On the anniversary of the 1971 Attica prison rebellion we reflect on the intensifying political struggles behind bars by examining two extraordinary flashpoints: Amerika’s nationwide September 9, 2016, prisoner strike, and the August 19, 2017, Millions for Prisoners march. Firehawk, of Unstoppable, and Ben Turk of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee of the Industrial Workers…

Listen to voices from the largest coordinated prison strike in amerikkkan history.

In this episode we explore the parallel ways in which the institutions of prisons and schools work to reproduce our current society, racial capitalism, as well as the challenges and possibilities we face in its transformation. Imprisoned intellectual Harold “HH” Gonzales tells us about the history of school segregation and the construction of the so-called…

Channel Zero is a newly formed podcast network of several anti-authoritarian English language podcasts. Rustbelt Abolition Radio is excited to be co-conspirators in this horizontally run platform!

Abolitionists are committed to creating a world without police and prisons, but what alternative visions and practices of addressing intimate harm might point the way toward such a world? In this episode we explore efforts to re-imagine the politics of violence, harm, safety, and redress, spearheading practices of accountability and healing that move beyond the…

In this episode we examine the relationships between carcerality, gendered and sexual violence on the one hand, and on the other: queer and trans liberation and the abolitionist horizon. Josue Saldivar and Karolina Lopez from the Arizona-based organization Mariposas Sin Fronteras discuss the ways that migrants fleeing heteropatriarchal and transphobic oppression in their home countries are…

Join Rustbelt Abolition Radio at the 2017 Allied Media Conference! Friday June 16, 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM 5221 Gullen Mall, Detroit, MI 48202 Wayne State University Student Center, Room: Hilberry D What kind of media work will it take to imagine how we may abolish prisons and police? This lunch session will introduce abolitionist…

In this episode we explore the relationship between the abolitionist horizon and the defense and reinvention of the commons. We speak with author and historian Peter Linebaugh about the ways the carceral state is founded upon enclosure and dispossession, and about hidden histories of collective resistance. We also speak with Reverend Edward Pinkney, imprisoned activist…

In this holiday segment of Rustbelt Abolition Radio, we speak with acclaimed scholar Robin D.G. Kelley. May Day, or International Workers Day, is celebrated annually by millions across the world in commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket Square massacre and the ongoing global struggle for a world without capitalist exploitation and racial domination. We sat down…

In this episode we focus on the ways women are organizing against gendered violence and mass criminalization — and for a world free of domination. We speak with Mariame Kaba, long-time abolitionist organizer and writer, about her work with groups like Survived and Punished and Project NIA, and the criminalization of women under capitalist heteropatriarchy….

In this special bonus segment of Rustbelt Abolition Radio, we speak with long-time prison abolitionist Mariame Kaba about the Free Bresha Campaign. The campaign is asking supporters to organize teach-ins to #FreeBresha during the week of April 10th-April 17th to raise awareness about connections between sexual violence and criminalization. Here is a powerful curriculum, put…

In this bonus segment, we return to renowned historian Heather Ann Thompson as she elaborates on the origins of the historic 1971 Attica Uprising, drawing out their resonances with other prison rebellions across history and geography, as well as their telling implications for our present historical moment. For more from Heather Ann Thompson on the…