Session 8: Abolition as Movement Building

Key Questions

• What is the difference--and relationship--between coalition building and movement building?

• What does accountability in movements look like? 

• What does the proliferation of nonprofits mean for movement building?

• What are the conditions (political, socioeconomic, cultural) necessary for movement building? What is the role of crisis/crises in growing movements and/or thwarting them? 

• What does it mean to be in movement? What are the prerequisites for a movement?

• What are some examples of abolition as movement building?

Required Readings

• Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete, “Abolitionist Alternatives” (AUDIO)

• Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams, “Keeping It Surreal: Dreams of the Marvelous”

• Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams, “ ‘When History Wakes’: A New Beginning”

Supplemental Materials

• Book: George L. Jackson, Blood in My Eye, 41-45

• Book: Jalil A. Muntaqim, We Are Our Own Liberators: Selected Prison Writings, “The Mass And Popular Movement”

• Article: “Black Liberation and The Abolition of the Prison Industrial Complex: An interview with Rachel Herzing”

• Article: Mariame Kaba, “Police ‘Reforms’ You Should Always Oppose”

• Podcast: Rebel Steps with Mariame Kaba

• Poem: Wendy Trevino, Cruel Fiction, “Revolutionary Letter”

• Poem: Aurora Levins Morales, “V’ahavta” (PDF)

• Primary Source: COFO v. Rainey (1964) (PDF)

Recommended Materials

• Rules of Black Panther Party

• The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, “Introduction”

• Robert L. Allen, Black Awakening in Capitalist America

• Mizue Aizeiki, “Mass Deportation Under the Homeland Security State: Anti-Violence Advocates Join the Fight Against Criminalization of Immigrants”

• Developing Mass Protagonism

• Mumia Abu Jamal, “Mumia Abu Jamal on ‘An Abolitionist Life’ ”

• Mariame Kaba, “Yes, We Literally Mean Abolish the Police”

Exercise

In Kelley’s original epilogue for Freedom Dreams, he planned to write of  "a fantastic, futuristic tale of a group of 'Maroon poets' who transform a local struggle over police brutality into a full-fledged revolution rooted in love, creativity, and cooperation over the course of seven hundred years. In [his] dream, it took thirty generations of poets, surviving and creating, in the 'liberated zones' of North America’s ghettos, to build a cooperative world without wages or money."

Imagine your own dream using Kelley’s planned epilogue beginning with the local struggles over police killings in Minneapolis, Louisville, Tallahassee, and so many other cities this summer. What does that abolitionist future look like, taste like, sound like, and feel like? Use the medium or narrative form that is most comfortable or liberating to use. This can include, but is not exclusive to prose, poetry, video, and/or song. This can be an individual or collective project (or some sequence of both).

Reading Guide

1. Davis asks us to “shift our attention from the prison… to the set of relationships that comprise the prison industrial complex” and “envision an array of alternatives that will require radical transformations of many aspects of society.” What are some examples Davis mentions in the chapter?

2. What abolitionist alternatives do you see and/or practice in your communities?

3. What does Kelley mean by “surrealism,” and what does it mean for freedom dreaming?