The BreakBeat Poets Live! is a virtual, multi-generational showcase of some of the illest writers on the planet rock. Each chapter features writers and performers who are part of the Haymarket Books family. Mixing lofi soul instrumentals with funk influences and smooth vocals. Elton Aura has a unique knack for words, flow, and beat selection. He opened up for Noname on her Room 25 tour in 2019 and is in the later stages of his next project coming in 2020. Cortney Lamar Charleston is a Cave Canem fellow and Pushcart Prize-winning author of Telepathologies (Saturnalia Books, 2017) and the forthcoming Doppelgangbanger (Haymarket Books, 2021). Aracelis Girmay is the author of the poetry books Teeth, Kingdom Animalia, and the black maria, and the picture book changing, changing. She is on the editorial board of the African Poetry Book Fund and recently edited a new Selected of Lucille Clifton poems entitled How to Carry Water. --- Juan J. Morales is the son of an Ecuadorian mother and Puerto Rican father. He is the author of three poetry collections, including The Handyman’s Guide to End Times, Winner of the 2019 International Latino Book Award. He is a CantoMundo Fellow, a Macondo Fellow, the Editor/Publisher of Pilgrimage Press, and Professor and Department Chair of English & World Languages at Colorado State University-Pueblo. --- José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants. His book, Citizen Illegal, won of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize and was named a top book of 2018 by NPR. ​He holds fellowships from CantoMundo, Poets House, and the Bronx Council on the Arts. Olivarez was awarded the Author and Artist in Justice award from the Phillips Brooks House Association and named a Debut Poet of 2018 by Poets & Writers. He is a recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. --- Willie Perdomo is the author of The Crazy Bunch, which recently won the New York City Book Award for poetry, The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Smoking Lovely, winner of the PEN Open Book Award, and Where a Nickel Costs a Dime, a finalist for the Poetry Society of America Norma Farber First Book Award. He is also a co-editor of The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, The Best American Poetry 2019, and African Voices. He is currently a Lucas Arts Literary Fellow and teaches at Phillips Exeter Academy. --- Diamond Sharp is a poet and essayist from Chicago. She has performed at Chicago's Stage 773 and her work has been featured on Chicago Public Radio. She has been published in the New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, Vice, Pitchfork, Lenny, PANK, and others. A Callaloo fellow, she has also attended the Wright/Hurston workshop and is a member of the inaugural Poetry Foundation Incubator class. Her debut book of poetry, Super Sad Black Girl, is forthcoming from Haymarket Books. Diamond is an alumna of Wellesley College. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/9fyjCPbIKCM Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Join us for a discussion about raising antiracist kids with author of the new book, AntiRacist Baby, Ibram X.Kendi in conversation with Derecka Purnell. –––––––––– A new uprising across the country demanding racial justice is a powerful reminder that families of all backgrounds need to be pro-active in raising children to understand racism and discrimination, and helping our kids to be a force for anti-racist change in the world. How do families raise actively anti-racist children? AntiRacist Baby written by Ibram X. Kendi; illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky (Kokila Books; on sale June 16, 2020; ages 0-3) Ibram X. Kendi is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and the Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. He is an Ideas Columnist at The Atlantic, and a correspondent with CBS News. He is the author of four books including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won National Book Award for Nonfiction, and the New York Times bestsellers How to Be an Antiracist and STAMPED: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored with Jason Reynolds. His next book, AntiRacist Baby, will be published in June. Derecka Purnell is is a human rights lawyer, writer, and organizer. Since graduating from Harvard Law School, she has worked to end police and prison violence nationwide by providing legal assistance, research, and trainings to community based organizations through an abolitionist framework. Derecka is currently a columnist at The Guardian and Deputy Director of Spirit of Justice Center. –––––––––– Co-sponsored by: Haymarket Books: https://www.haymarketbooks.org Antiracist Research & Policy Center: https://antiracismcenter.com/ Labyrinth Books: https://www.labyrinthbooks.com/ Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/FnqS49Zfrjw Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Disruption, innovation, entrepreneurial spirit – Silicon Valley is viewed by many as the cradle of technological development and progress in our world today. But, behind the luster of unlimited growth and unbounded ambition lies Capitalism’s standard blend of exploitation and concentration of individual wealth at the expense of public good. ———————————————————— At a time when technology is seeping even deeper into our lives, how can we reclaim it for the many and not the few? Join authors, activists and radicals Rob Larson and Wendy Liu for a discussion on Big Tech’s monopolistic power today, and how we can respond to it with a radical vision of digital socialism. Rob Larson is a professor of economics at Tacoma Community College and author of Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley, and Capitalism vs. Freedom. He writes for Jacobin, In These Times, Current Affairs and Dollars & Sense. Wendy Liu is a tech commentator, software engineer and former startup founder who left the tech industry to pursue a masters degree in inequality from the London School of Economics. She has written for Logic Magazine, Tribune, and New Internationalist, and has been featured in articles for The Atlantic and CNBC on tech worker union organizing. ———————————————————— Cosponsored by Haymarket Books and the Left Book Club. The Left Book Club is a subscription book club for everyone interested in left politics. Relaunched along the lines of Victor Gollancz’s ground-breaking organisation active in the 1930s, the LBC seeks to popularise ideas from the left across the UK and abroad. Subscribe today to receive the best books on radical politics: https://www.leftbookclub.com/ ———————————————————— To Join the Left Book Club: https://www.leftbookclub.com/member In the US, order a copy of Bit Tyrants here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1447-bit-tyrants To order a copy of Abolish Silicon Valley: https://bookshop.org/a/1039/9781912248704 Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/yrnBZMhKCnY Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

A conversation with Bettina Love, Gholdy Muhammad, Dena Simmons and Brian Jones about abolitionist teaching and antiracist education. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- What would freedom look like in our schools? How can abolitionist educators make the most of this moment to fight for humane, liberatory, anti-racist schooling for black youth and for all youth? The coronavirus pandemic has transformed the US education system overnight. The antiracist rebellion in the streets has shown a light on the deep racial inequality in America. Educators and activists who have nurtured radical dreams for public schools now face an unprecedented moment of change, and the challenge of trying to teach and organize online in the midst of unfolding crises. Scholar and author Bettina Love’s concept of abolitionist teaching is about adopting the radical stance of the movement that ultimately overthrew slavery, but persisted and insisted on freedom long before that victory. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bettina L. Love is an award-winning author and the Athletic Association Endowed Professor at University of Georgia. She is the author of We Want To Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom and Hip Hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Hip Hop Identities and Politics in the New South. Dr. Gholnecsar (Gholdy) Muhammad is an Associate Professor of Language and Literacy at Georgia State University. She also serves as the director of the GSU Urban Literacy Clinic. Dr. Muhammad’s scholarship has appeared in leading educational journals and books. Some of her recognitions include the 2014 recipient of the National Council of Teachers of English, Promising New Researcher Award, the 2016 NCTE Janet Emig Award, the 2017 GSU Urban Education Research Award and the 2018 UIC College of Education Researcher of the Year. She is the author of Cultivating Genius: An Equity Model for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy. Dena Simmons, Ed.D., is an activist, educator, and student of life from the Bronx, New York. She is the Assistant Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and an Associate Research Scientist at the Yale Child Study Center. She writes and speaks nationally about social justice and culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy as well as creating emotionally intelligent and safe classrooms within the context of equity and liberation. She is the author of the forthcoming book, White Rules for Black People (St. Martin’s Press, 2021). Brian Jones is the Associate Director of Education at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He writes about black education history and politics. Co-sponsored by: Haymarket Books: https://www.haymarketbooks.org The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture: https://www.nypl.org/locations/schomburg Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/uJZ3RPJ2rNc Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Join us for a conversation with organizers from #8toAbolition about why abolishing the police and prison system can't wait.- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Abolition can’t wait. While communities across the country mourn the loss of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Jamel Floyd, and so many more Black victims of police murder, Campaign Zero released its "8 Can’t Wait campaign", offering a set of eight reforms they claim would reduce police killings by 72%. As police and prison abolitionists, we believe that this campaign is dangerous and irresponsible, offering a slate of reforms that have already been tried and failed, that mislead a public newly invigorated to the possibilities of police and prison abolition, and that do not reflect the needs of criminalized communities. We honor the work of abolitionists who have come before us, and those who organize now. A better world is possible. We refuse to allow the blatant co-optation of decades of abolitionist organizing toward reformist ends that erases the work of Black feminist theorists. As the abolitionist organization Critical Resistance recently noted, 8 Can’t Wait will merely “improve policing’s war on us.” Additionally, many abolitionists have already debunked the 8 Can’t Wait campaign’s claims, assumptions, and faulty science. Abolition can’t wait. The 8 Demands of #8toAbolition: 1. Defund the Police 2. Demilitarize Communities 3. Remove Police From Schools 4. Free People from Prisons and Jails 5. Repeal Laws That Criminalize Survival 6. Invest in Community Self-Governance 7. Provide Safe Housing for Everyone 8. Invest in Care, Not Cops Find out more here: https://www.8toabolition.com Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/QfSm7JDhGL4 Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

At its start, the Syrian Revolution in 2011 was a mass popular uprising for democracy and equality against Bashar al-Assad’s brutal dictatorship. It included people from all ethnicities and religious groups who liberated sections of the country and tried to build a new democratic society. This panel will discuss the causes, nature and trajectory of this struggle for liberation, and the reasons for its defeat. ———————————————————— Anand Gopal is an award-winning journalist and assistant research professor with the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict and the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University. Loubna Mrie is a Syrian photographer, journalist, and writer. She covered the Syrian war as a photojournalist for Reuters from 2012 to 2014. Her work has been published in The Nation, Time Magazine, Vice, and The New Republic. She is currently writing her first book, about the war in Syria, for Penguin Random House. Yasser Munif is a Sociology Assistant Professor in the Institute for Liberal Arts at Emerson College. He is the author and co-founder of the Global Campaign for Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution ———————————————————— Co-sponsored by Haymarket Books: https://www.haymarketbooks.org Pluto Press: https://www.plutobooks.com/ ———————————————————— Order a copy of Anand Gopal's book, No Good Men Among The Living here: https://bookshop.org/a/1039/9781250069269 Order a copy of Burning Country: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745337821/burning-country/ Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/uMaRawAa9WY Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks