Abolitionist & Community Safety Reading Group

For our first session, we ask you to watch/read Critical Conversation 1: Abolition as study and deconstructing racial capitalism (Video / Transcript) to accompany the readings.

The readings for Session #1 are as follows:

• Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete, “Introduction: Prison Reform or Prison Abolition?”
• Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete, “Imprisonment and Reform”
• Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “Chapter 1”
• Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams, “Introduction: When History Sleeps: A Beginning”

To see supplemental readings, key questions, discussion questions, and even optional activities, you can check out our facilitator’s guide for Session #1 here.

The readings for Session #2 are as follows:

• Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete, “Slavery, Civil Rights, and Abolitionist Perspectives”
• Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams, “The Negro Question: Red Dreams of Black Liberation”
• Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams, “A Day of Reckoning: Dreams of Reparations”
• Article: Robin D.G. Kelley, “What Did Cedric Robinson Mean by Racial Capitalism”
• Article: Dan Berger, Mariame Kaba, and David Stein, “What Abolitionists Do”
• Video: Robin D.G. Kelley, “What Is Racial Capitalism and Why Does It Matter?”
• Video: Ruth Wilson Gilmore, “Geographies of Racial Capitalism”

To see supplemental readings, key questions, discussion questions, and even optional activities, you can check out our facilitator’s guide for Session #2 here.

For our third session, we ask you to watch/read Critical Conversation 2: Abolition, Intersectionality, and Care (Video​​ / Transcript​​) to accompany the readings.

The readings for Session #3 are as follows:

• Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete, “How Gender Structures the Prison System“
• Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams, “This Battlefield Called Life: Black Feminist Dreams”
• “Combahee River Collective Statement”
• Article: Sarah Lamble, Captive Genders, “Transforming Carceral Logics: 10 Reasons to Dismantle the Prison Industrial Complex Through Queer/Trans Analysis and Action”​

To see supplemental readings, key questions, discussion questions, and even optional activities, you can check out our facilitator’s guide for Session #3 here​​.