A literary mixtape of transformative dialogues on justice with a
cast of visionary rebel activists, organizers, artists, culture
workers, thought leaders, and movement builders.
Rebel Speak
sounds the alarm for a global movement to end systemic injustice led
by people doing the day-to-day rebel work in the prison capital of
the world. Prison activist, artist, and scholar Bryonn Rolly Bain
brings us transformative oral history ciphers, rooted in the
tradition of call-and-response, to lay bare the struggle and
sacrifice on the front lines of the fight to abolish the prison
industrial complex.
Rebel Speak
investigates the motives that inspire and sustain movements for
visionary change. Sparked by a life-changing interview with
working-class heroes Dolores Huerta and Harry Belafonte, Bryonn
invites us to join conversations with change-makers whose diverse
critical perspectives and firsthand accounts expose the crisis of
prisons and policing in our communities. Through dialogues with
activists including Albert Woodfox, founder of the first Black
Panther Party prison chapter, and Susan Burton, founder of Los
Angeles's A New Way of Life Reentry Project; a conversation with a
warden pushing beyond traditions at Sing Sing Correctional Facility;
and an intimate exchange with his brother returning from prison,
Bryonn reveals countless unseen spaces of the movement to end human
caging. Sampling his provocative sessions with influential artists
and culture workers, like Public Enemy leader Chuck D and radical
feminist MC Maya Jupiter, Bryonn opens up and guides discussions
about the power of art and activism to build solidarity across
disciplines and demand justice.
With raw insight and
radical introspection, Rebel Speak embodies the growing call
for "credible messengers" on prisons, policing, racial
justice, abolitionist politics, and transformative organizing.
Reimagining the role of the writer and scholar as a DJ and MC, Bryonn
moves the crowd with this unforgettable mix of those working within
the belly of the beast to change the world. This is a new century's
sound of movement-building and Rebel Speak.