Join the Haymarket Book Club to take 50% off Everything!

Podcast

Read this When Things Fall Apart

Join Kelly Hayes in conversation with Shane Burley, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Atena O. Danner as they discuss the launch of Read this When Things Fall Apart, bundle of letters to activists and organizers on the frontlines in catastrophic times.

In social movements, some heartbreaks are all but inevitable. Campaigns will be lost. Mental health crises will occur. Social ills, like gender-based violence, will manifest themselves in movement spaces. People will experience profound personal losses. Grief, alienation, and despair can grind us under. Sometimes, we need accompaniment. Sometimes, we need to be met where we’re at by a caring voice of experience. Read This When Things Fall Apart is a care package for activists and organizers building power under fascistic, demoralizing conditions. It’s an outstretched hand, offering history lessons, personal anecdotes, and practical advice about how to navigate the woes of justice work. A survival guide for the heart, this is a book for activists to keep close, and to share with co-strugglers in need.

Personal, reflective, and hopeful, Read This When Things Fall Apart harnesses the writers' individual moments of despair into living, breathing wisdom that chips away at the supposed inevitability of fascist life. Restorative like a letter from a trusted friend and invigorating like a story from a mentor, the book is an indispensable companion for all of us navigating challenging times. Featuring letters from Mariame Kaba, Ashon Crawley, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Eman Abdelhadi, Brian Merchant, and more.

Get the book: https://www.pilsencommunitybooks.com/item/vCQt68DQBH3U0CUUWZyWRw

Speakers:

Kelly Hayes is a Menominee author, organizer, movement educator and photographer. They host Truthout’s podcast Movement Memos and are co-author of the book Let This Radicalize You, with Mariame Kaba. Hayes is also the creator of Organizing My Thoughts, a weekly newsletter about politics and justice work.

Shane Burley is a journalist and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. He is the author and editor of four books, including ¡No Pasaran!: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis (AK Press and the Institute for Anarchist Studies, 2022) and Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism (coauthored with Ben Lorber; Melville House, 2024). His work has been featured in places like NBC News, The Daily Beast, Jacobin, Al Jazeera, Truthout, In These Times, Jewish Currents, The Baffler, Yes! Magazine, and Oregon Humanities.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (they/she) is an older cousin, regular person, memory worker, disability and transformative justice uncle bytch, and the author or coeditor of ten books including The Future Is Disabled (coedited with Ejeris Dixon; Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022), Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement (AK Press, 2020), Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018), Tonguebreaker (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019), and Dirty River (Arsenal, 2016). A 2020–2021 Disability Futures Fellow, Lambda and Jeanne Córdova Award winner, five-time Publishing Triangle short-lister, and longtime disabled QTBIPOC space maker, they are currently building Living Altars, a cultural space by and for disabled QTBIPOC writers.

Atena O. Danner is a cultural worker who imagines Black liberation, engaged in boundless curiosity. As a poet, singer, and visual artist, Atena creates work that encompasses kitchen-table specificity and folk story relatability, covering topics including neurodiversity, human connection, and collective liberation. As an organizer and activist, she has worked to incorporate struggles for justice into her life as a caregiver in a family of complex needs while also writing and publishing in journals, antholo- gies, and her own book of poetry, Incantations for Rest: Poems, Meditations & Other Magic (Skinner House, 2022), which was awarded a Nautilus Silver Award for poetry in 2023.

Watch the live event recording: https://www.youtube.com/live/qrpIX72ivqs

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org

More Episodes

Mar 4, 2021

People Get Ready! Session 2: If The Kids Are United (12-12-20)

People Get Ready—Session 2: If the Kids Are United: Building Power against the Far Right. A presentation from Tarso Ramos about the evolution of efforts to fight authoritarianism and white supremacy and what it will ultimately take to win the upper hand against these forces. ---------------------------------------------------- *Anuncio en español abajo* In the face of violent authoritarianism, deepening economic crisis, and a deadly pandemic, Left and progressive movements have doubled down in defense of our people. Over the past two years, the global left has built powerful coalitions, engaged in electoral experiments, and steadily reshaped the political terrain. What kind of power has been built through these efforts, however, and how do we pivot from defense to offense in the years ahead? Join Center for Political Education and Haymarket Books for a half-day symposium on Saturday, December 12th from 1 PM to 7 PM EST for a conversation on beating the right, strengthening the Left, and charting a path to power.- --------------------------------------------------- Únete con Center for Political Education y Haymarket Books para una conversación sobre cómo derrotar a la derecha, fortalecer a la Izquierda, y construir poder. ---------------------------------------------------- Frente al autoritarismo violento, una crisis económica cada vez más grave, y una pandemia mortífera, los movimientos progresistas y de izquierda han redoblado su compromiso en defensa de nuestra gente. A lo largo de los últimos dos años, la izquierda global ha construido coaliciones poderosas, experimentado con proyectos electorales, y constantemente reconfigurado el terreno político. ¿Qué clase de poder se ha construido a través de estos esfuerzos, sin embargo, y cómo pasamos de la defensa a la ofensiva en los próximos años? Únete con Center for Political Education y Haymarket Books para un simposio de medio día el Sábado, 12 de Diciembre, de 1 a 7 PM (Hora del Este de los Estados Unidos) para una conversación sobre cómo derrotar a la derecha, fortalecer a la Izquierda, y trazar un camino al poder. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/Fu6URuokj5w Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Listen now
Mar 4, 2021

People Get Ready! Session 3: Build It On Up (12-12-20)

People Get Ready—Session 3: Build It On Up: Tools for the Fight: Activists and organizers share the tools and skills we will need to move from defense to offense in the fights ahead.---------------------------------------------------- *Anuncio en español abajo* In the face of violent authoritarianism, deepening economic crisis, and a deadly pandemic, Left and progressive movements have doubled down in defense of our people. Over the past two years, the global left has built powerful coalitions, engaged in electoral experiments, and steadily reshaped the political terrain. What kind of power has been built through these efforts, however, and how do we pivot from defense to offense in the years ahead? Join Center for Political Education and Haymarket Books for a half-day symposium on Saturday, December 12th from 1 PM to 7 PM EST for a conversation on beating the right, strengthening the Left, and charting a path to power.- --------------------------------------------------- Únete con Center for Political Education y Haymarket Books para una conversación sobre cómo derrotar a la derecha, fortalecer a la Izquierda, y construir poder. ---------------------------------------------------- Frente al autoritarismo violento, una crisis económica cada vez más grave, y una pandemia mortífera, los movimientos progresistas y de izquierda han redoblado su compromiso en defensa de nuestra gente. A lo largo de los últimos dos años, la izquierda global ha construido coaliciones poderosas, experimentado con proyectos electorales, y constantemente reconfigurado el terreno político. ¿Qué clase de poder se ha construido a través de estos esfuerzos, sin embargo, y cómo pasamos de la defensa a la ofensiva en los próximos años? Únete con Center for Political Education y Haymarket Books para un simposio de medio día el Sábado, 12 de Diciembre, de 1 a 7 PM (Hora del Este de los Estados Unidos) para una conversación sobre cómo derrotar a la derecha, fortalecer a la Izquierda, y trazar un camino al poder. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/Ah_lRJOkN2E Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Listen now
Mar 4, 2021

People Get Ready Session 1: What's Left Building Power After The Elections (12-12-20)

People Get Ready—Session One: What's Left?: Building Power After The Election with Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson & more. A conversation with organizers from across the country about what has been gained and learned from the last election and how we build power moving forward. ---------------------------------------------------- *Anuncio en español abajo* In the face of violent authoritarianism, deepening economic crisis, and a deadly pandemic, Left and progressive movements have doubled down in defense of our people. Over the past two years, the global left has built powerful coalitions, engaged in electoral experiments, and steadily reshaped the political terrain. What kind of power has been built through these efforts, however, and how do we pivot from defense to offense in the years ahead? Join Center for Political Education and Haymarket Books for a half-day symposium on Saturday, December 12th from 1 PM to 7 PM EST for a conversation on beating the right, strengthening the Left, and charting a path to power.- --------------------------------------------------- Únete con Center for Political Education y Haymarket Books para una conversación sobre cómo derrotar a la derecha, fortalecer a la Izquierda, y construir poder. ---------------------------------------------------- Frente al autoritarismo violento, una crisis económica cada vez más grave, y una pandemia mortífera, los movimientos progresistas y de izquierda han redoblado su compromiso en defensa de nuestra gente. A lo largo de los últimos dos años, la izquierda global ha construido coaliciones poderosas, experimentado con proyectos electorales, y constantemente reconfigurado el terreno político. ¿Qué clase de poder se ha construido a través de estos esfuerzos, sin embargo, y cómo pasamos de la defensa a la ofensiva en los próximos años? Únete con Center for Political Education y Haymarket Books para un simposio de medio día el Sábado, 12 de Diciembre, de 1 a 7 PM (Hora del Este de los Estados Unidos) para una conversación sobre cómo derrotar a la derecha, fortalecer a la Izquierda, y trazar un camino al poder. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/DuWHd2D2j2A Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Listen now
Mar 4, 2021

Public Money and Racial Justice (12-15-20)

A conversation about public money, its connections to racial justice and how we can organize to demand it serves our interests. ———————————————— Money impacts everything. We live and feel the reality of money and for many of us, money problems are the source of great physical and emotional strain. This webinar focuses on a crucial aspect of the money we’ve got to work with: Public finance––the role of government(s) in the economy. Specifically, we look at public money, what it is and more importantly, why we deserve to have it. We consider public money as part of racial justice work in regards to the federal government’s real fiscal capacity unmatched by its terrible response to the COVID-19 pandemic, budgets as political and moral documents, divest-invest campaigns calling to #DefundThePolice and #DefundICE, and police brutality bonds. We also look at social justice organizing involving public money demands. #PublicMoneyRacialJustice ———————————————— Participants: Raúl Carrillo is the Deputy Director of the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project and an Associate Research Scholar at Yale Law School. Prior to joining the LPE Project, Raúl practiced law for five years, focusing on consumer finance and financial technology. He is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Modern Money Network, an Executive Committee member of the National Jobs For All Network, and an Advisory Council member of Our Money. Rev. Delman Coates is the Senior Pastor of Mt. Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, Maryland and founder of Our Money Campaign, an economic justice campaign that seeks to solve some of our nation’s greatest social and economic challenges. He also founded the Black Church Center for Justice and Equality to address the social and spiritual challenges of the African American faith community. He is a board member of the Parents Television Council and the National Action Network and also a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Morehouse College Board of Preachers, and the NAACP. Alyx Goodwin is a senior organizer at Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE), organizing with BYP100 Chicago, and a co-founder and writer with LEFT OUT Magazine. Her writing and activism are centered around the momentum and challenges of building Black power and self-determination. Her work at ACRE currently focuses on the relationships between the finance industry, policing, and tech, and how these things exacerbate oppressions. Tamara K. Nopper is a sociologist, writer, editor, and data artist. A Fellow at Data for Progress and an Affiliate of The Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies, she recently researched and wrote several data stories for Colin Kaepernick’s Abolition for the People series and is the editor of We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, a book of Mariame Kaba’s writing and interviews, which will be published by Haymarket Books in February 2021. Shawn Sebastian is the Senior Strategist for Rural People and Planet First Campaigns at People's Action. In 2019 Shawn served as the Iowa Organizing Director of the Working Families Party and Movement Politics Organizer for Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund. Shawn was the director of the Fed Up Campaign at the Center for Popular Democracy, organizing working class people of color to demand full employment monetary policy at the Federal Reserve. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/b73IIo76K8Q Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Listen now
Mar 4, 2021

Police Violence From the Black Panthers to Attica w/ Heather Ann Thompson & more (12-16-20)

Join Heather Ann Thompson, Flint Taylor and Darrell Cannon as they discuss 1969 murders of Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton and Panther Mark Clark—and the historic, thirteen-years of litigation that followed—through the dogged pursuit of commander Jon Burge, the leader of a torture ring within the CPD that used barbaric methods, including electric shock, to elicit false confessions from suspects. The three panelists will further delve into the events leading up to and the legacy surrounding the 1971 Attica prison uprising when 1,300 prisoners took over the facility. These event will be framed in the context of the paperback release of Taylor’s book Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago and Thompson’s Pulitzer-prize winning book Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. ---------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Heather Ann Thompson is a Collegiate Professor of History in the departments of Afro- American and African Studies, History, and in the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She is the Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971. Blood in the Water won five other major book prizes and was also a finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Silver Gavel Award, and the Cundill Prize in History. The book has also been optioned by Sony Pictures and Thompson is also the lead advisor on Stanley Nelson’s forthcoming Showtime documentary on Attica. Thompson is also a public intellectual who writes extensively on the history of protests, policing, prisons, and the current criminal justice system more broadly. On the policy front, Thompson served on the historic National Academy of Sciences blue-ribbon panel that studied the causes and consequences of mass incarceration in the U.S. She currently serves on the standing Committee on Law and Justice of the National Academies. She is currently writing her next book on the MOVE Bombing of 1985. @hthompsn Flint Taylor is a founding partner of the People’s Law Office in Chicago. He is one of the lawyers for the families of slain Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, has represented many survivors of Chicago police torture over the past 30 years and is counsel in several illegal search and wrongful death cases brought against the Milwaukee Police Department. Darrell Cannon is a Chicago police torture survivor who was subjected to electric shock and a mock execution at a remote torture site on the far southeast side of Chicago by two of notorious Chicago police commanderJon Burge’s main henchmen. As a result he gave a false confession, was wrongfully convicted, and spent 24 years in prison, 9 in a supermax prison, before he was exonerated in 2007. After his release, he became a powerful leader in the successful movement to obtain reparations for 60 Chicago police torture survivors. ---------------------------------------------------- Order a copy of Flint Taylor's book , The Torture Machine: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1642-the-torture-machine Order a copy of Heather Ann Thompson's book, Blood In The Water: https://bookshop.org/a/1039/9781400078240 Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/neXDQiYTpns Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Listen now
Mar 4, 2021

Defending Activism Within and Beyond the University w/ Ruth Wilson Gilmore & more (12-22-20)

In light of the unwarranted firing of Garrett Felber from the University of Mississippi despite his scholarship and contributions to dismantling the carceral state, a panel of activist academics discuss the implications of the situation and the relationship between the university and social movements. ---------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Garrett Felber was recently fired by the University of Mississippi despite his incredible work in the study of the racist American carceral state and his activism with the Study and Struggle project that organizes against incarceration and criminalization in Mississippi. Ruth Wilson Gilmore is Professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences, and American Studies, and Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Author of Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California, she has two books forthcoming in 2021: Change Everything: Racial Capitalism and the Case for Abolition and Abolition Geography. Elizabeth Hinton is Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Yale University and Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Her research focuses on the persistence of poverty, racial inequality, and urban violence in the 20th century United States. Robin D.G. Kelley is the Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA and author of numerous books on the history of social movements in the U.S., the African Diaspora, and Africa; Black intellectuals; music and visual culture. Kiese Laymon is the Hubert H. McAlexander Chair of English at the University of Mississippi and the author of the bestselling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, which won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes and speaks on Black politics, social movements, and racial inequality in the United States. She is author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation and editor of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, Her most recent book, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership , was a finalist for a National Book Award for nonfiction, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for History. The event will also feature solidarity statements from supporters including Dylan Rodríguez, President of American Studies Association, Sherie Randolph, and more. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/olbnwpV4B38 Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Listen now