Kim sits down with Ryan Sorrell, founder of the Kansas City Defender, for a conversation about what motivated him to start a media organization, his early days as a content creator covering community and cultural events with his childhood friend and collaborator, and the influences of the radical Black press had on shaping his thinking and approach to journalism as a tool for liberation. 

Ryan is an organizer, media worker and artist. In 2021, he founded The Kansas City Defender, a Black-led abolitionist news platform and power-building organization rooted in the tradition of the radical Black press. Within its first two years, The Defender broke over 20 national stories, reached over 50 million people globally, and garnered attention from major national and international outlets. In addition to information services, The Defender builds power through Mutual Aid, political education, and cultural events like basketball tournaments and open mic nights. Ryan has engaged in public commentary across platforms like DemocracyNow, NPR, and University of the Arts London. Most recently, Ryan co-Founded the Mapping Genocide Project, a subversive digital tool launched less than a month ago that exposes the locations of every major facility tied to the top 5 weapons manufacturers arming the israeli colonial project, aiming to challenge imperialism at its core.

The Kansas City Defender

Pre-order We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition, Edited by Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson

IN STORES NOV. 19, 2024!

Abolition has never been a proposal to simply tear things down. As Alexis Pauline Gumbs asks, “What if abolition is something that grows?” As we struggle to build a liberatory, caring, loving, abundant future, we have much to learn from the work of birthing, raising, caring for, and loving future generations.

In We Grow the World Together, abolitionists and organizers Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson bring together a remarkable collection of voices revealing the complex tapestry of ways people are living abolition in their daily lives through parenting and caregiving. Ranging from personal narratives to policy-focused analysis to activist chronicles, these writers highlight how abolition is essential to any kind of parenting justice.

Upcoming Events

Chicago Book Launch - Monday, November 18, 2024 @ 5:30 p.m. CT 

Register for the Chicago Book Launch for ‘We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition’ feat. Maya Schenwar, Nadine Naber, Beth Richie, Jennifer Viets, and Anya Tanyavutti. 

Virtual Book Launch - Wednesday, November 20, 2024 @ 7:30 p.m. EST

Register for the Virtual Book Launch for ‘We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition’ feat. Maya Schenwar, Kim Wilson, Dorothy Roberts, and Harsha Walia 

Los Angeles Book Launch - Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 7:00 p.m. Pacific 

Register for the LA Book Launch for ‘We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition’ feat. Kim Wilson, Susana Victoria Parras, Alejandro Villalpando, and Dylan Rodriguez

Fundraiser – Haymarket: Books Not Bars: Sending copies of ‘We Grow the World Together’ into prisons.

We feel strongly that this book should be made available for free to people who are incarcerated, so that they can read it, start book groups, and engage in political education around parenting justice.

Can you contribute toward sending copies of We Grow the World Together to folks in prisons and jails?

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information.

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

Dylan Rodriguez joins Kim for a conversation about respecting his children’s autonomous voice, why he named his Fantasy Football team “Uncle Dylan Never Lies,” and what that has to do with abolitionist parenting. Dylan shares why he believes that caregivers and parents must take children's questions of ‘why?’ seriously, and how it is possible to treat why as a radical question that is fundamental to any aspirational abolitionist parenting praxis. They close by talking about the ways that the state deploys technologies of warfare against incarcerated people and their families, and the heightened state of emergency that people in prison experience and how this gets translated into the ways that we engage with and are in relationship with incarcerated people.

This is the third installment of our new series, Lessons From The Garden, where Kim will be interviewing contributors to the forthcoming anthology that she co-edited with Maya Schenwar titled We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition. You can pre-order this volume now from Haymarket or wherever you buy books. 

The name of the series, Lessons From The Garden, is an apt phrase that reflects the metaphor in the book’s title, and allows us to consider many issues related to caregiving, parenting, and abolition. As Lydia Pelot-Hobbs once said “our citation politics matter,” and in that spirit we want to credit Susie Parras for the series title. Lessons From The Garden is an opportunity to engage in further conversation with the many brilliant organizers, writers, and thinkers about their work, and how they practice abolitionist parenting and caregiving in their daily lives. Additionally, we will draw on some of the themes that they wrote about in the book in order to help us deepen our understanding of caregiving - broadly configured - and what it means to live collectively in a world that is designed to keep us isolated from each other. 

Dylan Rodríguez is a parent, teacher, scholar, organizer and collaborator who holds a job as a Distinguished Professor at the University of California-Riverside, where he has worked since 2001. He is a faculty member in the recently created Department of Black Study as well as the Department of Media and Cultural Studies. Since the late-1990s, Dylan has participated as a founding member of organizations like Critical Resistance, Abolition Collective, Critical Ethnic Studies Association, Cops Off Campus, Scholars for Social Justice, and the UCR Department of Black Study, among others. He is the author of three books, most recently White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logic of Racial Genocide (Fordham University Press, 2021), which won the 2022 Frantz Fanon Book Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association. Dylan believes in the right—in fact, the obligation—of occupied, colonized, and incarcerated peoples to fight for their liberation against external oppressors as well as internal reactionaries, and the parallel responsibility of those who profess solidarity to take all necessary measures to protect, defend, and advance liberation struggle. 

Pre-order We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition, Edited by Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson

IN STORES NOV. 19, 2024!

Abolition has never been a proposal to simply tear things down. As Alexis Pauline Gumbs asks, “What if abolition is something that grows?” As we struggle to build a liberatory, caring, loving, abundant future, we have much to learn from the work of birthing, raising, caring for, and loving future generations.

In We Grow the World Together, abolitionists and organizers Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson bring together a remarkable collection of voices revealing the complex tapestry of ways people are living abolition in their daily lives through parenting and caregiving. Ranging from personal narratives to policy-focused analysis to activist chronicles, these writers highlight how abolition is essential to any kind of parenting justice.

HELP SEND THIS BOOK INSIDE: Contribute toward sending copies of We Grow the World Together to folks in prisons and jails by donating at https://haymarketbooks.app.neoncrm.com/forms/we-grow-the-world-together 

Books by Dylan Rodriguez

White Reconstruction and the Logics of Genocide  

Suspended Apocalypse: White Supremacy, Genocide, and the Filipino Condition

Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the U.S. Prison Regime

Recommended playlist

Revolution - Nina Simone

Poem to Take Back the Night - June Jordan

Fuck these Fuckin Fascists - The Muslims

We Shall Not be Moved - Mavis Staples

A Day Will Come - Desiree Dawson, Mona Haydar

None of Us Are Free - Solomon Burke

Prison Poem - Nikki Giovanni

Seize the Time - Elaine Brown

Oh Freedom - Courtney Bryan

Love, The Time is Now - Bobby Womack

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Nam-Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Support Beyond Prisons

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

Garrett Felber joins Kim for a conversation about the campaign to Free the Mississippi Five. The #MS5 are five women in Mississippi sentenced to life with the possibility of parole in the 1980s and 1990s. They have been incarcerated over 175 years and denied parole 47 times.

Lisa Crevitt, Anita Krecic, Loretta Pierre, Linda Ross, and Evelyn Smith, collectively known as the Mississippi Five, are now between 59 and 82 years old. Despite their achievements, personal growth, the loss of loved ones outside, and even recantations of key witnesses, they continue to be denied parole irrespective of their actions. It is time to #FreetheFive!

Garrett Felber (he/they) is an educator, organizer, and writer. They organize with Study and Struggle and the committee to Free the Mississippi Five, are the author of the forthcoming biography, A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre (AK Press, 2025), and recently founded the Free Society People's Library, a radical mobile library in Portland, Oregon. 

Study and Struggle MS5

Why the “Mississippi Five” Deserve Parole After 40 Years in Prison

Prisons Grow in Mississippi as State Officials Cut Parole

Resources for Criminalized Survivors

Survived and Punished

Love and Protect

Relevant Episodes

Taylar Nuevelle on Knitting in Prison

Pen Pals

Mothering Under Surveillance feat. Maya Schenwar

You can learn more about Lisa, Anita, Loretta, Linda, and Evelyn on the Study and Struggle website: https://www.studyandstruggle.com/ms5 

There are easy ways to support the Mississippi Five!

1) Sign the petition. Add your name to the call to demand the immediate release of the Mississippi Five through clemency. The Committee to Free the Mississippi Five is pursuing all avenues to bring them home, including gubernatorial clemency. Your signature can bring them one step closer to home.

2) Contribute to the solidarity fund to help fight for the Mississippi Five's release and support broader efforts to build grassroots power in Mississippi. The Committee is raising funds to cover commissary, potential legal fees, and transition support when the Five come home. Your donation makes their work possible.

3) Writing letters to incarcerated people is one of the best ways to let them know you care. Write the Five using the addresses linked to in the show notes.

4) Spread the word: Share their story and this toolkit on social media. The more people know, the stronger the movement to free them becomes.

Hosted by Kim Wilson 

Edited by Brian Nam-Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam-Sonenstein

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

Sarah Tyson joins Kim for a spirited conversation about her suspicions about happiness and the intellectual underpinnings that inform why happiness is not a worthy goal in general, but specifically for her children. Sarah and Kim talk about how the work of Sarah Ahmed helps us to understand why the archetype of the killjoy is an important abolitionist parenting framework, and why we can’t separate the material conditions under which we are forced to exist from our parenting practice. 

This is the second installment of our new series, Lessons From The Garden, where Kim will be interviewing contributors to the forthcoming anthology that she co-edited with Maya Schenwar titled We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition. You can pre-order this volume now from Haymarket or wherever you buy books. 

The name of the series, Lessons From The Garden, is an apt phrase that reflects the metaphor in the book’s title, and allows us to consider many issues related to caregiving, parenting, and abolition. As Lydia Pelot-Hobbs once said “our citation politics matter,” and in that spirit we want to credit Susie Parras for the series title. Lessons From The Garden is an opportunity to engage in further conversation with the many brilliant organizers, writers, and thinkers about their work, and how they practice abolitionist parenting and caregiving in their daily lives. Additionally, we will draw on some of the themes that they wrote about in the book in order to help us deepen our understanding of caregiving - broadly configured - and what it means to live collectively in a world that is designed to keep us isolated from each other. 

Sarah Tyson is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Affiliated Faculty in Ethnic Studies, Associated Faculty of Women and Gender Studies, and chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Colorado Denver, which is on Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne land. Her research focuses on questions of authority, history, and exclusion, with a particular interest in voices that have been marginalized in the history of thinking. She edited with Joshua Hall Philosophy Imprisoned: The Love of Wisdom in the Age of Mass Incarceration (Lexington, 2014) and wrote Where Are the Women? Why Expanding the Archive Makes Philosophy Better (Columbia University Press, 2018). She is cohost (with Robert Talisse, Carrie Figdor, and Malcolm Keating) of New Books in Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. She has organized against human caging in Denver and Nashville, including as a member of the REACH Coalition.

Pre-order We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition, Edited by Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson

IN STORES NOV. 19, 2024!

Abolition has never been a proposal to simply tear things down. As Alexis Pauline Gumbs asks, “What if abolition is something that grows?” As we struggle to build a liberatory, caring, loving, abundant future, we have much to learn from the work of birthing, raising, caring for, and loving future generations.

In We Grow the World Together, abolitionists and organizers Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson bring together a remarkable collection of voices revealing the complex tapestry of ways people are living abolition in their daily lives through parenting and caregiving. Ranging from personal narratives to policy-focused analysis to activist chronicles, these writers highlight how abolition is essential to any kind of parenting justice.

HELP SEND THIS BOOK INSIDE: Contribute toward sending copies of We Grow the World Together to folks in prisons and jails by donating at https://haymarketbooks.app.neoncrm.com/forms/we-grow-the-world-together

Recommended reading

Feminist Killjoy by Sarah Ahmed

Happy Objects by Sarah Amed 

The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism in Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

Teaching to Transgress: Teaching as a Practice of Freedom by bell hooks

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

Recommended playlist

Life Doesn’t Frighten Me - Maya Angelou

Save The Children - Gil Scott Heron

Grandma’s Hands - Bill Withers

Freedom in the Air - Bernice Johnson Reagon

Black Butterfly - The Sounds of Blackness

A Change is Gonna Come - Otis Redding

Here Comes The Sun - Nina Simone

A Needed/Poem for my Salvation - Sonia Sanchez

Cancion de Proteccion - Little Whale

This Little Light of Mine - Sam Cooke

O-o-h Child - The Five Stairstep

Lullaby - Arooj Aftab

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Nam-Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Support Beyond Prisons

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

Susana Victoria Parras & Alejandro Villalpando join Kim to discuss how, through a continued practice of communal study, they are able to renew their commitment to each other, their child, and to their community in ways that are generative and don’t engage in disposability politics or pathologizing their elders and ancestors.

This wonderful episode is the first installment of our new series, Lessons From The Garden, where Kim will be interviewing contributors to the forthcoming anthology that she co-edited with Maya Schenwar titled We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition. You can pre-order this volume now from Haymarket or wherever you buy books. 

Susie and Alex share how their parents’ forced displacement due to political and social unrest provides the context for understanding the legacy of inherited trauma. They discuss grief, loss, accountability, and care. Susie shares an intimate view into the love ethic that she and Alex share, and Alex reminds us that this shit is hard, and that in spite of that, we have to keep trying. 

We’ve had the opportunity to talk with so many incredible people over the years on Beyond Prisons, and we continue to be awed and unsettled. Alex often says that he is not interested in inspiring folx, but wants them to feel unsettled. We wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment because inspiration is fleeting, and requires no change in thought or behavior, but when people feel unsettled they are more likely to examine why they are, and to engage in activity to address the issue/issues that have unsettled them. 

The name of the series, Lessons From The Garden, is an apt phrase that reflects the metaphor in the book’s title, and allows us to consider many issues related to caregiving, parenting, and abolition. As Lydia Pelot-Hobbs once said “our citation politics matter,” and in that spirit we want to credit Susie Parras for the series title. Lessons From The Garden is an opportunity to engage in further conversation with the many brilliant organizers, writers, and thinkers about their work, and how they practice abolitionist parenting and caregiving in their daily lives. Additionally, we will draw on some of the themes that they wrote about in the book in order to help us deepen our understanding of caregiving - broadly configured - and what it means to live collectively in a world that is designed to keep us isolated from each other. 

Susana Victoria Parras is the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, mother, friend, partner, and a mental health therapist of color committed to generating healing, justice, and care through noncarceral practices. Before she found ethnic studies, social justice, abolition, and transformative justice, she found safety and hope in places and relationships that were imperfect, spacious, loving, and curious. Her political homes include family of origin, friends, books, and her imagination. She is accountable to ancestors, herself, her Baby Sol, her partner, teachers, and all those who cultivate her process of accountable care and growth. Susana specializes in the intersectional integration of critical race and somatic practices within community and clinical settings. She is the founder of Heal Together and cocreator of Heal Together’s Anti Carceral Care Collective and currently organizes with CAT 911 (Community Alternatives To/Community Action Teams 911) in South Central, Los Angeles, where she also lives, loves, and works. Susana dedicates her life to healing as a central component for justice, resistance, and activism.

Alejandro Villalpando is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pan-African Studies and the Latin American Studies Program at Cal State LA. He earned his PhD in Critical Ethnic Studies from UC Riverside and an MA from Latin American Studies at Cal State LA. His work lies at the intersection of Black, Central American, and Critical Ethnic Studies. His coauthored chapter titled “The Racialization of Central Americans in the United States” can be found in the edited volume Precarity and Belonging (Rutgers University Press, 2021). He was also a cofounder, co-organizer, and cofacilitator for a yearlong political education project titled the Abolition Open School. Villalpando is indelibly shaped and inspired to be part of and contribute to the crafting of a world rooted in justice and dignity for all by his young child and his partner, who remain the bedrocks of his existence.

Pre-order We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition, Edited by Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson

IN STORES NOV. 19, 2024!

Abolition has never been a proposal to simply tear things down. As Alexis Pauline Gumbs asks, “What if abolition is something that grows?” As we struggle to build a liberatory, caring, loving, abundant future, we have much to learn from the work of birthing, raising, caring for, and loving future generations.

In We Grow the World Together, abolitionists and organizers Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson bring together a remarkable collection of voices revealing the complex tapestry of ways people are living abolition in their daily lives through parenting and caregiving. Ranging from personal narratives to policy-focused analysis to activist chronicles, these writers highlight how abolition is essential to any kind of parenting justice.

HELP SEND THIS BOOK INSIDE: Contribute toward sending copies of We Grow the World Together to folks in prisons and jails by donating at https://haymarketbooks.app.neoncrm.com/forms/we-grow-the-world-together

Playlist for our conversation with Susie and Alex

Butterfly Mornings - a playlist inspired by my conversation with Susie and Alex that speaks to grief, loss, care, love and not letting go even when things are shit. 

Sunrise - Norah Jones

Colors - Black Pumas

Bloom - Bonus Track - The Paper Kites

Butterfly Mornings - Hope Sandoval & The Warm Intentions

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart  - Al Green

Rises the moon - Liana Flores

Soft on Me - Lily Hayes

Come out and play - Billie Eilish

Canción Pequeña - Perotá Chingó

Someone to Stay - Vancouver Sleep Clinic

Spell - Dora Jar

I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To be Free - Nina Simone

Look Up - Joy Oladokun

Would You Mind Please Pulling Me - Tasha, Gregory Uhlmann

Morning Sun - Melody Gardot

Take it Slow -Ayla Nereo

I Am Surrounded by Love - Beautiful Chorus

I am Light - India Arie

Making All Things New - Aaron Espe

There is No Failure - Laurent Ferlet

Stand by Me - Live at the Late Show - Tracy Chapman

For All You Give - The Paper Kites, Lucy Rose

Darling - Beautiful Chorus

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Nam-Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

Beyond Prisons is excited to announce the launch of a special new series titled ‘Lessons from the Garden,’ where Kim Wilson will be interviewing contributors to the forthcoming anthology that she co-edited with Maya Schenwar, We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition. 

We Grow The World Together will be out on November 19, 2024 from Haymarket Books, and is now available for pre-order wherever you buy books. 

The series is an opportunity to engage in further conversation with brilliant organizers, writers, and thinkers about their work, and how they practice abolitionist parenting and caregiving in their daily lives. Additionally, we will draw on some of the themes that they wrote about in the book to help us deepen our understanding of caregiving - broadly configured - and what it means to live collectively in a world that is designed to keep us isolated from each other. 

In the first episode, Kim talks with Susana Victoria Parras and Alejandro Villalpando — two of the most generous, kind, and smartest people that she’s had the honor of being in community with — about how their parents’ forced displacement due to political and social unrest provides the context for understanding the legacy of inherited trauma. Susie and Alex also share how through a continued practice of communal study they are able to renew their commitment to each other, their child, and to their community in ways that are generative and don’t engage in disposability politics or pathologizing their elders and ancestors. As part of their conversation, they talked about grief, loss, accountability, and care. Susie shares an intimate view into the love ethic that she and Alex share, and Alex reminds us that this shit is hard, and that in spite of that, we have to keep trying. 

At Beyond Prisons, we’ve had the opportunity to talk with so many incredible people over the years, and we continue to be awed and unsettled. Alex often says that he is not interested in inspiring folx, but wants them to feel unsettled. We wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment because inspiration is fleeting, and requires no change in thought or behavior, but when people feel unsettled they are more likely to examine why they are, and to engage in activity to address the issue/issues that have unsettled them. 

We hope that this series, and the book, leave people unsettled in the best way possible. As you will learn throughout this series, the contributors offer us glimpses into how they engage with the people in their lives and in their communities to organize against injustices, genocide, prisons, isolation, death, and more. At the core of these offerings is a deep love for humanity, which as adrienne maree brown says “love is what makes surviving worth it.” 

The name of the series ‘Lessons from the Garden’ is an apt phrase that reflects the metaphor in the book’s title, and allows us to consider many issues related to caregiving, parenting, and abolition. As Lydia Pelot-Hobbs once said “our citation politics matter,” and in that spirit we want to credit Susie Parras for the series title. 

What listeners can expect in the coming months, is a resource library that will include as many contributors to ‘We Grow the World Together’ as we can schedule. In thinking about what we wanted to do with this series, we decided that we want it to function as a political education tool and supplement to the book. With so many incredible contributors to this anthology, we imagine that our conversations will be insightful, lively, and full of wisdom and love. We are looking forward to seeing what unfolds. 

COMING NOV. 19, 2024! Pre-order We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition, Edited by Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson

Abolition has never been a proposal to simply tear things down. As Alexis Pauline Gumbs asks, “What if abolition is something that grows?” As we struggle to build a liberatory, caring, loving, abundant future, we have much to learn from the work of birthing, raising, caring for, and loving future generations.

In We Grow the World Together, abolitionists and organizers Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson bring together a remarkable collection of voices revealing the complex tapestry of ways people are living abolition in their daily lives through parenting and caregiving. Ranging from personal narratives to policy-focused analysis to activist chronicles, these writers highlight how abolition is essential to any kind of parenting justice. 

HELP SEND THIS BOOK INSIDE: Contribute toward sending copies of We Grow the World Together to folks in prisons and jails by donating at https://haymarketbooks.app.neoncrm.com/forms/we-grow-the-world-together

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Nam-Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

Kim is joined by long-time independent journalist Chuck Modiano for a conversation about movement media making, the importance of media literacy, and the intersection of sports and politics. 

Kim and Chuck begin by talking about what motivated him to start covering protests. He opens up about how he was impacted by the killing of Trayvon Martin, and how that tragedy reignited athlete activism in the United States. 

Chuck also offers us a historical perspective on the significance of sports activism dating back to the 1920s and through to today. They discuss how corporate media protects privilege, power, and profits before diving into a discussion on media literacy. The conversation wraps with a discussion on the myth of objectivity in the media, and why the work that we do as movement media makers rejects the tendency to give credence to both-sidesism. 

Chuck shares how the work of Ida B. Wells has shaped and informed his approach to making media, and the two touch on how liberatory and emancipatory journalism is rooted in people power.

COMING NOV. 19, 2024! Pre-order We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition, Edited by Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson

Abolition has never been a proposal to simply tear things down. As Alexis Pauline Gumbs asks, “What if abolition is something that grows?” As we struggle to build a liberatory, caring, loving, abundant future, we have much to learn from the work of birthing, raising, caring for, and loving future generations.

In We Grow the World Together, abolitionists and organizers Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson bring together a remarkable collection of voices revealing the complex tapestry of ways people are living abolition in their daily lives through parenting and caregiving. Ranging from personal narratives to policy-focused analysis to activist chronicles, these writers highlight how abolition is essential to any kind of parenting justice. 

HELP SEND THIS BOOK INSIDE: Contribute toward sending copies of We Grow the World Together to folks in prisons and jails by donating at https://haymarketbooks.app.neoncrm.com/forms/we-grow-the-world-together

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Nam-Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

Welcome to episode two of  “Over the Wall: The Abolitionist Hour with Critical Resistance.” For listeners new to Beyond Prisons or our collaboration with Critical Resistance, this is a new, regular series that premiered in September of 2023. Hosted by members of Critical Resistance’s The Abolitionist Editorial Collective, “Over the Wall” discusses articles and key interventions made by Critical Resistance’s cross-wall, bilingual newspaper, The Abolitionist. 

This episode—dedicated to Critical Resistance co-founder and long-standing member Masai Ehehosi—focuses on Issue 40 of The Abolitionist and is titled, "Snuffing Out Revolution: Control Units & Resistance." Dylan and Molly are back, and analyze the history, purpose, and proliferation of control units throughout the US and beyond. Together, they discuss key articles within the issue, which foreground organized resistance to control units while emphasizing the importance of rejecting cheap liberal reforms that dilute the long-standing abolitionist demand to abolish control units. This episode includes special guest Sahar Francis of Addameer, along with Issue 40 contributing authors Masai Ehehosi, Kenjuan Congo, and Stevie Wilson. 

On April 1 2024, as we were circulating this issue online, we received heartbreaking news that Masai suddenly passed away. With over 50 years of working for Black liberation, including decades of resisting control units and torture of imprisoned people, Masai was a pillar of Critical Resistance (CR) and had a profound presence in each of the organizations he was a part of. CR is releasing a tribute statement for Masai on April 8, and will continue to uplift his legacy for weeks, months, and years to come. Check for the post at: criticalresistance.org/updates/ to learn more about Masai’s movement contributions.  

Support Elder Sitawa Jamaa!

As mentioned in the episode, please give what you can to support movement elder Sitawa Jamaa! Sitawa spent over 40 years in prison, and due to severe strokes while imprisoned, he requires 24/7 nursing care to survive. Please go to bit.ly/sitawa-jamaa to donate today.

Resource—Surviving Solitary 

CR’s newest resource called “Surviving Solitary,” which includes  a series of interviews with solitary survivors, can be requested by prisoners by writing to our national office at: Critical Resistance, PO Box 22780, Oakland CA 94609. If you’re outside of a cage and would like to check it out for your work supporting imprisoned people, or share with your loved ones who are locked up, you will be able to download the resource for free from our website next month (in April) at criticalresistance.org/resources. 

Check out Issue 40 and Subscribe to The Abolitionist Newspaper! 

The time is always right to support radical political education! You can read two early-release articles from Issue 40 on CR’s website: an interview with Susan Rosenberg the fight to close a control unit for radical women, Lexington High Security Unit, and an article on the historic prisoner-led hunger strikes against solitary confinement in California in 2011 and 2013. 

Every single paid subscription on the outside allows CR to send the paper to thousands of people locked up inside prisons, jails, and detention centers to receive this valuable political education resource FOR FREE! Go to: criticalresistance.org/subscribe-to-the-abolitionist-newspaper/  to sign up for a sliding scale subscription to the paper, or to sign up an imprisoned loved one to receive a copy of our next issue. 

Host Bios: 

Dylan Brown is a 24 year old Black organizer and educator based in New York City, and has been a member of Critical Resistance since 2020. As a member of the New York City chapter of Critical Resistance, Dylan is organizing within the Abolish ICE New York/New Jersey Coalition on their current NY Dignity Not Detention campaign, which seeks to  build power to end immigrant detention throughout NY State. For the past three years, Dylan has been an editor for The Abolitionist Newspaper. 

Molly Porzig is a Bay Area based organizer and educator in California with nearly 20 years of organizing experience with Critical Resistance (CR). Molly is currently CR’s National Media & Communications Manager, as well as the organization’s project manager of The Abolitionist.

Follow Critical Resistance on X/Twitter at @C_Resistance or on Instagram @criticalresistance 

Music Credits:

• Show theme song: “Taste of Freedom” by Steven Beddall

• Transition sound effect: “I Wish - drum loop” by Artlist Original

• Special thanks to Molly’s former high school students and their protesting of policing in Oakland for the clip of them chanting a quote from Assata Shakur: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom; it is our duty to win; we must love and support each other; we have nothing to lose but our chains!”

Josh Davidson and Leslie James Pickering from the Certain Days collective join the show to talk about 2024’s Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar and the work of their collective. We previously spoke with Josh and other folks from the collective back in 2020 and we encourage you to go listen to that episode if you haven’t heard it yet. 

Josh and Leslie spoke to us about the works included in the 2024 calendar, how they’ve navigated increasingly oppressive mail policies to distribute it, Josh’s upcoming book with political prisoner Eric King, the impact that focusing their work around solidarity with political prisoners has had on their political analysis and organizing, and a lot more. 

The Certain Days Calendar is a joint fundraising and educational project between outside organizers in Montreal, New York, and Baltimore, and current and former political prisoners, including currently imprisoned Xinachtli (s/n Alvaro Luna Hernandez) in Texas. They welcomed founding members Herman Bell and Robert Seth Hayes (Rest in Power) home from prison in 2018, and David Gilbert in 2021, each of whom spent over forty years behind bars. All of the current members of the outside collective are grounded in day-to-day organizing work other than the calendar, on issues ranging from legal aid to community media, radical education to prisoner solidarity. And they work from an anti-imperialist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, feminist, queer- and trans-liberationist position. All proceeds from the calendar go to abolitionist organizations working for a better world. We highly encourage you to pick up a few copies of the calendar if you haven’t already. 

Josh Davidson is an abolitionist who is involved in numerous projects, including the Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar collective and the Children’s Art Project with political prisoner Oso Blanco. Josh also works in communications with the Zinn Education Project, which promotes the teaching of radical people’s history in classrooms and provides free lessons and resources for educators. Along with political prisoner Eric King, Josh co-edited the anthology Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners (AK Press, 2023). He lives in Eugene, Oregon. 

Leslie James Pickering is a member of the Certain Days collective. He is a co-owner of Burning Books and was spokesperson for the Earth Liberation Front Press Office

Buy the Certain Days calendar:

CertainDays.org (US)

Burning Books (US)

Left Wing Books (Canada)

Credits

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

This is the first episode of  our new series titled “Over the Wall: The Abolitionist Hour with Critical Resistance.”

This will be a regular series on Beyond Prisons, hosted by members of Critical Resistance’s The Abolitionist Editorial Collective, in which they will discuss articles and key interventions made by Critical Resistance’s cross-wall, bilingual newspaper, The Abolitionist. The first episode of this series focuses on Issue 39 of The Abolitionist and is titled, “Beyond Abortion: Reproductive Justice and Abolitionist Struggle.” 

This episode is hosted by Molly Porzig and Dylan Brown, and discusses why reproductive justice is an essential field of struggle for prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition. Together, they analyze the political conditions shaping the struggle for PIC abolition and reproductive justice in this moment, discuss core points made by various articles in the issue, and weave in follow-up interviews with contributors from the latest issue of the newspaper—including Ash Williams, Moonlight Pulido, Targol Mesbah, and imprisoned columnist for The Abolitionist, Stevie Wilson. 

To learn more, make sure to check out Critical Resistance’s upcoming webinar this Thursday, September 21, “Our Bodies, Our Freedom: Abolishing the Prison Industrial Complex Post-Roe,” and register at bit.ly/OurBodies9-21  

Dylan Brown is a 24 year old Black organizer and educator based in New York City, and has been a member of Critical Resistance since 2020. As a member of the New York City chapter of Critical Resistance, Dylan is organizing within the Abolish ICE New York/New Jersey Coalition on their current NY Dignity Not Detention campaign, which seeks to  build power to end immigrant detention throughout NY State. For the past three years, Dylan has been an editor for The Abolitionist Newspaper. 

Molly Porzig is a Bay Area based organizer and educator in California with nearly 20 years of organizing experience with Critical Resistance (CR). Molly first became a member of CR in 2006 as a transitional-aged youth with experience in the juvenile system and systems-impacted youth-based, queer, and women-led anti-violence organizations. On behalf of CR, Molly has organized in Stop the Injunctions Coalition against the use of gang injunctions, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition against solitary confinement, No New SF Jail coalition to close a county jail in downtown San Francisco, Plan for a Safer Oakland in partnership with All of Us or None, the CR 10th Anniversary Conference organizing committee, the StoryTelling and Organizing Project with Creative Interventions, and more. In 2020, Molly joined CR’s national staff as CR’s National Media & Communications Manager, as well as the organization’s project manager of its cross-wall bilingual newspaper, The Abolitionist.

Follow Critical Resistance on Twitter at @C_Resistance

Music Credits

Taste of Freedom by Steven Beddall

I Wish - drum loop by Artlist Original

Special thanks to Freedom Archives for the clip of Assata Shakur

Beyond Prisons is created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains discussions of sexual violence.

Kim and Brian discuss Mark E. Kann’s “Penitence for the Privileged: Manhood, Race, and Penitentiaries in Early America.” This essay is a chapter in the book Prison Masculinities, edited by Don Sabo, Terry A. Kupers, and Willie London.

Our wide-ranging conversation examines the role of prisons in early America as a tool for sorting who was and was not American, which was understood exclusively as a white male citizen. We also discuss manhood, militarism, and self-discipline in the service of “liberty,” the logic behind protecting children from “criminals,” and a lot more.

Prison Masculinities, edited by Don Sabo, Terry A. Kupers, and Willie London.

Beyond Prisons is created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons