Abolition. Feminism. Now.: The Abolitionist Papers

As a politic and a practice, abolition increasingly shapes our political moment - halting the construction of new jails and propelling movements to divest from policing. Yet erased from this landscape are not only the central histories of feminist - usually queer, anti-capitalist, grassroots, and women of color - organizing that continue to cultivate abolition but a recognition of a stark reality: Abolition is our best response to endemic forms of state and interpersonal gender and sexual violence.

Amplifying the analysis and the theories of change generated from vibrant, community-based organizing, Abolition. Feminism. Now. surfaces necessary historical genealogies, key internationalist learnings, and everyday practices to grow our collective and flourishing present and futures.

About the Author

Angela Y. Davis is Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz. An activist, writer, and lecturer, her work focuses on prisons, police, abolition, and the related intersections of race, gender, and class. She is the author of many books, from Angela Davis: An Autobiography to Freedom Is a Constant Struggle.

Gina Dent is associate professor of feminist studies, history of consciousness, and legal studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the editor of Black Popular Culture, and lectures and writes on African diaspora literary and cultural studies, postcolonial theory, and critical area studies. Her current project “Visualizing Abolition” grows out of her work as an advocate for transformative and transitional justice and prison abolition.

Erica R. Meiners is a professor of education and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Northeastern Illinois University. A writer, organizer, and educator, Meiners is the author For the Children? Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State, coauthor of The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence, and a coeditor of The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences, Working Toward Freedom.

Beth E. Richie is Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, Professor of Black Studies and Criminology, Law, and Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and author of Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation.