Abolition for the People brings together thirty essays representing a diversity of voices―political prisoners, grassroots organizers, scholars, and relatives of those killed by the anti-Black terrorism of policing and prisons. This collection presents readers with a moral choice: “Will you continue to be actively complicit in the perpetuation of these systems,” editor Colin Kaepernick asks in his introduction, “or will you take action to dismantle them for the benefit of a just future?”

Join Bree Newsome Bass, Kiese Laymon, Erica R. Meiners, and Derecka Purnell for a discussion and celebration of the release of the paperback edition of Abolition for the People, hosted with Kaepernick Publishing.

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2095-abolition-for-the-people

***Register through Eventbrite to receive a link to the video conference on the day of the event. This event will also be recorded and live captioning will be provided.***

Speakers

Bree Newsome Bass is an artist who drew national attention in 2015 when she climbed the flagpole in front of the South Carolina Capitol building and removed a confederate battle flag that was originally raised in 1961 as a racist statement of opposition to the Civil Rights Movement and lunch counter sit-ins occurring at the time.

Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. Laymon is the author of Long Division, which won the 2022 NAACP Image Award for fiction, and the essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, named a notable book of 2021 by the New York Times critics. Laymon’s bestselling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times.

Erica R. Meiners is a professor of education and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Northeastern Illinois University. A writer, organizer, and educator, Meiners is the author For the Children? Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State, coauthor of The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence, coauthor of Abolition. Feminism. Now., and a coeditor of The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences, Working Toward Freedom.

Derecka Purnell is a human rights lawyer, writer, and author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom. She works to end police and prison violence by providing legal assistance, research, and training in community based organizations through an abolitionist framework.

Founded by Colin Kaepernick in 2019, Kaepernick Publishing strives to elevate a new generation of writers with diverse views and voices through the creation of powerful works of all genres that can build a better and more just world.

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This event is co-sponsored by Haymarket Books and Kaepernick Publishing. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important publishing and programming work.