9/1 but they are still tallying books. So far over 3200 books were donated, well surpassing my goal of 2500.

In this edition of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I write about a 1940s radical Black education project. I recommend a podcast series about the deadly conditions in a notorious Pennsylvania jail, several good recent articles, and more…

Our first three weeks of the anticriminalization Communiversity that I co-organized are in the books. It’s been so wonderful to see people learning, connecting and building together. We have very few such opportunities, which is why I committed to co-creating this Communiversity.

Like Marcus Ford and Sandra Lubarsky, I too believe that “we need education-for-community, in-community, and about-community. We need “communiversities”—non-hierarchical, inclusive, public centers of education for the enrichment and advancement of community life.”

I’ve been organizing various forms of Communiversities over the past three decades. I have to admit that they have become more difficult to pull together for too many reasons to list. Yet they remain worthwhile and necessary.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been reading more intentionally about third spaces, and I have delved into the literature about worker schools. I might write about them in a future newsletter. Today, I want to feature the work of the George Washington Carver School as inspiration for us in our current historical moment. Wouldn’t it be terrific to create our own versions of the school today in cities across the country? If you know of similar projects, I’d love to hear about them. If you are in NYC, join us at our anticriminalization Communiversity.

The Carver School and Radical Black Education

The George Washington Carver School in Harlem was a daring experiment in radical antiracist education. The school opened in 1943 and served an integrated, majority-Black working-class population of adults 18 to 60. It was part of a Communist effort that flourished during World War II to establish working-class education. Its board and teachers included some of the most distinguished radical Black artists and educators of its day.

Despite (or because of) Carver’s success, the federal government, which targeted the school and its teachers because of its Communist ties, viewed the project with suspicion. It closed in 1947.

The Carver School program

Labor unions and the Communist party established a network of adult education schools in the US starting in the 1920s; this expanded rapidly during World War II when the left was seen as part of the broad front against fascism. The Carver School was a collaboration between the National Negro Congress, a radical (though not explicitly Communist) Black liberation organization, and organized workers. These included longshoremen and the Marine Cooks and Students Union, whose slogan was, “No red baiting, no race baiting, no queer baiting.”

School board members were a who’s who of radical Harlem. Sociologist and activist W.E.B. Du Bois, singer Paul Robeson, Scottsboro Boys defense organizer William Patterson, actor Canada Lee, and lawyer and councilman Benjamin Davis all served; political leader Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was a prominent supporter. Harlem Renaissance poet, artist, and teacher Gwendolyn Bennett was a founder and the school’s director; teachers included sculptor and graphic artist Elizabeth Catlett and her then-husband, the artist Charles White.

The core of the student body was made up of Black domestic workers, elevator operators, garment workers, and janitors, who spent their days on the job and took classes in the evening. The school offered a varied course list, including classes on political economy, anthropology, Marxism, colonialism, Black labor organizing, life drawing, painting, and sculpture.

Authors like philosopher Alain Locke and anthropologist Eslanda Robeson delivered lectures on their work. Students received practical self-help advice in lectures like “Your Dollar and How to Spend It”; many courses also focused on political consciousness-raising, as in one that taught students how to recognize racist and capitalist bias in the news media. Of the last, one student, Tommanie Walker of Jamaica, Queens, said, “I think [the course] has made me a better citizen by giving me the opportunity to think through some of the puzzles of life in a war-torn world.” Another student, Katrine Honnant, said of her English teacher that he “must be interested in the problems of the working class since he used politics to illustrate the meaning and use of words.”

The most popular class at the school, according to the Chicago Defender, was Elizabeth Catlett’s course “How To Make a Dress.” It was designed to help women workers learn how to make and mend their own clothes using the school’s sewing machines. Most of the students were domestic workers, and Catlett would talk to them about class and race and oppression while they sewed. “It was the way we worked,” Catlett said.

Attacks on the school

Throughout its tenure, the Carver School faced intense opposition from the government and conservatives because of its ties to Communism and its commitment to Black liberation. Two months after the school opened in 1943, six white board members resigned because of their concern about Communist influence in the school. Many of Carver’s middle-class students left after an article by right-wing journalist Westbrooke Pegler smeared the school as a “red front.”

Pegler wasn’t alone; the New York newspapers attacked the school relentlessly because of its association with known Communists like Benjamin Davis and Paul Robeson. The attacks made it difficult for the school to keep teachers and staff, who were worried about being smeared by association and losing other opportunities for work. Harassment intensified after World War II as the Soviet Union became the United States’s chief global rival. The House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated the school, and it closed in 1947.

The campaign of government and media intimidation was especially difficult for Gwendolyn Bennett, the school’s director and a longtime educator and activist. She had first been targeted by HUAC in the 1930s when she was director of the Harlem Community Arts Center, which was also labeled a Communist front. She was dismissed from the Arts Center in 1941, but the FBI continued investigating her during her entire tenure at Carver, and on until 1959—18 years.

Exhausted by the harassment, Bennett left the public eye and spent most of the rest of her career working for the Consumers Union and running an antique shop with her husband. She died in 1981. Her legacy of radical education lives on.

My collaboration with the uber-talented Tash Nikol of Grace Issues Press continues. Tash recently designed two publications in my Archival Activations zine series; the latest is a limited-edition zine that Tash printed using a risograph and finished with a letterpress cover. It looks great.

It’s called Archival Activations #9 - Charles Ray and the New York Committee of Vigilance, and it features a document signed by journalist, minister, and antislavery activist Charles B. Ray (1807–1886) and others. Along with abolitionist, printer, and journalist David Ruggles, Ray was one founder of the New York Committee of Vigilance for the Protection of the People of Color (NYCV), which aided fugitives from enslavement and worked to prevent the kidnapping and enslavement of free Black people. This zine features a letter dated 1849 soliciting donations for the NYCV. When I came across the document, I had to purchase it. A couple of copies of the zine are available through Printed Matter.

This is an important interview with Dr. Badar Khan Suri about his experience being kidnapped and detained for two months by the US government after he expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Read this harrowing first-hand account of the February 2024 Flour Massacre in Gaza. And buy or borrow from the library the book it’s excerpted from, We Are Not Numbers: The Voices of Gaza’s Youth.

There’s so much history and so much cause for hope packed into Nanjala Nyabola’s recent Hammer & Hope essay about Kenya’s ongoing decentralized youth protest movement.

In the same issue of Hammer & Hope, Benji Hart reflects on their participation in a project bringing together the members of a Chicago Black church and a group of Venezuelan migrants who had been moved by city officials into a nearby building that Black community members had long hoped to use as a job-training facility.

I loved this essay by Susie Day shedding light on the fascinating and relatively unsung life of Carol Jean Crooks, or Crooksie, a drug dealer, prison organizer, and one-time partner/ longtime friend of Afeni Shakur. As Day says, Crooksie’s “fights created a better and fairer world.”

This is such an illuminating conversation between four experts on carceral geographies. It’s Part 1 of a new Inquest series called “Abolitionist Lessons from the Prison Belt,” and I can’t wait to read the rest.

Another wonderful conversation in Inquest, this one between Garrett Felber and Orisanmi Burton about the lessons of Felber’s latest book, a biography of Martin Sostre.

Historian LaShawn Harris was a 10-year-old living across the street from 66-year old Eleanor Bumpurs when Bumpurs was murdered by an NYPD officer evicting her from her apartment. Now a history professor at Michigan State University, Harris has written a deeply researched and engrossing book about Bumpurs’s life and murder. This excerpt from the book is only available to Hell Gate subscribers, but the book is exceptional and everyone should read it.

I appreciate how Alex Vitale diagnoses the failure of local and national Democrats to defy Trump’s federal occupation of D.C.; by clinging to the same carceral, “war on crime” rhetoric that Trump uses to justify the invasion, they become complicit in it.

A needed essay by Cara Page and Erica Woodland about Black care, solidarity, and Healing Justice.

I really appreciate Ujju Aggarwal’s vision of how and why public education is an important site of anticapitalist, antifascist, anticolonial struggle.

This is a wonderful long read about the life and poetry of Dionne Brand.

I really enjoyed this conversation with my friend and comrade Dean Spade for his podcast Love in a F*cked-Up World; listen to us talk about accountability (which I will keep saying is only possible between people who are already in relationship!), the consequences of putting organizers on pedestals, and hope, among other topics.

In Death County, PA, reporter Josh Vaughn investigates a series of deaths at Dauphin County Prison in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He unravels the story of the people and institutions that allowed abuse and medical neglect of inmates to persist at the jail, and tells the parallel story of how families and community members fought to expose the problems and make meaningful change.

Joaquín Zihuatanejo’s “Poetry Prompts for Detained Children” is a creation of beauty with and for these particular victims of the US’s fascism.

If you are seeking a space where you can reflect individually and with others on your ongoing activism and organizing, feel free to join me on the last Sunday of every month through December on Zoom from 4 to 6 pm ET. The next drop-in session is on Sunday, September 28. Space is limited: sign up here.

Join our September 25 online celebration of REBUILD, a free service that connects formerly incarcerated individuals to a therapist of color. We’ll hear from program participants and graduates, give updates about the first four years of REBUILD, and discuss ways to support and continue the program.

Join the NYC Public Library Action Network (NYC PLAN) for People’s Assembly about our city libraries on October 4. If you’re in NYC and care about public libraries, sign up here.

Pick up some limited edition prints by my comrade the amazingly talented Gioncarlo Valentine.

My long-time friend and comrade Shira Hassan commissioned the supremely talented Cristy Road to create a transformative justice poster based on some words by Andrea Ritchie and me from our book No More Police. I love the art that Cristy and Shira created. Shira is currently the transformative justice help desk fellow at Interrupting Criminalization. If you are currently working on responses to violence that do not rely on law enforcement, the TJ help desk is available to you for free for thought-partnership and more.

I am so excited about the launch of the Healing Justice Lineages website, which includes a digital archive of 35 oral testimonies from organizers, health workers, and spiritual leaders practicing healing justice work.

Check out Fined Out, “a multimedia project that exposes how unjust fines and fees punish poverty to raise revenue—and how communities are fighting back against a system designed to keep them paying.”

Learn more about the Growing Abolition organizing strategy at this beautiful website.

A lesson from Martha Graham on how to refuse Nazis: “If I don’t come,” she said, “everyone will know why I didn’t and that will be bad for you.”

If you’re in New York this month, don’t miss the exhibition Tabitha Arnold: Gospel of the Working Class at Field Projects.

Also in New York this month: hear Micah Herskind, Kamau Franklin, Mariah Parker, and Priscilla Grim talk about No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement at the Brooklyn Book Festival on September 17.

This man kept a logbook of every book he read for his entire life and his local library is cataloguing all of them.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I finally visited the “Light of Truth: Ida B. Wells National Monument” in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. Richard Hunt designed and installed the sculpture in 2021. I missed that celebration because I wasn’t traveling at the height of COVID. I sent my remarks via a video for the occasion.

The final pieces were added to the monument on July 18 of this year, and I also missed the ceremony marking the completion of the project. I landed in Chicago a couple of hours after it ended. So, I made a pilgrimage to view the “Light of Truth” a couple of days later on Sunday. No one else was there. It was a hot day, but there was a light breeze. It was quiet. I took my time marveling at and touching the art. Lots of thoughts crossed my mind, and many feelings coursed through my body. We really did it, I thought. Ida is part of Chicago’s built landscape. It wasn’t guaranteed that this monument would be built. The Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee worked for 13 years to erect the “Light of Truth.” And now it was in front of me: complete.

The “Light of Truth” monument in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood soars thirty-five feet into the air. Designed by renowned Chicago artist Richard Hunt, the abstract shining bronze sculpture rises from three columns to a series of twisting forms that evoke flames or arms reaching towards the sky.

The massive artwork honors Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931), a pioneering journalist, civil rights crusader, freedom fighter, and anti-lynching activist who lived and worked in Bronzeville from the 1890s until her death. The “Light of Truth” is a stunning and fitting tribute. But funding and organizing it was a difficult 13-year effort, which at times seemed doomed by public indifference.

The sculpture memorializes Wells-Barnett’s legacy and reminds us how often history erases Black women’s contributions and leadership, and how difficult and important it is to write them back in.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Light of Truth

Ida B. Wells-Barnett devoted her life to fighting for justice and truth against racism, sexism and oppression. Born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi, she grew up in the Jim Crow South and became an implacable foe of racial terrorism and segregation. She protested Jim Crow seating on trains and wrote articles denouncing conditions in schools for Black children.

Wells-Barnett was best known, however, for her crusade against lynching. She made the groundbreaking argument that lynching was a white supremacist form of social and political control and subjugation. Her analysis defied the widespread racist belief that Black men were assaulting white women in large numbers, and that lynching was just retribution. She criticized white feminists like Frances Willard, who defended lynching as necessary to defend women. Even some Black activists believed in this myth; Frederick Douglass said that Wells-Barnett had changed his thinking and understanding of lynching.

From personal experience, Wells-Barnett knew that the justifications for lynching were lies. In Memphis, TN, white people lynched her friends as retribution for opening a grocery that competed with white stores. She systematically researched lynching victims and found that only a quarter of victims were ever even accused of sexual violence. She also found that Black men and women were often falsely accused, blamed for other’s crimes, or targeted for economic success or defiance of racist Jim Crow laws or customs. “Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so,” she wrote in the preface to her 1892 pamphlet, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.”

Wells-Barnett’s forthright denunciation of Southern violence, her honesty about the existence of consensual interracial relationships, and her support for Black armed resistance made her a target for violence. In Memphis, her printing press was burned, and she was forced to flee first to New York City and then to Chicago in the 1890s. There she became one of the major forces behind a nationwide campaign fighting (unsuccessfully) for a federal anti-lynching law and (successfully) for greater awareness. The latter led to a substantial decrease in extrajudicial murders of Black people.

Besides shining what she called “the light of truth” on lynching, Wells-Barnett worked locally in Chicago. She campaigned on behalf of individuals unjustly arrested or targeted in the city for racial violence, and also founded the Negro Fellowship League, which helped Black migrants from the South new to the city with housing and job searches.

Fighting Erasure

People knew Ida B. Wells-Barnett well during her life. But even in the civil rights movement, people were uncomfortable with her militancy and with the idea of Black women’s leadership. As Angela Davis has written, Black women were often relegated to “the housework of the movement,” heading committees and raising money with little recognition. In line with those expectations, there is evidence that civil rights leader & scholar W.E.B. Du Bois deliberately kept her name off the list of the initial founders of the NAACP.

The historical erasure of women’s contributions is visible—or invisible — in monuments across the country. In 2011, the Washington Post noted that “of the 5,193 public outdoor sculptures of individuals in the United States, only 394, or less than 8 percent, are of women, compared with 4,799 of men.”

Representation of Black women in memorials is even rarer. Though there has been no nationwide accounting, of Chicago’s 50 outdoor statues, only two—a bust of poet Gwendolyn Brooks, and the “Light of Truth” — honor Black women. Even though Black people make up 30% of Chicago’s population, both were only installed in the last decade.

Raising the Light of Truth

Like other projects to honor Black women, the effort to create the “Light of Truth” monument was lengthy and difficult. In some sense, it has been ongoing for over 80 years; the sculpture is on the site of the former Ida B. Wells Homes, a 1939 Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) project which housed low-income residents. When the Ida B. Wells Homes were first constructed, they were very desirable, well-maintained homes, and were seen as a fitting tribute to Wells-Barnett and her advocacy for Black working people.

City neglect created major problems with the development by the 80s and 90s, however. Like other CHA housing projects, it was demolished in the early 2000s. Wells-Barnett’s grandson Donald Duster and his daughter, Michelle Duster, thought the site of the housing development should continue to be used to commemorate Wells-Barnett’s legacy. In 2008, they wrote to then-Mayor Richard Daley suggesting a monument. They also connected with Black sculptor Richard Hunt, who agreed to design a sculpture.

Michelle and her brother Dan began fundraising in 2011, using mailings and fundraising events. Michelle Duster wrote that the monument was necessary in part because many people in Chicago knew little about Wells-Barnett’s legacy. Some only knew her name from the housing project, and many “confused her with someone they thought invented the hot comb.”

That lack of recognition may also have hampered fundraising; by 2017, after six years of work, they still had only raised a third of the required $300,000 budget. “I thought it would be easy, considering the impact and influence her work has had on generations,” Michelle Duster told The Root, “but that has not been the case.”

Things turned around in 2018, however, when Duster expanded the campaign to Twitter. Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and I both saw her fundraising calls, and shared them with our followers. I made a personal goal of raising $10,000 for the project and hosted a New York-based fundraiser, with Hannah-Jones as a panelist. In the end, I raised tens of thousands of dollars for the monument (online and offline).

Thanks to generous contributions from many donors—including more than $400 from students in a Chicago middle school class—the rest of the necessary funds were soon raised. The monument was installed in 2021.

Even though I’d lived in Chicago for 20 years, and even though Wells-Barnett is a personal heroine, it was only when Duster tweeted about the project that I learned about the memorial monument. I think this is a testament to the importance of grassroots activism, especially for the causes of Black women, which are often ignored by those in positions of traditional power and influence.

Wells-Barnett herself made direct appeals to the Black community and worked in solidarity with other Black and white women to advocate for change. A racist, sexist society works to disempower Black women and erase their contributions and demands. Together, though, we can make sure freedom fighters like Wells-Barnett are not forgotten, and in remembering them, remember our own strength.

The Light of Truth Will Not Go Out

Currently, the fascist, racist, and sexist Trump regime has set out to deliberately erase the contributions of Black people, women, and especially of Black women, and to publicly repudiate them. As just one example, Trump has issued an executive order attacking the Smithsonian for promoting a “race-centered ideology”—by which he means the museum acknowledges and has created exhibitions about the existence of racism in the United States. “There’s even an attempt to deny that the institution of slavery even existed, or that Jim Crow laws and segregation and racial violence against Black communities, Black families, Black individuals even occurred,” historian Clarissa Myrick-Harris of Morehouse College told the Associated Press.

Trump has also ordered Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to investigate whether the removal of Confederate monuments has led to “a false reconstruction” of American history. The federal government under Trump, then, openly calls for protecting the memory of white male racists, and for the eradication of the memory of Black civil rights activists, and of Black history in general.

As Wells-Barnett’s writing made clear, white supremacists have always denied the existence of racism and have always blamed Black people for the violence inflicted upon their families and communities. And yet, as Wells-Barnett’s writing also shows, Black people have always worked together to preserve our memories and hold on to our history and humanity. “The Light of Truth” memorial honors Wells-Barnett by continuing her work against fascism, past, present, and future. We can honor Ida and all of our ancestors by steadfastly and energetically continuing their freedom fighting work. The time is now.

Sources Consulted

Associated Press, “Historians see Trump attacks on the ‘Black Smithsonian’ as an effort to sanitize racism,” Politico, March 30, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/30/historians-see-trump-attacks-on-the-black-smithsonian-as-an-effort-to-sanitize-racism-00259310

Michelle Duster, “13 years ago in 2008 my father Donald Duster, his two brothers Troy and Ben and I talked about the fact,” Facebook, July 5, 2021. https://www.facebook.com/mldwrites/posts/pfbid02gCbP5UqAjGwBbWpA6uVH79R9voY1XJzrp4WtZDy4fGAEsfkzCcKbXhRe6DKoz5Dnl

Michelle Duster, “Ida B. Wells: How grassroots support and social media made a monumental difference in honoring her legacy,” The Conversation, August 7, 2018. https://theconversation.com/ida-b-wells-how-grassroots-support-and-social-media-made-a-monumental-difference-in-honoring-her-legacy-100866

Michelle Duster, “So few images of African American women, so much resistance to adding more,” National Council on Public History, February 1, 2022. https://ncph.org/history-at-work/so-few-images-of-african-american-women-so-much-resistance-to-adding-more/

Maya Dukmasova, “Donations pour in for Ida B. Wells monument in Chicago, but $180K still needed,” Chicago Reader, April 14, 2018. https://chicagoreader.com/blogs/donations-pour-in-for-ida-b-wells-monument-in-chicago-but-180k-still-needed/

Jamie Nesbitt Golden, “Late Sculptor Behind Ida B. Wells ‘Light Of Truth’ National Monument Honored With Ellis Park Plaque,” Block Club Chicago, July 21, 2025. https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/07/21/late-sculptor-behind-ida-b-wells-light-of-truth-national-monument-honored-with-ellis-park-plaque/

Mariame Kaba, “WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ida will have her monument in Chicago. Thank you to everyone who donated and amplified this project.” Facebook, July 17, 2018. https://www.facebook.com/mariame.kaba.9/posts/pfbid03wki5ZwzFASginZDkvPKnPdDpNq2EFaDikk9xsmdSTHacGT91vKCowbbDUkBrJ4ol

Mariame Kaba, “Why I'm Raising Money To Build An Ida B. Wells Monument,” HuffPost, May 2, 2018. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/opinion-kaba-ida-wells-lynching_n_5ae9bfc6e4b022f71a03e4bc

Yvonne Krumrey, “Reclaiming Monuments: The Light of Truth Memorializes Ida Be. Wells’ Activism in Chicago,” New City, October 8, 2021. https://art.newcity.com/2021/10/08/reclaiming-monuments-the-light-of-truth-memorializes-ida-b-wells-activism-in-chicago/

Public Art Archive, “The Light of Truth Ida B. Wells National Monument,” accessed August 14, 2025. https://publicartarchive.org/art/The-Light-of-Truth-Ida-B-Wells-National-Monument/10376a07

Kirsten West Savali, “Exclusive: Ida B. Wells’ Great-Granddaughter Discusses Her Legacy, Growing Monument Campaign,” The Root, May 25, 2018. https://www.theroot.com/exclusive-ida-b-wells-great-granddaughter-discusses-1826338732

Cari Shane, “Why the dearth of statues honoring women in Statuary Hall and elsewhere?” The Washington Post, April 5, 2011. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/why-the-dearth-of-statues-honoring-women-in-statuary-hall-and-elsewhere/2011/04/11/AFx8lgjD_story.html

Dan Tucker, “Chicago Parks Have Zero Statues of Women, 48 Statues of Men,” WBEZ, January 21, 2015. https://www.wbez.org/morning-shift/2015/07/21/chicago-parks-have-zero-statues-of-women-48-statues-of-men

Ida. B. Wells-Barnett, Southern Horrors & The Red Record, Amazon Classics, 2021.

Wikipedia, “Ida B. Wells,” accessed August 14, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells

If you are seeking a space where you can reflect individually and with others on your ongoing activism and organizing, feel free to join me on the last Sunday of every month through December on Zoom from 4 to 6 pm ET. The next drop-in session is on Sunday, August 31. This is for people already engaged in some form of activism and organizing. Space is limited: sign up here.

Join us on Sunday, September 7 at Another World in Brooklyn at our Craft Fair for Gaza. I’m making embroideries and a few crocheted items for sale. All proceeds with support local mutual aid groups in Gaza.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Giving Circle Update: In July, some of you donated $4101.06 [after fees] to the Giving Circle. I donated $4065.24 to 11 projects/people. Documentation of the projects/groups that received funds is here.

This newsletter could have been a zine, but it’s not.

In 2023, I launched my Archival Activations series to combine my interests in zines, archives, and making exhibitions. Archival Activations is a multi-year project for activating my personal collections through publications. Using my collections, the activations feature specific archival documents and records and provide historical context. The goal is that featured content in the publications of the series will have some contemporary relevance for readers. The zines focus on Black history, protest, criminalization, feminisms, and other topics that I care about. Most of the publications are available to read freely. There are ten zines in the series so far with more on the way. Below, you can read the first four issues.

The Philadelphia Story: Another Experiment on Women - Archival Activations #1

The Second Anti-War Moratorium - Archival Activations #2

Ebony: More Than A Magazine - Archival Activations #3

The Ohio Penitentiary Fire of 1930 - Archival Activations #4

For this month’s newsletter, I feature the Los Angeles Business Girls’ Club, which I learned about when a comrade who is a rare book dealer shared five vintage post cards with me. I purchased them and then did some research.

The Los Angeles Business Girls’ Club was a halfway house for white delinquent, homeless, and disabled teens and young women in the 1920s. Prison reformers Orfa Jean Shontz and Miriam Van Waters established it primarily as an outgrowth of their work with the juvenile detention system, where they served in succession as woman’s department referees of the Los Angeles Juvenile Court.

El Retiro and Juvenile Reform

The experimental reform school El Retiro, for girls aged 14 to 19 from Los Angeles County Juvenile Hall, inspired the Business Girls’ Club. The school, located in a former tuberculosis sanitarium outside Los Angeles in an olive grove near the mountains, opened in 1919. They deliberately left the doors unlocked to avoid a prison-like atmosphere.

El Retiro emphasized building self-confidence and cooperative learning rather than punishment. The girls in the school participated in self-governance, and a resident chosen by the student body was even consulted about treatment programs for new students.

Most students stayed at El Retiro for eight to ten months before their release. Students appreciated the freedom and autonomy at El Retiro—often more than they received at home. They frequently felt their removal from home was unjust and longed to rejoin their families. “My own mother suffered hell and no doubt many others have. On account of courts, always courts,” one student wrote in an evaluation letter about the school. “I think that if America is a free country let’s have more liberty absolutely.”

Although most students strongly wished to go home, many did not have that option. Some were orphans, or had parents who were too sick to care for them. Others came from homes where they experienced abuse or neglect.

A halfway house for girls

In order to provide a halfway house for such students, Van Waters and Shontz decided to establish a clubhouse in downtown Los Angeles. Mary Bartelme’s Chicago home for delinquent girls provided the model for the Los Angeles Business Girls’ Club, which Chicago philanthropist Ethel Sturges Drummer largely funded. Drummer paid several months’ rent for an old ten-room house with a garden.

The house opened in 1921 and had space for 20 young women and girls. In 1923, it became officially connected to the Los Angeles Business and Professional Women’s Club, which provided a steady source of donors and financial stability. It also provided role models. The Professional Women’s Club had dinner at the Girls’ Club once a month, with residents working as servers. Residents who moved onto jobs also had an opportunity to join the Professional Women’s Club when they graduated from the home.

Residents in the club were almost all between the ages of 15 and 21; the majority (54%) were 16 and 17. Besides those from El Retiro, institutions like the Bureau of Catholic Charities and the Council of Jewish Women also referred residents. Some also came of their own volition.

The residents governed the club. The club’s rules required all residents to hold jobs paying at least minimum wage. The other residents appointed one resident as housekeeper, paying them to maintain the premises. Residents held jobs including salesgirl, power-machine operator, fruit-packer, office assistant, stenographer, factory worker, milliner, and dressmaker. They had access to a range of vocational classes and some scholarship funds; residents took courses such as typewriting and shorthand, dressmaking, gardening, commercial art, and pottery.

About 38% of residents left to work full time with some supervision; 25% returned home to their families; 20% married, 11% were placed in private foster homes, and 4% went to other social agencies.

Tensions at the Girls’ Club

Van Waters believed that strict supervision encouraged rebellion, and she also felt it was important for residents to take responsibility for themselves. As a result, the Girls’ Club was much less strict and intrusive than other comparable institutions of the time. Residents could spend time with friends, including boyfriends, on the premises on weekend evenings. They had dance parties, and on Saturday they had a late curfew of 10:30 PM.

However, residents still chafed under the restrictions. As a director reported, “‘petting’ on visitor’s night was sometimes a problem,” and residents would sometimes stay late in town for dates. They preferred going to the swimming pool where they could meet boys rather than going to classical music concerts. They also frequently missed deadlines for paying board, and many residents smoked or borrowed each other’s things without permission in violation of the rules. There are understandably no reports of the school’s attitude towards same-sex relationships between the residents, though Van Waters and Shontz themselves had a romantic relationship and links over time to lesbian circles, including those associated with Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Girls’ Club also had to navigate political issues. Like most reforming efforts of the day, the Club did not challenge segregation; the halfway house accepted only white women. To address the needs of Black girls in the juvenile system, Van Waters worked with the Colored Women’s Club to help establish the East Side Mother’s Club in 1922.

The reform approach was seen as controversial; many politicians favored more restrictions and stricter rules. Van Waters lost control of El Retiro in 1927; her chosen supervisor was fired, and the new administration used police to discipline and control students. El Retiro was completely shut down by 1928. Though little direct information exists regarding its fate, the Los Angeles Business Girls’ Club probably closed around the same time.

Van Waters left Los Angeles in 1930 and went on to a long career as a prison reformer and an advocate for civil rights and the abolition of the death penalty. Shontz went on to become a Municipal Judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court.

We have limited records of those who attended El Retiro and the Business Girls’ School. But at least one woman wrote a fond letter to Van Waters in 1970 remembering her time in the school. “I often think back to El Retiro [as] the truly happiest days in my life,” the former student wrote, “…and you made it all possible—not only for me but many, many other girls.”

Sources Consulted

S.C. Fischer, “The Los Angeles Business Girls’ Club,” Journal of Delinquency, vol. 9, no. 5, 1925, pp. 238-241.

Estelle B. Freedman, Maternal Justice: Miriam Van Waters and the Female Reform Tradition, University of Chicago Press, 1996.

William I. Thomas, The Unadjusted Girl: With Cases and Standpoint for Behavior Analysis, Little, Brown, and Company, 1923. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/59826/pg59826-images.html

William I. Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas, The Child In America: Behavior Problems and Programs, Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. http://www.markfoster.net/dcf/The_Child_in_America.pdf

Wikipedia, “Miriam Van Waters,” accessed June 27, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Van_Waters

Wikipedia, “Orfa Jean Shontz,” accessed June 27, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orfa_Jean_Shontz

If you are seeking a space where you can reflect individually and with others on your ongoing activism and organizing, feel free to join me on the last Sunday of every month through December on Zoom from 4 to 6 pm ET. The next drop-in session is on Sunday, August 31. This is for people already engaged in some form of activism and organizing. Space is limited: sign up here.

A bundle of some of my Archival Activations zines is available at Booklyn. Some individual hard copy zines are available at Printed Matter.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I don’t want to grow callous. This idea has been a constant thought in my mind over the past few years. Moral disengagement is something I guard against. I want to be alive to the joys and the pain of the world. As such, I train my eyes, ears and spirit to what’s good in the world. I think often about Will Durant’s words:

“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting, and doing things historians usually record—while, on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry, whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happens on the banks.”

In November 2011, my comrade Brandon made a pot of soup. He brought it to a street corner in his neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago and handed out a bowl to anyone who wanted one.

The following Friday around the same time at 9 pm, he made another meal and brought it to the corner. He offered food, and people accepted. Soon he named his weekly food sharing project “Feed the People (FTP).” A simple and direct name that described his action. Every Friday at 9 pm, through heat or freezing snow, Brandon was out on the corner with homemade food.

I first learned about Feed the People a couple of years later when Brandon wrote a post on Facebook about the anniversary of when he had first set up on 79th and Cottage Grove. I reached out to offer a monetary donation. Brandon graciously accepted my small contribution. A couple of years later, in 2014, I saw another post on Facebook:

I loved his words: “u don’t need all that confetti just keep it moving slow & steady.” Then again, three years later, he posted about the 312th consecutive week spent handing out homemade food on the corner.

In November 2021, Brandon celebrated 10 years of Feed the People.

I’m writing this essay in July 2025, and Brandon is still posted on the 9. He has been on the same corner every Friday for about 720 weeks. He has not missed a Friday, rain, sleet or snow. Sometimes volunteers join him, but most of the time he is alone on the corner with some homemade food. He has sustained his offering with no grants; he never solicits donations. When his sporadic posts about FTP appear on our social media feeds, some of us remember to contribute. There’s no fanfare in what he has been doing. It’s actually a small part of his community work. He has been mentoring and supporting young Black and brown people for as long as I’ve known him. He now co-directs Stick Talk, a project that everyone should know about and support.

Lately, Brandon has been on my mind as I regularly hear some people ask, ‘What can they do’ in our current moment. When I lived in Chicago and it was snowing, I would catch myself thinking of Brandon on 79th and Cottage Grove handing out homemade food. Without intending it, his small, consistent and care-filled acts serve as a beacon of light amidst the clouds. It’s a reminder that one person can make a difference in someone else’s life. Using his resources, he challenges the logic of scarcity; he does what he can for the people who stop by for food weekly. He talks to them, listens and affirms their humanity. He will tell you he’s not heroic and is a flawed human being. I find this to be comforting because it means that all of us can do what he does in our own way. Brandon is proof that each of us can show up for the most vulnerable in our communities. We can do so with what’s within our capacity to offer. We can be the people on the banks.

A few days ago, a good friend told me that it feels increasingly lonely to expect more of the world. I’ve been thinking about why I don’t feel the same way. I expect a lot more of the world and think that many others do too. It’s probably because I am surrounded by so many activists and organizers that I do not believe the bad press about human beings. I know that over and over again some human beings disappoint but I also know that over and over again other human beings show up to do their best. Those are stories worth embracing and uplifting alongside the horrors.

I’m not sure how many of you recognize the name Peter Warner. You may not know him, and that’s okay. He was very well-known in Australia and died at 90 in 2021.

In 1966, he and his crew rescued a group of teenage boys who had been stranded on an island for over a year.

In June 1965, the boys, all boarding school students aged 13 to 16, stole a 24-foot boat and embarked on a nautical adventure. A few hours into their journey, however, a violent wind damaged their sail and rudder, leaving them stranded on the ocean for eight days.

They finally spotted an island called 'Ata, about 100 miles south of Tongatapu, Tonga's largest island. Roughly 350 people formerly lived there, but in 1863, a British slave trader captured about 150 of them, prompting the Tongan king to relocate the others to another island for safety.

The boys subsisted initially on raw fish, coconuts, and bird eggs. A machete, tamed taro plants, and a flock of chickens descended from the ones left behind by the previous inhabitants were located among the rubble of a town they discovered after three months, which improved their fortunes. They also kindled a fire, which they maintained for the duration of their stay.

The boys constructed a temporary community that included a garden, a thatched-roof cottage, and sports facilities like a badminton court and an outdoor gym with bench presses. Every morning and night, they would sing and pray after one of the boys, Kolo, fashioned a guitar from the wreckage of the ship.

Resting, food gathering, and shipwatching were all part of their rigid duty schedule. It was customary when conflict occurred for the parties to travel to opposite sides of the island and come back, preferably with their tempers cooled. Thanks to the splint that the others made for Stephen when he broke his leg, he made a full recovery.

In a 2021 interview, one boy, who is now an old man, said this: “When I reflect on our time on the island, I realize we learnt a lot. And in comparison to what I learnt in school, I believe I learned more on the island. Because I've learned to trust myself."

This story of teenage shipwrecked boys on the island of Ata is the antithesis of the Lord of the Flies fictional story that was published over a decade earlier in 1954. And I often think about why so many of us know the story of the Lord of the Flies (which is fiction) as opposed to the story of the boys who spent one year isolated on an Island and actually built a functional, safe community for themselves.

The boys of ATA were also people on the banks. They offer a good example that human beings CAN do better. Will we always? Clearly not. But there are many instances where we do. I’ve learned a lot over the years from Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s work and example. And Ruthie has said that “What the world will become already exists in fragments and pieces, in experiments and possibilities.” The stories of Brandon and of the shipwrecked boys of Ata offer glimpses of what we can create with very few resources. When I think of such stories, my heart softens, and all cynicism dissolves. We can in fact choose to live differently.

Three questions have been in permanent rotation for me over the past 5 years. I ask them regularly to orient myself:

What are you already doing?

What else can you do?

What are you doing together with others?

The great Joanna Macy recently transitioned at 96. She taught me a lot about loving life. She loved the poet Rainer Maria Rilke who wrote: “I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.” The questions above are part of trying to live my life in widening circles. Rilke’s words have always resonated with me as a reminder that there are new discoveries to be made every day all around us. If we pay attention to what’s happening on the banks, some of those discoveries can soften our hearts. I don’t want to grow callous, do you?

Please consider supporting these two mutual aid efforts based in Gaza that are trying to alleviate some of the suffering engendered by Israel’s genocide [with US government support] of Palestinians: here and here.

Also, join me on August 10 at the Abolitionist Toyery. Register here.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been planning an anticriminalization Communiversity with a small group of people in NYC. We need many more local spaces where we can learn together in low-pressure ways. As we do so, we may begin to build trust and connection to engage in local struggles for more justice. Registration is now open for our Communiversity workshops and courses. I am really looking forward to seeing who signs up and who attends. This is an experiment and I know that we will learn a lot as we proceed.

One of my favorite bookstores, Bluestockings Cooperative, is working hard to keep its doors open. I have a goal of collecting 2500 books for their shelves. Drop off or mail your gently used or new books to Bluestockings. All details are in these fliers.

Relatedly, please stop by Bluestockings for “Abolitionist Toyery” on Sunday, August 10, from 1:00 to 6:00 pm. You can drop off books then too. Learn more and register here. ALSO, I am seeking volunteers to support the event!

Sojourners for Justice Press (SJP) will be tabling at the Chicago Zine Fest on July 19. Stop by! I’ll be there part of the day.

New zines in my Archival Activations series are available as a bundle through Booklyn.

Giving Circle Update: In June, some of you donated $2621 [after fees] to the Giving Circle. I donated $2606.28 to 10 projects/people. Documentation of the groups that received funds is here. Thanks to everyone who has donated in lieu of a paid subscription for this newsletter. I don’t intend to monetize this newsletter on this site, so if you want to support it, please feel free to join the Giving Circle.

In this issue of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I give a short history of the US government’s use of immigration and passport control to punish well-known Black activists for their political speech. I recommend two excellent new abolitionist podcasts, several good recent articles, and more…

When can we classify a nation as totalitarian? One powerful sign, according to Hannah Arendt, is when a country strips its own people of citizenship.

By this metric, the current situation in the US looks grim. Donald Trump’s administration has targeted international students who oppose the genocide in Gaza for deportation. Columbia University graduate student and permanent resident Mahmoud Kahlil was arrested, jailed, and threatened with deportation because, he says, he was involved in peaceful protests against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Masked agents arrested Turkish Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Öztürk on the street. Her pro-Palestinian op-ed in the student newspaper apparently led to her being targeted.

Free speech experts warn Trump is testing the waters by targeting legal immigrants and may come after US citizens next. Trump himself has said the same; in April 2025, he boasted about illegally kidnapping and deporting immigrants to prisons in El Salvador, and added, “the homegrowns [or citizens] are next.” The Trump administration has also tampered with the passports of citizens; it unilaterally changed the gender marker on the passport of Zaya Perysian, a trans woman. Trump is currently threatening to denaturalize the Democratic nominee for NYC Mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

This is not the first time in US history, of course, that the government has used its control of passports and immigration to silence critics or restrict free speech. During the 1950s, the United States stripped passports from leading Black freedom and civil rights activists and other leftists in retaliation for speech the government considered dangerous or “un-American”. The two highest-profile targets were singer, actor, publisher and activist Paul Robeson and writer, sociologist, historian and freedom fighter W. E. B. Du Bois.

Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson was a hugely successful singer of opera, folk music, and popular songs. He left the United States in 1928, in part to escape racial persecution, and traveled globally for eleven years. He lived in Europe and performed many times in the Soviet Union. Robeson saw Communism as a powerful force with which to fight Jim Crow as well as racism, and capitalism in the US and around the world.

Robeson returned to the US in 1939. After World War II, the US and the USSR were global rivals in the Cold War. America’s poor treatment of Black people hampered its propaganda battle against the Soviet Union. Rather than embracing civil rights, though, the US tried to address this weakness by silencing Black critics.

When Paul Robeson attempted to renew his passport in 1950 so he could perform abroad, he was told he had to sign a statement saying that he was not a member of the Communist Party and was loyal to the US. Robeson refused and sued. The legal process took five years, but in 1955, a judge ruled the State Department was justified in blocking Robeson’s passport because of his speech.

In 1956, in a hearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Robeson declared, “Whether I am or not a Communist is irrelevant. The question is whether American citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or sympathies, may enjoy their constitutional rights.”

In 1958, the Supreme Court agreed with him. The court ruled in Kent v. Dulles that “the right to travel is a part of the ‘liberty’ of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment.”

The government reinstated the passport of painter Rockwell Kent, the named plaintiff in the case, who had been accused of Communist sympathies. It also restored Robeson’s passport. The eight-year ban he had endured on international travel, however, severely restricted his income and damaged his reputation. He spent a few more years traveling abroad, and retired in the 1960s. The FBI continued to investigate and harass him until his death at 77 in 1976.

W.E.B. Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois, like Robeson, was an activist, organizer and later a Communist. His lengthy history of advocacy for Black rights and for peace had long made him a target of threats and harassment from the federal government.

In 1950, Du Bois, then 82, became chairperson of an antiwar organization called the Peace Information Center (PIC). To halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the PIC distributed the Stockholm Appeal, an antinuclear petition circulated by Frédéric Joliot-Curie, a Nobel Prize–winning chemist and Communist.

Many notable figures, including artists Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso and novelist Thomas Mann, signed the petition; 2.5 million Americans eventually signed as well. However, the US government insisted the Appeal was a subversive document intended to undermine US security. They charged Du Bois and other board members of the PIC with being unregistered agents of a foreign power because the petition originated overseas. If convicted, Du Bois faced up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Du Bois went on a massive public speaking tour to raise funds; he also placed ads in papers arguing his case. He got support and character witnesses from international figures like poet Pablo Neruda and physicist Albert Einstein. A federal judge ruled in Du Bois’s favor—but not before the trial had badly damaged his reputation and livelihood. He was blacklisted from most work and ended up struggling to buy food, barely able to stay out of poverty.

The government’s persecution of Du Bois continued. In 1952, the State Department revoked Du Bois’s passport. The immediate excuse for the action was to prevent Du Bois from traveling to Canada for a peace conference. The government also wanted to prevent him from seeking asylum elsewhere.

In 1958, the same Supreme Court case that restored Robeson’s passport also restored Du Bois’s. Now able to travel, he and his wife Shirley Graham left the United States in 1961 to settle in a newly independent Ghana. There, the US targeted him for one final spiteful punishment, revoking his passport, and effectively his citizenship. Ghana responded by making Du Bois a citizen. He died there in 1963 at 95.

Using the State Department as a Tool of Authoritarian Rule

The US government has a great deal of power to regulate who comes into and out of the country. In the past, it has sometimes used that power to harass and try to silence critics of US policy—especially Black critics on the left.

Today, Trump is also trying to silence free speech and target marginalized people by revoking legal residency, tampering with passports, and creating a climate of fear at customs entry points. The experiences of Du Bois and Robeson remind us that this sort of racist, reactionary weaponization of the immigration system is not new. It also suggests that Trump will not confine himself to attacking immigrants or critics of Israel. In an increasingly totalitarian US, everyone’s passport, and everyone’s rights, are at risk.

I have been interested in Joan Bird and have been collecting ephemera about the Panther 21 for over 20 years. Joan Victoria Bird was a revolutionary and a key member of the New York Black Panther Party. She worked to provide community-based healthcare in Harlem and spoke against the abuses of police. Along with Afeni Shakur, she was one of two women arrested as part of the Panther 21 in 1969. Following her acquittal in 1970, she withdrew from public activism. In my zine Searching for Joan, I share a small part of Joan Bird’s story to introduce her to a new generation that may not know of her and her contributions to our ongoing struggle for freedom and liberation. The publication was designed by Neta Bomani, codirector of Sojourners for Justice Press. You can pick up a copy in person at upcoming zine fairs in Chicago and Detroit. You can have a look at the publication on Instagram and at the printing process here.

While I was in New Orleans last month, I was blessed to spend some time with my comrade jackie sumell, who showed me some of the Solitary Gardens that she has helped to establish. This article about the work that jackie and her incarcerated and outside collaborators have been doing is a great introduction. This one is a good reflection about 10 years of Solitary Gardens.

A really stunning essay about a career fair for ICE and other similar agencies and the banality of evil.

This excerpt from Anand Pandian’s new book Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take Them Down explores how people in the US can do the critical work of coming together, something so often deprioritized by our ways of life.

An update on Leonard Peltier’s life four months after his release from prison to home confinement. As he says, “I beat the bastards” who “expected me to die in prison.”

In this short essay, Dan Grote, who is currently incarcerated in a federal prison, manages to touch on the deep, intentional inadequacies of prison libraries, the rich history of public libraries in the US and abroad, and the ingenuity he and his incarcerated comrades brought to the problem of circulating books behind bars.

Amid the mass protests that emerged last month in defense of immigrant communities facing fascist violence, Kelly Hayes and I decided to publicly share Chapter 6 of our book Let This Radicalize You. The chapter explores the discourse of “violence” in social movements and the ways it is weaponized to neutralize radically liberatory projects.

Writing for Them magazine, my friend Dean Spade offers excellent advice on how to build the trust and communities we desperately need right now to help each other survive in the face of terrifying state violence.

It is so important to read and share about the nuts and bolts of successful organizing projects; this essay in the pilot edition of the renewed Abolition Journal by the members of Philly Breathes gives an excellent and energizing overview of the formation’s work. The link will take you to the top of the edition; search the file for “Everyday Acts of Disabled Resistance & Care” to find the article.

WIRED magazine published an article titled “Social Media Replaced Zines. Now Zines Are Taking the Power Back” highlighting the Black Zine Fair in Brooklyn and the power of independent publishing under fascism.

Happy 100th birthday to the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a priceless institution. If you’re in New York, you can visit the exhibition honoring the anniversary, 100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity, through June 2026. And everyone should check out the beautiful new zine by center staff, 100 Years of Art & Artifacts at the Schomburg Center.

I spoke with Deana Lewis along with my good friends Shira Hassan and Erica R. Meiners for the “Chicago” episode of Creative Interventions’ Stories for Power podcast. We each discussed how our work—and the work we undertook together—fit into the landscape of abolitionist feminist organizing in Chicago between the early 2000s and the early 2010s.

I’m looking forward to showing up in a future episode of Dean Spade’s new podcast Love in a F*cked-Up World, elaborating on his book of the same name. In the meantime, please listen to the first episode, with adrienne maree brown, and the first mini-episode, with Morgan Bassichis; both are wonderful.

It is so easy to feel alone in these terrifying times. “Belonging” by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer reminds me that there is power and solace in being “alone together.”

One Million Experiments: The Film is now available to watch on Apple TV and YouTube TV, and it is well worth your time.

I’m very excited about this Interrupting Criminalization/One Million Experiments summer political education curriculum for youth and community programs. It’s chock-full of activities that I and others have made over many years. Thanks to Eva for compiling.

If you are seeking a space where you can reflect individually and with others on your ongoing activism and organizing, feel free to join me on the last Sunday of every month through December on Zoom from 4 to 6 pm ET. The next drop-in session is on Sunday, July 27. This is for people already engaged in some form of activism and organizing. Space is limited: sign up here.

For those in NYC, the Black Reading Room presented by Black Zine Fair and hosted by Secret Riso Club in Brooklyn runs through July 14 and is free and open to the public. “Installed in celebration of Juneteenth, the space uplifts Black freedom traditions through a curated collection of zines, books, and films that embrace Black publishing as an underground choir of memory, refusal, and drafts of other possible worlds.”

Those near Brooklyn can also experience Freedom Time: Undanced Dances Through Prison Walls at Recess through August 9. Both the exhibition and the space itself are worth reading about even if you can’t attend.

If you’re near the University of Delaware, please go visit this exhibition before it closes on August 8 and take some photos for me.

If you are in Columbus, Ohio, stop by my friend and collaborator Rachel Wallis’s new creative reuse store.

Pete Quandt’s short film Weekend Visits documents a child spending time with his incarcerated mother in a special on-site house designed for such visits at the Virginia Correctional Center for Women.

This is cool.

I had an Art-O-Mat machine in my hotel in New Orleans and I got a lot of art.

Listen to my uber-talented comrade Gioncarlo Valentine’s words about art, photography, care and love.

Thinking of the salience of the cartonera movement for our times.

2025 SolidarityIs Cohort Applications are now open!

“How to Find a Loved One After a U.S. Immigration Arrest”: This guide from the National Immigration Law Center will “help you look for someone who was taken by immigration officers and may be facing deportation.” Available in multiple languages.

This looks like a great resource from Muslims for Just Futures (MJF) and the Undocublack Network (UBN): Toolkit: Organizing Against Trump’s 2025 Travel Ban.

The Chicago Public Library has hired a DJ scholar-in-residence for a 12-week residency as part of its efforts to make its archival collections about Black history more accessible. The library announced in May that the residency will be held by Chicago DJ, artist, and cultural programs producer Rae Chardonnay Taylor.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Lately, I’ve been hearing some discouragement from my loved ones. Discouragement is a valid response to our current conditions. “I give up,” they’ll say. I listen and then I ask them to recall a time they resisted the urge to quit. Why do you think you continued? I ask. Was it for a person, an ideal, or perhaps something else? I remind them that feeling emotionally exhausted is not the same as giving up and that being discouraged is a temporary state. It’s a struggle to keep on going so it helps to look at how others have done so in challenging circumstances. Many years ago, Shirin Shirin interviewed the great writer and activist Dennis Brutus and I often come back to his words:

“Shirin: You’ve lived through World War II, through the Cold War, you’ve been part of the struggle against apartheid, you’ve seen that regime come and go, you’ve seen many American presidents come and go, and yet throughout all these years — you’re now in your 80s — you’ve managed to keep a sense of optimism. What gives you hope?

Brutus: Well, it certainly helps to be able to have a sense of humor, so you survive various catastrophes with a laugh or two. Secondly, I think we’re always winning small victories. They’re happening all the time. Here in Durban, we challenged the city council because they’ve cut off people’s water because they can’t pay. There are always grounds for at least a little cheerfulness and a little optimism. If you have a sense that there is this global struggle going on, where one is winning little victories in a number of places, then the real question in my mind should be how do we combine all these successes and develop them into a powerful force. But it certainly seems to me that the mere fact that one is occasionally winning a few victories, however small they might be, it is one way to keep going.”

Maintaining a sense of humor and focusing on small wins are great ways to find encouragement to keep going. Another way is to refuse to believe the bad press about human beings. We notice and pay the most attention to cruelty and inhumanity and that’s actually because our brains focus on the negative over anything else. But I like to remind us that the reason stories of cruelty are so shocking to us is that they go against most people's natural instincts. How else can we explain human survival to date? We mostly work cooperatively and we are often concerned with helping others. This is reflected in the world in small and big ways. We have to train our brains to notice.

I launched a giving circle in January. Instead of monetizing my newsletter, I decided I wanted to contribute more funds to some of the people and groups working so hard to help others to survive. Since launching, the circle has contributed over $12,000 to 43 people/projects/groups. I made a list of the people/groups here in case others want to support them too. What you’ll notice if you review the list is that a bunch of people are working with others to feed people, to provide for their healthcare, to offer diapers and other necessities, to organize for small and big victories and more.

The giving circle is a small contribution, but it’s important to those of us who have joined together to offer concrete support. So it matters. It also matters because it shows that people are trying to ease suffering everywhere, all the time. The circle helps us to notice what’s happening around us.

I often say that people are in motion everywhere to remind myself that while there is bad news, it’s definitely not the only news. Each person in motion is doing something that might contribute to a greater good. As Dr. Elizabeth Sawin writes:

“Because life is self-organizing and regenerating, even the very tiny shifts we make away from harm and towards sustenance of life open up possibilities that compound upon themselves. It's not *just* a park, a food forest, a fair trade organic banana, a pre-school with free breakfast - it's also all the descendants of that one tired butterfly that needed that shrub in that park to lay her eggs…Don't minimize the ripples of the healing work you do just because it starts small and humble.”

Our giving circle is small and humble. It is a small thing lovingly done. I hope that those who are contributing take time to notice how their small donations added to others are helping to ease some suffering. I don’t think there’s anything more important to do in this moment than to commit to lessening suffering (others’ and our own). I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few years about my commitments and I’ve been thinking about the questions that guide my life. At bottom, I’ve been concerned since I was too young to articulate it with the question: “How do we create a world where everyone on the planet has enough?” That’s really it. Everything flows from that.

When I am fearful or when despair rears its head, I return to this guiding question. When things are chaotic, the question helps me orient myself. It points me in the right direction when I feel overwhelmed. It defines for me what my focus should be.

What is your guiding question? What helps you move through chaos, fear, and a sense of being overwhelmed with the vagaries of this world? What grounds you?

If you haven’t yet identified your guiding question, perhaps take some time this weekend to brainstorm a few and then journal about them until you distill the questions into a singular one. Think too of who or what keeps you in the fight for more justice and some peace. Refer to your question when you feel unmoored and need some grounding. I do this regularly.

My assessment of the current historical moment in the U.S. is clear-eyed and realistic. The Rightwing executive coup at the Federal level has succeeded. I’ve said as much over the past few weeks and some of my comrades have vociferously disagreed. If I am correct though, what does this mean for those of us who oppose this regime? I believe that the present and future are not foreclosed. We’re in a season of trench warfare at every level of government and in society overall. The moment we are in is the post-coup one. Many people seem reluctant to land the plane on this point. To me, that’s a mistake on every level. We cannot effectively organize if we aren’t crystal clear about our current context.

The murder bill that was passed today by the GOP is terrible and unpopular. But it creates an opportunity for those of us on the Left(s) to win people over to our vision of a just society. The bill is a rupture point and many people will feel its deeply deleterious impact. The billionaire class is stealing from almost all of us in this country and oppressing people worldwide. One of the key reasons they have built up a full on militarized police state is because they understand precisely that they will need greater force to oppress us all. [PIC abolitionists have been warning about this for years and many closed their ears.] This is a simple story to narrate to all of our communities. We don’t have to rely on the Democrats in Congress who are not an opposition party to tell this story for us. We can do it ourselves. Moreover, we can and must continue to organize in every single way that we can. People are already in motion, everywhere. Join in if you aren’t already involved.

If you’re a reader of this newsletter or if you know me, you know I think public libraries are very important institutions for a myriad of reasons. Recently, the City of New York increased funding for our local libraries. This is a small victory, but much more work remains to be done (and, of course, NYC PLAN is committed to continued organizing). The funding increase didn’t “just happen.” It was the outcome of organizing by many people over the past few years. Facing library budget cuts and “restorations” that never matched inflation or the actual need, those people persevered despite much discouragement. And people continue to organize and to fight for better. I take a lot of inspiration from this and I am grateful to be working with others to continue the fight. Join us if you are in NYC and I hope that all of you find a fight worth waging with others if you aren’t already organizing.

I’ll end by returning to Dennis Brutus who wrote one of my very favorite poems which opens with these lines:

“Somehow we survive

and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither.”

Somehow we survive… That somehow always includes other people. We’re in the fight of our lives. Stay tender.

If you are seeking a space where you can reflect individually and with others on your ongoing activism and organizing, feel free to join me on the last Sunday of every month through December on Zoom from 4 to 6 pm ET. The next drop-in session is on Sunday, July 27. This is for people already engaged in some form of activism and organizing. Space is limited.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

[words adapted from a talk given in March]

Speaking at a conference in 2002, radical economist Maria da Conceicao Tavares said:

“Maybe when you are 20 years old you can believe in revolution, socialism and even the resurrection of the flesh. But have no illusions; the struggle is permanent. I have fought for fifty years and I will continue fighting until I die. That is all I know how to do. And I hope you will join me.”

I’m in my 50s and I still believe in revolution, socialism and the resurrection of the body on the Day of Judgement. But like Tavares, I know that the struggle is permanent. I also know that we have a duty to fight and that is my ongoing commitment. I struggle for and with specific people in mind rather than for abstract ideas. And this is fuel that keeps me grounded and going despite the dull roar of fascism. Some of our best teachers who were movement long-distance runners learned the same lessons.

We’re living in the U.S. under a full blown authoritarian Federal government that has been and continues to fund genocides across the world and is now also bombing Iran. We’re ruled by oligarchs who are engaged in a smash and grab looting of the government’s coffers, we’re in an environmental collapse with few in the U.S. government taking this seriously, our trans siblings are having their rights stripped while under threat of elimination, our bodily autonomy continues to be under attack and the regime is calling up the military to quell dissent. Is it any wonder that many of us feel and are unwell?

It’s a lot to live through. I know. We live in a time that offers many reasons to despair. If you’ve been a part of social movements, you’re probably excellent at ‘reciting the terribles’ and some of us are perhaps also practiced at offering some analysis. But on the question of what to do, of what we must do to transform our current conditions, I’m noticing an intellectual and perhaps spiritual exhaustion. But the truth is quite simple: we don’t know what to do because there’s not just one thing to do.

I’ve seen that Diane di Prima’s poem Revolutionary Letter #8 is making the rounds again online. In particular this part:

NO ONE WAY WORKS, it will take all of us

shoving at the thing from all sides

to bring it down.

It’s resonating with people because these words happen to be true. Also, I think, because people are already in motion. They are organizing, protesting, living and will continue. And we know that collective action matters because of how hard the current regime is trying to repress it.

Perhaps you’re feeling as exhausted by words as I am lately. It’s not that I prefer silence but words are draining my energy and they leave me wrung out. Sometimes they sit like dead weight on my chest. It feels like everything has been said over and over again. I’ve been wondering if I can just end every sentence with a question mark to change things up. This feels more honest somehow, more appropriate for our times.

I’m craving concrete actions instead of words [though words are important]. I want to DO things with others. I want to try lots of different things. Maybe those are my question marks. I don’t know? Let’s try it? Can I help you do that? Are we ready? Is what we’re doing a waste of time? Is there light at the end of the tunnel? What’s the good news? Is what we’re doing increasing the possibility of freedom and liberation for everyone?

I was reminded recently of a Daoist parable retold by Alan Watts that I come back to from time to time. It goes like this:

Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”

The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, the farmer said, “Maybe.”

The story of the Chinese farmer reminds us that life is less about the situation that we’re in and more about our responses to that situation. As human beings, we need to feel in control and we crave certainty. But more than ever, we have to get comfortable with uncertainty. I know what you are thinking: ‘But Mariame, human beings will cling to the familiar even when the familiar is failing us.’ You are right, this is true.

Uncertainty can provoke fear and fear is an ingrained survival mechanism that takes priority over our brain’s other functions. When humans feel as though we cannot control a scary or painful situation, we often just give up and want to hide. Being afraid can have you turn inwards seeking protection - this is normal but we have to push ourselves, especially now, to turn outwards in defiance of fear. This is not, I believe, a time for retreating and for staying in a defensive crouch. This is a time when I think we should be trying lots of different things to see what makes a difference.

We are living in times where much is beyond our personal control and we are swimming in a sea of uncertainty. Rather than allowing ourselves to be swallowed by fear because the present and future are uncertain, what if we tried to inhabit and embrace possibility? What if we live in the “Maybe” during what are undoubtedly difficult times?

To do that, I think we must embrace the concept and word possibility. Doodle the word while you are writing, embroider it on a pillow, speak it out loud as a mantra, post it as an affirmation on your bathroom mirror, so you see it every morning. Let St. Francis of Assisi’s words guide you; I believe they offer each of us a road map through uncertainty: “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

People are the foundation of all possibilities. Father Dave Kelly of Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation in Chicago is one of the most committed and effective practitioners of restorative justice, I know. It was from him that I learned about the practice of accompaniment. Some of you have probably heard of this term/practice before. But years ago, I hadn’t.

Accompaniment is a Jesuit idea, meaning to “live and walk” alongside those you serve. It is the willingness to encounter another, to make someone feel valued and seen, bettered for knowing you, never small. It’s a resolve to show up repeatedly, to listen without judgment, to offer resources and skills without condescension. It’s that open and steady presence of being both a follower willing to be led and also when warranted to guide. It’s something that I’ve seen the best organizers I know do repeatedly.

Accompaniment is especially important when partnering with those who are marginalized, who are excluded and vulnerable. To show up, to connect with someone else’s humanity has so much power. Accompaniment is a form of action in the service of lessening suffering. It offers some fruitful possibilities for making things with others.

Our exhausted words and theories are not, I believe, as important as how we relate to each other and the relationships we build. We need so much accompaniment right now. Who will you accompany and who do you need to accompany you?

The good news is that many people are already engaged in accompaniment and also continue to engage in mutual aid. I take a lot of inspiration from both.

Many people have correctly assessed that we are up against massive forces of oppression. They know they won’t individually be able to make a meaningful dent in those forces. People know that collective action is the only way forward, but we’re in a time when some people feel/are alone and also lack trust in others. Yet as humans, we crave connection. All of this is a recipe for resignation and also sometimes for impotent rage.

I don’t think that we are *doomed or cooked*. I think more than ever that we must put our energies and our attention towards protecting the most vulnerable people right now, and to make things a little bit better in the corner of the world we live in. Barbara Marx Hubbard says that our task is “to hospice what’s dying and midwife what’s being born.” There’s a lot to do and a lot to grieve and a lot to organize against and there’s also living to do and beauty to behold.

I’ve been leaning on Li Young’s words:

“We counted up all the deaths; we counted up all the dying; we counted up all the terrible things in life, and guess what? There’s still Van Gogh painting sunflowers, there’s still morning glories. There’s an excess in the universe, a much-ness, a too-much-ness.”

Focusing on some beauty means that we will have far more strength and stamina to show up to the world’s pain. At this time, we desperately need more people showing up to that pain. Practicing collective care, which is a form of reciprocal community provision, is essential right now as it always has been. As Krystle Okafor has written, “It is how we make each other possible.” Kelly and I write in Let This Radicalize You that prioritizing collective care in this historical moment is necessary, rebellious and revolutionary. Don’t be cynical about this reality.

Right now it might feel like we’re being overwhelmed by the Right’s promised “shock and awe” strategy and it is in fact overwhelming. However, it is our work to stay focused, plan our responses, and importantly to prepare for the next ruptures because there will be more big ruptures. As writer Sarah Leonard has said the question for all of us is: “will we be ready” the next time? How we respond, and what we do next, is in our hands. The parable of the Chinese farmer illustrates that the consequences of most actions are unknowable and uncertain. Let’s stay rooted in the Maybe. Especially when it’s uncomfortable.

Writer Victoria Safford shared a quote from someone in an essay that I appreciate very much & have shared elsewhere: “You know we cannot do this all at once. But every day offers every one of us little invitations for resistance, and you make your own responses.” I love the idea of “little invitations for resistance.” The question before all of us, I think, is ‘what will we make of this moment in history?’ One thing I know for sure is that we need to build our *action* muscles. We need to get outside of ourselves and act (both individually and collectively). We all need to accept the little invitations for resistance.

There are many ways to contribute to our collective liberation, and we all have talents, skills, and gifts to share. As the wonderful writer, my comrade Sarah McCarry has written: “Our work now is to attend to the suffering of other beings, and to attend to the suffering within ourselves, so that we do not inflict it on those around us.”

Choose a lane and do what you can. That’s all any of us can do and still live our lives. We’re all navigating the horror, the banality and also the beauty of the world. Give yourself some grace and remind yourself that you can be part of building up what’s been undone, more radically and boldly. What is torn down sometimes needs to go. Don’t hold on tightly to things that have never served us. And when something can’t be fixed, we should ask: what can be built instead?

If you’re not numb and disconnected as your enemies hope, applaud yourself for holding on to your emotions and your humanity. It means that they haven’t succeeded in stealing your heart. You are victorious because all of their propaganda hasn’t worked on you. You still care about others at home and abroad. You still hold righteous rage at injustice. You still believe in everything for everyone.

Don’t forget that dreams are fuel and that it’s important to have a vision of what we want to guide us. Our visions keep us in the fight because they are what we are fighting for. Keep making things and creating even though it might feel as though *the* world is ending. Share what you make with others. I have faith in our creativity. Another world is possible in part because each of us carries seeds of new worlds within us. Our opponents may try to bury us, but they don’t know that those seeds are inside us ready to create new possibilities of life.

As Ella Baker said: “The struggle is eternal. The tribe increases. Somebody carries on.” I hope you’ll join me in being someone who carries on.

If you want to join me in a small thing that is worth doing, please help me to support one of my favorite places, Bluestockings Cooperative Bookstore to keep its doors open. I am organizing a summer book drive with a goal of collecting 2500 books for their shelves. Drop off or mail your gently used or new books to Bluestockings. All details are in these fliers. We desperately need community spaces like Bluestockings in NYC and we must do what we can to preserve them. Thanks to Julie for making the flier and graphics for me. Please feel free to print the flier and share in your communities. Thanks in advance for donating books and spreading the word about the drive. If you can’t donate books, please consider becoming a member or donating money.

Also, please stop by Bluestockings for “Abolitionist Toyery” on Sunday, August 10 from 1:00 to 6:00 pm. I am organizing a special pop up event at Bluestockings on August 10. I need some help to pull it off. Please send me some examples of abolitionist toys. In other words, what existing or imagined toys do you think are potentially abolitionist in function, design, or use? When you share the toy, please let me know in what ways you think it is potentially abolitionist. I am open to any and all ideas from people of all ages.

You can email your thoughts and ideas to me at niapoetry@gmail.com. If I use your idea, you will be properly credited and I will also mail you a 12 by 12 print of the Micah Bazant art that I shared earlier in this newsletter. I have 20 prints that I can send. Also, if you’ve actually made an abolitionist toy, please send me a photograph! Play is anti-fascist.

If you are in NYC, stop by Black Reading Room through July 14. Installed in celebration of Juneteenth, the Black Reading Room pays homage to the Black freedom struggle rooted in southern traditions, abolitionist philosophies, and the ongoing fight for liberation.

Don’t forget to send in your contributions to my Ransom Notes from the GOP zine. The deadline is June 30 but I will accept submissions through July 15. Thanks to those who have already sent me your contributions!

My comrades Jovida and Weyam are offering two free/by donation "Conflict Clinics." I cannot recommend both of them more highly. They are excellent facilitators who support all of us to address and transform conflict in our lives, organizations and communities. The first session is on June 27.

Registration for the anti-criminalization Communiversity that I have been co-organizing with a small planning team is officially open. You have to be based in NYC to join us. It’s an experiment and we are interested to see where it goes.

Finally if you are in NYC, tomorrow is the Democratic primary. Remember DO NOT RANK CUOMO. I will be ranking Zohran and Brad #1 and #2.

Thanks for reading Prisons, Prose & Protest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

May kicked my ass and I have another very busy month ahead. I’ll be in New Orleans this week to facilitate a workshop about abolition feminism(s) and reproductive justice at the Get Free Conference. I am looking forward to being in a space with hundreds of Black women and gender-nonconforming people who are doing so much excellent organizing and community work across the world.

I’ll be in conversation with my friend Lewis Wallace on June 12 at the Critical Pedagogy Symposium.

I will be facilitating a workshop with Ki Gross at the 2025 Peace and Justice Conference on June 14. This is a youth organized gathering. If you’re in NYC, you are welcome to join us.

I will be in conversation with Sue Jeong Ka on June 19 at Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space in conjunction with Ka’s exhibition Explicit!!!. Join us.

Sojourners for Justice Press and Midnight Care Collective are co-organizing a mini Black Zine Fair in Detroit on August 9! It’s free to attend and you can RSVP here.

Giving Circle Update: In May, some of you donated $2327.07 [after fees] to the Giving Circle. I donated $2182.43 to 8 projects/people. Documentation of the groups that received funds is here. Thanks to everyone who has donated in lieu of a paid subscription for this newsletter. I don’t intend to monetize this newsletter on this site, so if you want to support it, please feel free to join the Giving Circle.

In this issue of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I give a short history of forced sterilization in California women’s prisons. I recommend a podcast about the radical healing work undertaken by Dr. Mutulu Shakur and members of the Black Panthers and the Young Lords in the 1970s, several good recent articles, and more…

I’m working on a project that has a quilt at its center. So I’ve been paying attention to stories that include quilts and quilting. A few months ago, I came across an article about a quilt project by formerly incarcerated women who were forcibly sterilized in California prisons. The quilt honors “the nearly 600 victims of forced sterilization in state prisons who are still alive today.” I wondered how many people are familiar with California’s history of sterilizing people in women’s prisons so I decided to share a short overview.

A Short History of Forced Sterilization in California Women’s Prisons

In 2001, Kelli Dillon, a 24-year-old prisoner in the Central California women’s facility in Chowchilla, was informed by doctors that she needed surgery for an ovarian cyst. During the procedure, the doctors performed a hysterectomy without her consent. Doctors never told her what they had done; she only found out from her lawyer.

Dillon’s experience is chilling, but it is not unique. California sterilized some 20,000 people under eugenics laws in the 20th century, and sterilizations continued at least into the 2010s. Although officially banned, the practice of sterilization likely continues in some state prisons today.

Eugenics in California in the 20th Century

In the early 20th century, scientists and policymakers embraced a form of pseudoscience known as eugenics. Eugenics, or the “science of good breeding,” was a movement dedicated to improving the genetic health of humans by “using the principles of heredity and statistics to encourage healthy and discourage unhealthy reproduction,” according to scholar Philippa Levine.

In practice, discouraging “unhealthy” reproduction often meant forced sterilization of the poor, the mentally ill, nonwhite people, and people convicted of crimes. Mental hospitals, prisons, and other carceral institutions throughout the 20th century and beyond would often perform sterilization procedures, especially on women, without obtaining consent. Medical professionals might perform sterilization procedures on a woman during childbirth, other reproductive care, or abdominal surgery. Doctors frequently failed to inform women, before or after the procedure, of their sterilization.

California was a leader in the promotion and implementation of eugenics. The Human Betterment Foundation (HBF) founded in 1928 and led by E. S. Gosney, tirelessly promoted sterilization as a way to improve humanity. The foundation argued that 10 million people in the US had “eugenically undesirable children” and argued for a vigorous program of sterilization to weed out bad genes.

California practiced what HBF preached. In 1909, the state passed its first law allowing for forced sterilization in prisons and mental hospitals. One of the law’s most enthusiastic proponents was Leo Stanley, chief surgeon at San Quentin state penitentiary from 1913. Stanley was obsessed with human experimentation; he would remove thyroids from men he saw as discipline problems. He also sterilized people, though fewer than he hoped; at one point he claimed that 20% of people in prison were “feeble minded” and should be sterilized.

Sterilization Is Repudiated, But Continues

In 1978, ten Mexican American women sued the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center for performing nonconsensual sterilization on Mexican women receiving reproductive care. The named plaintiff, Dolores Madrigal, said doctors pressured her to sign a sterilization consent form while in labor.

The women lost their case when the federal court ruled that the sterilizations resulted from miscommunication and language barriers rather than negligence or malice. However, publicity around the case led the California Department of Health to revamp its sterilization procedures and to create bilingual information manuals. It also led California to repeal its eugenic sterilization laws.

However, despite the end of officially sanctioned sterilizations, sterilizations in prisons continued. A 2013 report by the Center for Investigative Reporting found that doctors working for the California Department of Corrections continued to perform tubal ligations on women prisoners without consent, at least until 2010. They identified 100 cases from the late 1990s through 2006 and another 148 between 2006 and 2010. A state audit found that 794 people in state prisons underwent procedures that could have sterilized them between 2005 and 2013. We lack information on the number of women the program targeted for sterilization between 1979 and the late 1990s.

James Heinrich, one doctor who performed these procedures, justified them on eugenic grounds. He claimed that the $150,000 paid to doctors for each ligation was cost effective because of “what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children—as [the women prisoners] procreated more.”

A Failed Reparations Regime

In 2021, California followed North Carolina and Virginia in passing a bill to grant reparations to victims of forced state-sponsored sterilization. The state set aside $4.5 million to compensate survivors, each of whom would receive around $35,000.

The state reparations bill seemed like a way for survivors to get at least a modicum of recognition and justice. Unfortunately, however, the California Victim Compensation Board administering the program seemed more focused on rejecting applicants than on administering funds. At the end of 2023, as the program application deadline neared, the board had denied 358 of 513 applications.

Lynda Gledhill, the chief executive of the board, told The Nation that many applicants were in bad faith “because of the nature of the population that saw the opportunity to apply for money.” In other words, the leader of the board tasked with providing reparations to prisoners saw prisoners as untrustworthy.

There is a good deal of evidence that the commission did, in fact, improperly reject legitimate victims. In particular, a report by KQED found the board denied claims for patients who underwent endometrial ablations. Ablations are generally prescribed when patients are experiencing heavy or irregular periods. While not technically sterilization, the procedure damages the uterine lining and therefore should not be performed on women intending to bear children.

James Heinrich prescribed some 80 endometrial ablations between 2006 and 2012. Sharon Fennix underwent one of those ablations as a treatment for noncancerous growths. She says that they did not inform her the procedure would make it impossible for her to have children. In fact, after the procedure, Heinrich told her she would never be released from prison, and therefore wouldn’t need to conceive again.

Ten years passed before anyone fully informed Fennix about what had happened to her. Yet her application for reparations was denied. The board argued that ablations were prescribed for existing medical conditions and did not constitute sterilization. The rejection was retraumatizing. “You dehumanized me,” she told KQED. “You took my body. How dare you later on tell me that I don’t deserve to be one of the ones that gets reparations for it?”

After four rejections of her application for reparations, Geynna Buffington, another woman who underwent endometrial ablation in 1998, sued the board. An Alameda County Superior Court ruled in 2024 that the board’s rejections had been improper because they ignored the fact that “informed consent is a linchpin” of the reparations statute. In response to the court ruling, the board reached out to rejected applicants to inform them they could reapply. Governor Gavin Newsom extended the deadline to do so to January 2026.

Sterilization May Be Ongoing

Again, California outlawed sterilization of prisoners without consent in 1979, yet the practice appears to have continued for another 40 years. Nor can we be certain that it has ended. In 2020, the first Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) performed nonconsensual hysterectomies on Spanish-speaking detainees. Continued forced sterilization of women in ICE custody may well suggest that officials continue to forcibly sterilize women in prisons.

As attorney Emily Medosch writes, “Forced sterilizations are not a thing of the past.” On the contrary, as long as stigmatized women are held in institutions with little oversight and few rights, these horrific human rights abuses are likely to continue. Reparations for past abuses are important. Halting the state’s placement of women in institutions where they suffer horrific human rights abuses because of the state’s continued adherence to eugenic ideology is also crucial.

Read Abubaker Abed’s harrowing account of becoming an accidental war journalist covering the genocide of his own people, and of his excruciating decision to leave Gaza for the first time in order to protect his family.

Fatima Ayub writes about some of the friends she has made attempting to get money to starving families in Gaza, and about the horrors her friends are living through.

In n+1, Joel Suarez examines the profound and complex interactions between democracy, education, and labor that have been highlighted by the Gaza genocide and the struggle to end it.

I appreciated this story following up with three of the many protesters whom police shot with “less-lethal” rounds in the 2020 uprisings after George Floyd’s murder.

This is such a beautiful reflection on the work and joy of building families and creating new, abolitionist coparenting structures. By Hannah Ege, zara raven, and Frenchy. For the pilot edition of the renewed Abolition Journal.

“We have to be intentional about community safety being braided into the fabric of the work that is happening. Community safety, when done well, compliments the organizing work.”

Kai Cheng Thom writes with so much care and experience about “How to De-Escalate Conflict & Build Stronger Movements.”

This is such an interesting installation that, in the artist’s words, “demands awareness, consensus, and cooperation between people to become a functional public space.”

My friend and comrade Kelly Hayes has written yet another indispensable essay; in this one, she speaks to Aaron Groggans and other movement veterans about how we can help each other shrink the gulf between where we are and where we want to be in meeting this desperate historical moment we’re in.

The Triibe and South Side Weekly actually talk to affected teens about the lack of free spaces to hang out in Chicago, rather than relying on the characterizations of city authorities.

Adrienne Matei writes in The Guardian about the concept of hypernormalization, and why it is useful in describing the experience of many USians right now.

I appreciated this episode of Code Switch, where the activist and author Tourmaline reflects on what we can learn from Marsha P. Johnson in the face of the terrifying ongoing attacks on trans lives. Get her new biography of Marsha here.

The Dope Is Death podcast tells the story of Dr. Mutulu Shakur, who joined other Black and Brown radicals to pioneer a revolutionary approach to healing in the South Bronx and Harlem in the 1970s, was targeted by COINTELPRO, and spent most of the last 38 years of his life in prison. The podcast grew out of the film documentary by the same name.

Nikita Gill articulates the life cycle of hope and grief in “More Notes on Survival.”

I will be tabling at the American Library Association Conference Zine Pavillion on June 28 and 29. Stop by if you are in Philly!

Make a zine with me: Ransom Notes From the GOP.

New version of “Despair is a tool of our enemies” notebook is here. Proceeds support REBUILD.

I had a last minute emergency last month so I missed the activist drop in space. My apologies. If you are seeking a space where you can reflect individually and with others on your ongoing activism and organizing, feel free to join me on June 22 on Zoom from 4 to 6 pm ET. This is for people already engaged in some form of activism and organizing. Space is limited. Please only sign up if you are sure you want to drop in.

Are you working with young people this summer? Join us to learn more about abolitionist resources you can use when doing political education with youth. Interrupting Criminalization will share a new resource that compiles activities that we have been using over the last two decades. In the resource, we share classroom and facilitation tips, lesson plans, multimedia, and exercises that engage young people on subjects like punishment, the prison industrial complex, transformative justice, and community-based safety. Join us on June 18 from 4 to 5:30 pm ET.

Nominations for the sixth annual Ann Snitow Prize—a $12,000 award for an outstanding feminist intellectual/artist and activist—are open! I was honored to be a recipient a couple of years ago.

Preorder Read This When Things Fall Apart—I’m so excited about this forthcoming book edited by my friend Kelly Hayes and honored to have a letter included in the book. Preorders are now open.

A wonderful, comprehensive new resource on organizing against carceral infrastructure from Community Justice Exchange. “It aims to connect fights against all forms of caging, including prisons, jails, detention centers, military bases, cop cities, psychiatric facilities, at the county, state, and federal levels, through a broad framework that resituates site fights amidst a larger movement to prevent carceral system expansion and abolish the [prison industrial complex].”

The Guggenheim’s Rashid Johnson solo exhibition, A Poem for Deep Thinkers, is open through early next year and looks fabulous. There’s a series of live performances at the museum tied in with it.

I’m fascinated by The Goodbye Line, “a public art project that invites people to say the goodbyes they never got to say.” You can call any time, from anywhere.

I love the concept behind this volume edited by Chicago Books to Women in Prison volunteers. Prism/Prison includes ten coloring pages by female and trans artists from Chicago as well as creative responses to the coloring pages by incarcerated women and trans artists and writers.

“What if the Future Was Awesome?” is a short animation by Iseult Gillespie that imagines sustainable futures for three cities.

You’re welcome.

My friend and comrade Monica Trinidad offers some useful advice about how to make art for social change.

Thanks Ms. Rachel.

I really appreciated this conversation between Ocean Vuong and Jia Tolentino.

​​This collection of StoryCorps interviews about libraries is heart-filling.

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