Mariame Kaba - We Do This Til We Free Us

Praise for We Do This Til We Free Us

This book writes a political genealogy of one of our movement eras most significant intellectuals and community organizers and her people into the record of a feminist and abolitionist Black Radical Tradition. She teaches us to praise the choir, appreciate vulnerability, and be disciplined in service of transforming ourselves and the world in which we live. CHARLENE A. CARRUTHERS, author, Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements

Mariame Kaba isnt trying to save the world. Instead, this collection of liberatory practice serves as a building block for a new kind of existence, filled with the hum only evolved humanity can sound. Kaba returns questions unanswered; Kaba spirits the flame untethered; Kaba is the water well in the middle of a thirsty town. And in her unyielding abolition work, Mariame Kaba reveals our reflections purpose. She is generous in offering us a blueprint to save ourselves. MAHOGANY L. BROWNE, author, Chlorine Sky

So many of us have been introduced to abolitionor invited into a deeper understanding and practice of abolitionist politicsthrough Mariame Kabas words, work, and vision, as well as her brilliant sense of humor, skillful use of Twitter, love of poetry, practice of hope, and appreciation of art. For those of us new to abolition, this book is the primer we need. For those of us who have been on an abolitionist journey, it is full of the reminders we need. No matter where and how you enter the conversation, We Do This Til We Free Us brings all of us infinitely closer to creating a world premised on genuine and lasting safety, justice, and peace. ANDREA J. RITCHIE, author, Invisible No More: Police Violence against Black Women and Women of Color

Anyone and everyone who has had the privilege of learning from Mariame Kaba has been transformed into a better thinker, organizer, artist, and human. What Kaba does is light the path to abolition and liberation with equal parts intelligence and compassion, experience and hope. This book brings together the scattered pieces of her wisdom she has shared publicly in different venues so that those who dont have the pleasure of sitting and learning with her can absorb a small part of what makes Kaba one of the most impressive and important thinkers and organizers of our time. Let this work fortify those who are already engaged in the struggle and be an energetic spark for those just starting out on this path to freedom. MYCHAL DENZEL SMITH, author, Stakes Is High: Life after the American Dream

Mariame has the rarest of gifts: the ability to imagine a better future, the skills to help construct it, and the courage to demand it. For years, Mariame has been thinking through some of the toughest questions about societys addiction to punishment, and We Do This Til We Free Us showcases the extraordinary depths of her knowledge about our criminal legal system. This book could not arrive at a better timeas more people become familiar with abolition, Mariames words are especially critical. But it is not just a book about systems. Its a book about people, the powerful and the struggling. And, ultimately it is a book about each of usthe values we possess and the choices we make. Mariame has the uncanny ability to illuminate the murky and complicated elements of who we are and give them voice. As an abolitionist, Mariame is not just calling for the destruction of old systems but also the creation of a new world. This book will change the way you think about your community, your relationships, and yourself. JOSIE DUFFY RICE, writer

Mariame Kaba is a peoples historian, an ultra-practical problem solver, and a visionary prophet whose work dreams and builds a world made by collaboration and healing where putting people in cages is unimaginable. We Do This Til We Free Us is packed with Kabas brilliant insights and detailed examples of how the work of abolition is put into practice in grassroots campaigns. Kabas boundless creativity is rooted in her rigorous study of resistance and inspiration, and the wisdom of her words is woven through with poetry, literature, history, and music, so that her offerings are both grounded in practical discernment and inclined toward our most robust imagination of what freedom could mean. This book will be both a practical tool and a source of comfort in hard times for change-makers and world-builders. DEAN SPADE, author, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)

This suite of essays and interviews blends the verve, insight, skill, and generosity of one of the most brilliant abolitionist thinkers, curators, and organizers of our time. Marked by lush imagination, care, and strategic acumen, We Do This Til We Free Us is a manual for all those who want to create new collectivities and new futures from the ashes of entire systems of carcerality, racism, sexism, and capitalism. Always teaching us how to have each other, there is no wiser or more inspirational figure in the fight for justice than Mariame Kaba. SARAH HALEY, author, No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity

We Do This Til We Free Us is an organizers gift: a vision of abolition that is also a practice of it and a road map. Essay by essay, Mariame Kaba guides us through the abolitionist futures she has created in real time by turning questions into experiments, learning from failures as much as successes, and doing everything with other people. Let her words radicalize you, let them unlock your imagination, let them teach you how to practice hope, and let them show you why the everyday is the terrain of our greatest abolitionist creations. We Do This Til We Free Us is not a book to be read; it is a portal to a collective project of liberation that literally requires every last one of us. LAURA McTIGHE, Front Porch Research Strategies and assistant professor, Florida State University

In her new book, We Do This Til We Free Us Mariame Kaba demonstrates the ways that disciplinein intellect, in practice, in relationshipleads not to despair, but to hope. The far-ranging series of essays and interviews draws on her deep practice as a seasoned organizer who persistently distills the questions surrounding abolition to basic human decisions about the world we want to inhabit and how we will go about building it. Abolition, as Mariame sees and practices, is fundamentally both generous, and pragmatic and her writing will move both seasoned abolitionists and those just now asking these questions for the first time to join in her conclusion that your cynicism is unrealistic. DANIELLE SERED, author, Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair

Mariames wisdom trues my restorative justice compass. The restorative justice movement has much to learn from Mariames steadfast commitment to protecting our approaches to harm and healing from state co-optation and control. Her unwavering belief in we got us offers powerful inspiration to imagine, ground, and elevate our practice. What a gift! SUJATHA BALIGA, restorative justice practitioner

The intertwined analysis and collective organizing archived in this invaluable collection provides crucial entry points in the everyday work of abolition. Engaging the most pressing questions of our time with clarity and commitment, as always, Mariame makes abolition irresistible and, as imperatively, doable. ERICA R. MEINERS, author, For the Children: Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State

Working through a range of concepts and strugglesfrom the criminalization of self-defense to what is needed to inspire our imaginations toward abolition