13 must-read activism books like We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba

Cover of We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba

We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

By: Mariame Kaba

4.67

Format: 240 pages, Paperback

"Organizing is both science and art. It is thinking through a vision, a strategy, and then figuring…

"That does not mean, however, there should be no consequences. It means real consequences. Consequences that really matter. It means transforming the conditions that exist in the first place for this to even have happened. It is really critical for people to think about the difference between punishment and consequences. Punishment often is actually not the same as transformation. Even though it feels good to wear the “kill the rapists"

-Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

"That does not mean, however, there should be no consequences. It means real consequences. Consequences that really matter. It means transforming the conditions that exist in the first place for this to even have happened. It is really critical for people to think about the difference between punishment and consequences. Punishment often is actually not the same as transformation. Even though it feels good to wear the “kill the rapists"

-Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

If you liked the activism plot in We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba , here is a list of 13 books like this:

Cover of Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire by Angela Y. Davis

1. Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire

By: Angela Y. Davis

4.07

Format: 242 pages, Paperback

Revelations about U.S policies and practices of torture and abuse have captured headlines ever sinc… read more

Similar categories in Angela Y. Davis's Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • race
  • theory
  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
Cover of Assata: An Autobiography by Angela Y. Davis, Assata Shakur, Lennox S. Hinds

2. Assata: An Autobiography

By: Angela Y. Davis , Assata Shakur , Lennox S. Hinds

4.80

Format: None pages, Paperback

On May 2, 1973, Black Panther Assata Shakur (aka JoAnne Chesimard) lay in a hospital, close to deat… read more

Similar categories in Angela Y. Davis's Assata: An Autobiography book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • feminism
  • politics
  • race
  • nonfiction

3. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California

By: Ruth Wilson Gilmore

3.75

Format: 368 pages, Paperback

read more

Similar categories in Ruth Wilson Gilmore's Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

4. How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

By: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

3.40

Format: 208 pages, Paperback

The Combahee River Collective, a group of radical black feminists, was one of the most important or… read more

Similar categories in Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor's How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

5. Are Prisons Obsolete?

By: Angela Y. Davis

4.15

Format: None pages,

With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case fo… read more

Similar categories in Angela Y. Davis's Are Prisons Obsolete? book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

6. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

By: Adrienne Maree Brown

3.65

Format: 192 pages,

Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategyis … read more

Similar categories in Adrienne Maree Brown's Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

7. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

By: Cornel West , Angela Y. Davis , Frank Barat

3.78

Format: None pages, Paperback

In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Ange… read more

Similar categories in Cornel West's Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

Cover of Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics by Marc Lamont Hill

8. Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

By: Marc Lamont Hill

4.21

Format: 227 pages, Hardcover

A bold call for the American Left to extend their politics to the issues of Israel-Palestine, from … read more

Similar categories in Marc Lamont Hill's Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • race
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • activism
  • audiobook
Cover of Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else) by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

9. Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)

By: Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

4.00

Format: 157 pages, Paperback

A powerful indictment of the ways elites have co-opted radical critiques of racial capitalism to se… read more

Similar categories in Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò's Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else) book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • race
  • theory
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • activism
  • audiobook
"A philosopher Briana Toole clarifies, by itself, one's social location only puts a person in a position to know; 'epistemic privilege' or advantage, on the other hand, is achieved only through delibe…"

-Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)

"Elites do often make the environment worse and block solutions, but to blame the problem of elite capture entirely on their moral successes and failures is to confuse effect for cause. The true probl…"

-Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)

"To opt for deference, rather than interdependence, may soothe short-term psychological wounds. But it does so at a steep cost: it may undermine the goals that motivated the project--and it entrenches…"

-Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)

"As Carter G. Woodson realized, many of our decisions are shaped by decisions that someone with more power made before us. The whole social structure affects how institutional systems, like schools, f…"

-Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)

Cover of Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

10. Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice

By: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

4.55

Format: 264 pages, Paperback

In this collection of essays, Lambda Literary Award-winning writer and longtime activist and perfor… read more

Similar categories in Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • essays
  • activism
"It [i.e. disability justice] means we are not left behind; we are beloved, kindred, needed."

-Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice

"To me, one quality of disability justice culture is that it is simultaneously beautiful and practical. Poetry and dance are as valuable as a blog post about access hacks - because they're equally imp…"

-Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice

"Disability Justice allowed me to understand that me writing from my sickbed wasn't me being week or uncool or not a real writer but a time-honoured crip creative practice. And that understanding allo…"

-Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice

"One of the central loves of my life is coaching and supporting other writers. Specifically, writers who identify as BIPOC, sick/Mad/disabled, queer/trans, femme, working-class/poor, or some or all of…"

-Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice

Cover of Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism by Harsha Walia

11. Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism

By: Harsha Walia

4.59

Format: 200 pages, Paperback

In Border and Rule, one of North America's foremost thinkers and immigrant rights organizers delive… read more

Similar categories in Harsha Walia's Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • race
  • theory
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • audiobook
"Empires crumble, capitalism is not inevitable, gender is not biology, whiteness is not immutable, prisons are not inescapable, and borders are not natural law."

-Harsha Walia, Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism

"Right-wing nationalism is a bourgeois nationalism, and in our struggles against capitalist austerity we must emphasize that our enemy arrives in a limousine, and not on a boat."

-Harsha Walia, Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism

"Ensuring labor protections and citizenship status is the most ethical and effective counter to the far right's anti-migrant racism. Otherwise, attacks on migrant workers -- buttressed by ubiquitous a…"

-Harsha Walia, Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism

"Territorial diffusion relies on biometric surveillance and disciplinary practices within the state, as well as imperial outsourcing. Put another way, the border is elastic, and the magical line can e…"

-Harsha Walia, Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism

Cover of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next) by Dean Spade

12. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next)

By: Dean Spade

4.38

Format: 152 pages, Paperback

Mutual aid is the radical act of caring for each other while working to change the world. Around… read more

Similar categories in Dean Spade's Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next) book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • theory
  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • activism
  • audiobook
"In the context of professionalized nonprofit organizations, groups are urged to be single-issue oriented, framing their message around "deserving" people within the population they serve, and using t…"

-Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next)

"When we feel bad, we often automatically decide that either we are bad or another person is bad. Both of these moves cause damage and distort the truth, which is that we are all navigating difficult …"

-Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next)

"Burnout is the combination of resentment, exhaustion, shame, and frustration that make us lose connection to pleasure and passion in the work, and instead encounter difficult feelings like avoidance,…"

-Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next)

Cover of Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World--And How You Can, Too by Ijeoma Oluo

13. Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World--And How You Can, Too

By: Ijeoma Oluo

4.46

Format: 256 pages, ebook

From the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of So You Want to Talk About Race and Mediocre, an ey… read more

Similar categories in Ijeoma Oluo's Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World--And How You Can, Too book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • race
  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • activism
  • audiobook
Cover of Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement by Ejeris Dixon

14. Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

By: Ejeris Dixon

4.54

Format: 347 pages, Paperback

Afraid to call 911 but not sure what to do instead? Transformative justice and other community-base… read more

Similar categories in Ejeris Dixon's Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • race
  • theory
  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • essays
  • activism
  • anti racist
"I know for a fact that we can't heal or hurt alone. We must heal or hurt in relationship with other people. (Mariame Kaba)"

-Ejeris Dixon, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

"I needed so much tenderness, love, and support. I needed a team of adults who could keep me safe while honoring my agency and autonomy. Instead, I got the state: two white social workers in my living…"

-Ejeris Dixon, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

"When we define ourselves, the result is complexity. We are none of us one thing, neither good nor bad. We are complex surviving organisms. We do appalling things to each other, rooted in trauma. We s…"

-Ejeris Dixon, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

"First you hunger for the taste of a stranger, then your enemy, then anyone called a leader, then any small difference will do. Your hands become sharp and your words become sharp and the only move av…"

-Ejeris Dixon, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

Cover of We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba

15. We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

By: Mariame Kaba

4.67

Format: 240 pages, Paperback

"Organizing is both science and art. It is thinking through a vision, a strategy, and then figuring… read more

Similar categories in Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • race
  • theory
  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • essays
  • activism
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"That does not mean, however, there should be no consequences. It means real consequences. Consequences that really matter. It means transforming the conditions that exist in the first place for this …"

-Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

Cover of Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms by Maya Schenwar

16. Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms

By: Maya Schenwar

4.44

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A crucial indictment of widely embraced “alternatives to incarceration” that exposes how many of th… read more

Similar categories in Maya Schenwar's Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • race
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • activism
  • anti racist
"The same factors that propelled mass incarceration - racism, "law and order" politics, the war on drugs, the destruction of the social safety net - also propelled mass supervision."

-Maya Schenwar, Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms

"Monitors and house arrest aren't rehabilitative or transformative - they don't support people in making changes that would be helpful to their lives, gaining needed resources, addressing harm or viol…"

-Maya Schenwar, Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms

"Unlike prisons, psychiatric institutions can be entered voluntarily, and people often turn to them in pursuit of treatment. But when used involuntarily as prison replacements, hospitals mimic persons…"

-Maya Schenwar, Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms

"Many types of treatment claim to be about fixing the so-called problems of madness. The real problem is that certain ways of experiencing the world are seen as categorical threats— to normativity, to…"

-Maya Schenwar, Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms

Cover of Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care by Kelly Hayes

17. Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

By: Kelly Hayes

4.64

Format: 296 pages, Paperback

What fuels and sustains activism and organizing when it feels like our worlds are collapsing? Let T… read more

Similar categories in Kelly Hayes's Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • essays
  • activism
  • audiobook
Cover of Abolition. Feminism. Now. by Angela Y. Davis

18. Abolition. Feminism. Now.

By: Angela Y. Davis

4.31

Format: 150 pages, Paperback

An urgent, vital manifesto of intersectional, internationalist, abolitionist feminism, from leading… read more

Similar categories in Angela Y. Davis's Abolition. Feminism. Now. book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • race
  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • activism
  • anti racist
Cover of The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

19. The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs

By: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

4.46

Format: 333 pages, Paperback

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha follows up their incredible book Care Work with The Future Is Disa… read more

Similar categories in Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • essays
  • activism
  • audiobook
"There is no one disabled future. But in mine, there is guaranteed income, housing, access, food, water, and education for all—or money has been abolished. I get paid to write from my bed. The births …"

-Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs

"Sometimes I feel impatient about how much ableism has forced us to emphasize accessibility to get people to pay even a modicum of attention to it. Collective access is revolutionary because disabled …"

-Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs

"A future where disability justice won looks like queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, folks of colour, and women, girls, and nonbinary humans are living in a world where disability is the norm, and where…"

-Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs

Cover of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom by Derecka Purnell

20. Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom

By: Derecka Purnell

4.44

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

For more than a century, activists in the United States have tried to reform the police. From commu… read more

Similar categories in Derecka Purnell's Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • race
  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • activism
  • anti racist
"The systems responsible for our oppression cannot be the same systems responsible for our liberation."

-Derecka Purnell, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom

"Campus police and street police are different strands of the same supremacy that plague our resistance."

-Derecka Purnell, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom

Cover of We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice (Emergent Strategy Series, 3) by Adrienne Maree Brown

21. We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice (Emergent Strategy Series, 3)

By: Adrienne Maree Brown

4.31

Format: 88 pages, Paperback

Cancel culture addresses real harm...and sometimes causes more. It’s time to think this through. … read more

Similar categories in Adrienne Maree Brown's We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice (Emergent Strategy Series, 3) book and Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

  • race
  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • essays
  • activism
"Movements tend to become the practice ground for what we are healing towards, co-creating. Movements are responsible for embodying what we are inviting our people into. We need the people within our …"

-Adrienne Maree Brown, We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice (Emergent Strategy Series, 3)

12 must-read race books like We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba

Transform Your Habits

Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire

Angela Y. Davis

4.07

Transform Your Habits

Assata: An Autobiography

Angela Y. Davis , Assata Shakur , Lennox S. Hinds

4.80

Transform Your Habits

Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

Marc Lamont Hill

4.21

Transform Your Habits

Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

4.00

View all the books

14 Top audiobook books like Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism by Harsha Walia

Transform Your Habits

Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party

Joshua Bloom , Waldo E. Martin Jr.

4.46

Transform Your Habits

Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

Michael Parenti

4.41

Transform Your Habits

If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution

Vincent Bevins

4.28

Transform Your Habits

The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World

Vincent Bevins

4.61

View all the books

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