Abolition is about abolishing the conditions under which prison became the solution to problems, rather than abolishing the buildings we call prisons.

– Ruth Wilson Gilmore

I was in 5th grade when the cracks in the foundation the United States raised me on really started to show. My teacher taught us about greenhouse gas emissions and said, rather matter-of-factly, that within mine or my children’s lifetime Earth would become like Venus… inhospitable to human life. No alternatives or paths to healing the atmosphere were offered; just existential dread and a feeling of powerlessness. Classic neo-liberalism. My 11-year-old self was stunned. “We’re on the fast track to extinction and we’re just gonna… do 5th grade like business as usual??”

As a person racialized as white, who identifies as the gender I was assigned at birth, whose romantic interests generally have the opposite gender assignment, who is mostly neurotypical and able bodied, who is fluent in English, who has always known the stability of a roof over my head and access to food… I hold many privileges in this white supremacist, cis-hetero-patriarchial, mess of oppression we call the “modern” world. My experience is that of someone allegedly “protected” by and “safe” from the genocidal violence that built and upholds the colonial world we know. And even with such so-called protections, my planet is actively being destroyed in the pursuit of capital while all of my basic needs are behind a pay-wall, my tax dollars fund terror campaigns both locally and globally, my bodily autonomy is pending legislation, and for me to effectively challenge any of these injustices is to face the threat of intense state repression.

It is thanks to my teachers, Black and Indigenous women, femmes, queer, trans and gender-nonbinary folks (special shoutout to Nikki Blak!), that I have come to understand my own experience is inextricably bound to the marginalized and racialized stolen people and land on whose oppression my relative privilege is based. None of us are free until all of us are. The only liberation is collective liberation.

In order to create a world where we all can thrive, we must abolish the societal and cultural norms that ask us to de-humanize ourselves, to see one another as disposable, to separate families and lock humans in cages, to celebrate vengeance without considering justice. Abolition is the goal and I am dedicated to purposefully moving in service of that goal.

Your freedom is shackled and chained to mine. And until I’m free, you’re not free either.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Some of us, white and black, know how great a price has already been paid to bring into existence a new consciousness, a new people, an unprecedented nation. If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name.

If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own - which it is - and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.

James Baldwin / An Open Letter to my sister, miss angela davis

This page is many things to me. My hope is that it might be an invitation to you. An invitation to find something that resonates; something that, no matter where you’re coming from, can walk with you on the path to collective liberation.

Teachers

  • is self described as "a luscious, Black queer witch writer auntie, an apocalyptic cosmic optimist, and a gardner of healing ideas.”

    adrienne is a creative powerhouse who operates in the liberatory lineage of Grace Lee Boggs. She is the author of many books including Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, We Will Not Cancel Us, and Holding Change. Along with her sister, Autumn Brown, adrienne hosts the How to Survive the End of the World podcast where the two sisters and their guests share vulnerable, tender conversations and reflections rooted in the wisdom gained from years of social justice work. adrienne is a world builder, actively creating a better future for humanity.

    There are many ways to support adrienne’s work: make a tax deductible donation, become a member, and/or join on Patreon.

  • is a lifelong advocate, activist, organizer, and champion of the Black community.

    She is a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, the founder and principle of Black Futures Lab, author of The Purpose of Power, and host of the Lady Don’t Take No podcast where she regularly shares hot takes and honest conversations with her guests on all things culture.

    Follow Alicia on the socials and support Black futures.

  • is an organizer, writer and teacher. He has been working to build queer and trans liberation based in racial and economic justice for the past two decades. Rooted in his experience, Dean’s teachings nurture our humanity and inspire us to build the loving community networks required to sustain our future.

    In his latest project, book and podcast Love in a Fucked Up World, Dean empowers us to be the change we want to see — both out in the world, and in our closest connections.

    Dean’s work is as prolific as it is revelatory. Read the latest updates, learn about his books, listen to his podcast, read his other writing, and watch videos.

  • is a Black queer femme activist, writer, highly acclaimed speaker, cancer-warrior, sex educator, and thought leader who cuts through oppressive bullshit with clarity, humor, passion, and openness. Ericka and her partner, Ebony Donnley, gift the world their open, honest conversations, reflections, and analyses informed by their Black-queer love ethic on their podcast From Hoodrat to Headwrap and on the socials. Ericka is the author of the forthcoming book Nasty Work, now available for pre-sale.

    Supporters of Ericka & Ebony on Patreon get access to their ongoing political education series Wretched Readers of the Earth, hosted by Ebony.

    Check out their work — it has been deeply nourishing for me and I promise you’ll learn something. And be sure to show your appreciation:

    Venmo: @Ericka-Hart
    PayPal: ericka@ihartericka.com

  • is on a mission to transform systems, spaces, organizations, and individuals through education, facilitation, and creative / healing work. While their work centers the experiences and holistic healing of Blackfolk, Queer and Trans Black and Indigenous People of Color (QTBIPOC), and disabled and/or chronically ill individuals, Jade’s mission is rooted in cultivating liberation, equity, and well-being for anyone committed to fostering justice, collective wellness, accessibility, and community in their lives or workplaces.

    Known as The Churchy Mystic™, Jade celebrates Afro-diasporic folklore, mysticism, and spiritual traditions in innovative and accessible ways.

    Learn from Jade’s work on the socials, offerings on their blog, and become a patron, and leave a tip.

  • offers the world necessary healing drawn from their personal experience of profound grief and steadfast commitment to collective liberation. Malkia (“Mac”) is is the founder of Radical Loss, co-founder of Media Justice, and an award-winning activist, writer and public speaker on issues of digital rights, narrative power, Black liberation and collective grief.

    Mac has gifted the world their wisdom through many writings including Loss Runs Like a River Through My Life and Grief Belongs in Social Movements. Can We Embrace It?

    Learn more from them as well as other dedicated movement workers in the forthcoming book, Liberation Stories. Follow Mac on the socials and support Radical Loss.

  • is a writer, sociologist, radical womanist, poet, cultural architect, and abolitionist mama whose art interrogates social constructs and affirms Blackness. Her thought leadership and radical education work centers marginalized and oppressed populations in the United States.

    In 2016 Nikki and EbonyJanice co-founded Interrupting Racism, a framework for community education, engagement, and empowerment. Since that time, Nikki has expanded the Interrupt series with multiple offerings designed to educate and empower folks to take meaningful action toward collective liberation. Her transformative work guides students with loving conviction and precise clarity. Drawing from the liberatory lineage of Ella Baker, Nikki affirms and empowers her students’ own knowing and right to self-determination to harness the power of ungovernability. I’m a proud alum of Interrupting White Womanhood and the Wayfinder activist incubator. Nikki’s work continues to guide me and I am constantly learning, unlearning, and relearning from her wisdom.

    Nikki’s latest offering is Interrupting Business As Usual — a focused expansion of her work where she is moving liberation work beyond naming harm and into building durable alternatives.

    Follow Nikki on the socials, join her on Patreon, listen to her wisdom, sign up for the newsletter and support her work!

  • is a self-described “extremist for love,” writer, performer, and cultural worker, as well as a somatically trained coach, consultant, and conflict resolution practitioner working at the intersection of mind, body, and collective soul. Founder of Arise Embodiment and developer of the Loving Justice methodology, Kai’s work is rooted in love and grounded in her identity as an East Asian trans woman, as well as over a decade of experience in community mental health.

    Kai offers the world her loving wisdom through many books including: Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir,I HOPE WE CHOOSE LOVE: A Trans Girl’s Notes From the End of the World,Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls, and children’s book From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea.

    Follow Kai on the socials and learn more from her on Substack.

  • is an artist, author, and abolitionist whose expansive cultural work moves us collectively closer to freedom.

    Co-Founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, Patrisse is the author of When They Call You a Terroristand An Abolitionist’s Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World.

    Patrisse is the co-founder of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart as well as the founder of The Center For Art and Abolition, a trailblazing nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering abolitionist artists and leveraging the transformative power of art to catalyze social change. Her current work and practice is focused on “Abolitionist Aesthetics,” a term she advanced and popularized to help challenge artists and cultural workers to aestheticize abolition.

    Follow Patrisse on the socials and sign up for the newsletter.

  • is the bestselling author of What It Takes to Heal, a groundbreaking exploration of healing, justice, and transformation. A therapist, somatics teacher, facilitator, political organizer, and writer, Prentis is also the founder of The Embodiment Institute and a leading voice in embodied leadership and collective healing.

    At its core, Prentis’ work challenges the complacency of mainstream therapeutic models, infusing healing with the rigor of justice, repair, and accountability. They believe that reclaiming feeling and relationship creates space for true transformation—in ourselves, our movements, and the world.

    Prentis speaks with honesty, vulnerability, and humility in a way that makes healing work accessible and empowers us to heal ourselves so that we can heal the systems we are a part of.

    Support Prentis on Patreon, join The Practice Ground, and listen to their podcast Becoming the People.

  • is a music, film and content producer and cultural worker dedicated to practicing transformative justice.

    richie is the founder of Success Stories, Creative and Political Director of For Everyone a fashion collective that is worker-owned and collectively operated by formerly incarcerated people, and founder of Question Culture, a worker-owned media production, creative direction, and artist management company.

    Mentored by Patrisse Cullors and rooted in his own experience of the violence of patriarchy and incarceration — richie is a gifted messenger out here making the revolution irresistible.

    Follow richie on the socials and practice his healing plan for transformative justice.

  • is a claircognizant (clear knowing) soothsayer (truth teller) who is also known as "The Word Witch" because of her deep love for word origins (etymology) and word culture (philology). Sanyu is a skilled card reader with a reverence for Tarot that has guided her to extensive research on the history of the practice. She is now authoring a forthcoming book on the African, Middle Eastern, and Indigenous origins of this cross-cultural practice.

    Deeply rooted and grounded in her understanding of the universe, every word from Sanyu is a revelation. Listening to her speak will expand your vision in ways you didn’t know possible.

    Learn from Sanyu and support her on on Patreon.

  • is a multilingual abolitionist, artist, educator, writer, movement strategist, and  community lawyer. Lewis has worked for more than 20 years with a focus on on disrupting and abolishing the medical-carceral-impoverishment industrial complex.

    Among many profound offerings to the world, Lewis authors a living definition of ableism, last updated in 2022 to the following:

    ABLEISM
    a·ble·ism  \ ˈābə-ˌli-zəm \ noun
    A system of assigning value to people's bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness. These constructed ideas are deeply rooted in eugenics, anti-Blackness, misogyny, colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism. This systemic oppression leads to people and society determining people's value based on their culture, age, language, appearance, religion, birth or living place, "health/wellness", and/or their ability to satisfactorily re/produce, "excel" and "behave." You do not have to be disabled to experience ableism.

    Visit talilalewis.com‍ to learn more and fully appreciate the breadth and depth of Lewis’ heartwork.

  • is the founder of the “me too” movement and has been working at the intersection of racial justice, arts and culture, anti-violence and gender equity for nearly three decades.

    In addition to being a steadfast community organizer, Tarana is a gifted communicator who uses her wisdom and experience to empower others. Along with many public talks and published offerings, Tarana is the author of the forthcoming book Unbound, and co-editor with Brené Brown of You are Your Best Thing.

    Follow Tarana on the socials.

  • aka “PovertySkola” is a formerly unhoused, incarcerated, revolutionary journalist, lecturer, poet, visionary, teacher and single mama of Tiburcio, daughter of a houseless, disabled mama Dee, and the co-founder of POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE/PoorNewsNetwork.

    tiny’s work and that of the whole POOR Magazine family is nothing short of revolutionary. tiny’s offerings to the world are many and I encourage everyone to learn from her wisdom and experience.

    Attend People Skool. Support POOR Magazine. Follow tiny and POOR Magazine on the socials.

  • is a writer, an educator, and a guide for people trying to live more honestly inside systems that make honesty hard.

    There is much I could say about Toi’s offerings in the world but, above all, I encourage you to check it out yourself.

    Subscribe to The Deepening, follow Toi on the socials, overthrow capitalism, support Black single mothers.

Groups

  • is a Black-led, multi-racial, intergenerational coalition that seeks to build a replicable and sustainable model to eradicate police terror in communities of color.

    www.antipoliceterrorproject.org

  • (Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits, Inc.) is a community center in San Francisco dedicated to supporting Two-Spirit and Indigequeer individuals within Indigenous communities.

    baaits.org

  • is a community-based organization based in Oakland, CA, dedicated to building and supporting transformative justice responses to harm, violence, and abuse—particularly child sexual abuse, intimate partner violence, and community harm—without relying on the criminal legal system.

    batjc.org

  • monitors and challenges the abusive conditions inside California women’s prisons, fights for the release of women and trans prisoners, and supports women and trans people in their process of re-entering the community.

    womenprisoners.org

  • fights for the liberation of immigrants in detention through coordination, advocacy and legal services. CCIJ envisions a world where no one is subject to incarceration or family separation.

    ccijustice.org

  • Critical Resistance was formed in 1997 when activists challenging the idea that imprisonment and policing are a solution for social, political, and economic problems came together to organize a conference that examined and challenged what we have come to call the prison industrial complex (PIC).

    Held in Berkeley, California, in September 1998, the conference brought together over 3,500 activists, academics, former and current prisoners, labor leaders, religious organizations, feminists, gay, lesbian and transgender activists, youth, families, and policy makers from literally every state and other countries. The three-day event featured nearly 200 different panels and workshops. The conference also included a number of cultural events and a film festival.

    While the conference was a huge success, CR recognized that its work had only begun. The goal of CR was, and continues to be, building a movement to eliminate the prison industrial complex.

    criticalresistance.org

  • works with Black, Brown, and low-income communities to shift resources away from prisons and punishment toward opportunities that create safe, healthy, and thriving communities.

    ellabakercenter.org

  • is a Queer/Trans Prisoner Solidarity Project in the SF Bay Area that responds to the violence of the prison industrial complex against LGBTQ+ people through advocacy, education, direct action, and community building.

    Their work connects queer and trans community across prison walls through letterwriting & penpal programs, and supports incarcerated siblings through advocacy and fund drives.

    flyingoverwalls.org

  • is building a powerful movement of system-involved Native peoples inside and outside institutions working to end the centuries-long imprisonment of Indigenous people, ancestors, relatives, and land. They work to end the incarceration of living native peoples in jails, prisons, and group homes, of Salmon relatives impacted by dams on our rivers, and of the ancestors' skeletons locked away in basements of universities.

    IJ is developing powerful indigenous leaders and communities and organizing with them to transform the systems, structures, and stories that keep us all imprisoned both physically and spiritually.

    indigenousjustice.org

  • is harnessing community resources in solidarity with our unhoused neighbors in Oakland.

    Through rapid response, advocacy, and organizing efforts, Love & Justice works to meet the urgent needs of our unhoused neighbors and increase their capacity to participate in grassroots organizing efforts to bring humane, just and lasting solutions to the Oakland homelessness crisis.

    loveandjusticeinthestreets.com

  • is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust based in Oakland, CA, dedicated to the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people through a practice called rematriation—restoring communities to their sacred relationship with ancestral land.

    sogoreate-landtrust.org

  • is a poor people led/indigenous people led, grassroots non-profit, arts organization dedicated to providing revolutionary media access, art, education and advocacy to silenced youth, adults and elders in poverty across Mama Earth.

    All of POOR's programs are focused on providing non-colonizing, community-based and community-led media, art and education with the goals of creating access for silenced voices, preserving and degentrifying rooted communities of color and re-framing the debate on poverty, landlessness, indigenous resistance, disability and race locally and globally.

    poormagazine.org

  • is building a moral fusion movement led by the poor to advance an agenda that responds to the urgent needs of the more than 140 million poor and low-wealth people acroos the country.

    Drawing on the transformational history of the First Reconstruction following the Civil War and the Second Reconstruction of the civil rights struggles of the 20th century, the Third Reconstruction is a revival of our constitutional commitment to establish justice, provide for the general welfare, end decades of austerity, and recognize that policies that center the 140 million poor and low-income people in the country are also good economic policies that can heal and transform the nation.

    poorpeoplescampaign.org

  • is a non-profit organization run by volunteers dedicated to building community by providing life-saving services, along with harm reduction resources to underserved and marginalized individuals.

    The vision is to promote consistent access to basic living necessities and harm reduction services for those in need - with non-judgmental unconditional compassion. Volunteers engage in direct community outreach while encouraging destigmatization of drug use and poverty. Punks with Lunch empower individuals to make informed decisions regarding their own lives.

    punkswithlunch.org

  • works to expose and eliminate the root causes of civil and human rights abuses of people experiencing poverty and homelessness in our communities.

    wraphome.org

  • began as a response to systemic displacement and deepening housing crises in Oakland. Formed by unhoused residents and allies, they’ve built a strong, interdependent community on the principles of mutual aid, dignity, and collective care. Despite facing fires, evictions, and ongoing city-led displacement, Wood Street continues to create pathways toward long-term stability and liberation.

    woodstreetcommons.org

We are not makers of history.
We are made by history.

Rev Dr Martin Luther King

The media we consume heavily influences our beliefs. It can, and often does, condition us to accept violence and domination as “normal” and “inevitable.” These resources can help us all understand that nothing is inevitable. Many futures are possible and we must intentionally create the world we want future generations to inherit.

Another world is possible.