Blue Ridge ABC is excited to host a monthly, public discussion of issues pertaining to incarceration and the penal system in the USA through study and discussion of essays and zines by captured comrades and their allies. Based on the Oakland Abolition and Solidarity team-up with True Leap Press, we’ll provide links to or paper copies of zines for discussion. Readings, dates and more below.
Session 7: August 25th
This month’s Abolitionist Reading Club, we’ll be hitting three titles. Below are links for easy online reading (Online) or formatted for printing as a booklet (Zine). We’ll be meeting up the 4th Sunday of the month from 4-6pm at Firestorm books again.
Physical copies will be available behind the counter at Firestorm for free if you swing by and ask :
- How To Start Your Own Study Group In Prison ( Zine)
We also will be planning out a future inside / outside discussion of Beyond Cop Cities (edited by Joy James, Pluto Press 2024)
Session 6: June 23rd
- Prison Closure Divides Abolitionist Community in Washington State by Raymond Williams (Online / Zine)
- Anonymous thread on counterinsurgency (Zine)
- “Airbrushing Revolution for the sake of Abolition” by Joy James ( Online / Zine )
Session 5: May 26th
- “Eric King and Josh Davidson”, The Final Straw Radio interview, December 31, 2023 (Online / Zine / Audio)
Session 4: April 28th
- “Updated History of the New Afrikan Prison Struggle” by Sundiata Acoli (Zine)
- “Q&A on Jericho ’98” by Safiya Bukhari (from The War Before): (Online / Zine)
- “How Prison Officials Manufactured Gangs And Gang Wars In Virginia’s Prisons” by Kevin Rashid Johnson (Online / Zine)
Session 3: March 24th
- How Prisoners Use Zines To Express Themselves & Subvert The Mass Incarceration Slave System, 2017 (Zine)
- Women in Prison: How It Is With Us by Assata Shakur, published in The Black Scholar, April 1978 (Online / Zine)
- Handbook for Surviving Solitary Confinement by Khalfani Malik Khaldun* (Zine)
Session 2: February 25th
- Improvising On Reality: The Roots of Prison Abolition by Liz Samuels (Online)
- Free Us All: Participatory Defense Campaigns as Abolitionist Organizing by Mariame Kaba (Online / Zine)
- Radical Resistance For Prison Abolition by Comrade Frank Talk (a captive New Afrikan Revolutionary) (Online / Zine)
