Episode 142: We Don’t Have To Live Like This

What does it mean to be a Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) Abolitionist? L. Joy brings Mariame Kaba to the front of the class to break down the practice and organizing vision of PIC Abolitionists, and to discuss Kaba’s latest book “We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice.” 

Our Guest

Mariame Kaba is an organizer, educator and curator, whose work focuses on ending violence, dismantling the prison industrial complex, transformative justice and supporting youth leadership development. The new book, “We Do This Till We Fee Us” is a reflection from Kaba on the prison industrial complex abolition as well as a vision for collective liberation. 

Kaba has founded and co-founded multiple organizations and projects over the years. They  include Project NIA, a grassroots organization with a vision to end youth incarceration, the Chicago Freedom School, the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women, the Chicago Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander and the Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team (YWAT) among others.

Kaba has served on various boards, was a 2016-2017 Soros Justice Fellow. Awarded the 2020 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship, among other awards, and was a researcher in residence on Race, Gender, Sexuality and Criminalization at the Social Justice Institute of the Barnard Center for Research on Women from 2018-2020. Kaba also worked with Andrea J. Ritchie, fellow Researcher-in-Residence, on a new initiative called Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action.

With a long history in the fields of education and youth development, having taught high school and college students in New York and Chicago, sociology and Black studies courses at Northeastern Illinois University, Northwestern University, and Columbia University, Kaba has developed and facilitated many workshops and presented at events.