Women in Prison: How It Is With Us
This is an article written by Assata Shakur for The Black Scholar and it’s a detailed account of what it means to be a prisoner as a Black woman. It’s impactful and written very straightforwardly with a goal of painting a picture of how Black lives, particular those of poor Black women, are policed and set up for failure within America’s carceral capitalist system.
The Problem with Innocence
This is an excerpt from a collection of essays written by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, an incredible writer and teacher with a lifelong dedication to abolition. Although it’s somewhat of a dense read, the essay’s goal is to call-out the fallacy in the argument that many anti-prison advocates make where they use the concept of “innocence” to emphasize the wrongness of the prison industrial complex.
The Pitfalls of Liberalism
This is an easy to read yet thought-provoking book excerpt written in 1967 by Kwame Ture, a Black revolutionary and key leader of the Black Power movement. This text harshly but truthfully criticizes the actions, or the lack thereof, of the white liberal party. It is a brilliant example of Ture’s ability to push radical thought into action.