A sweeping and poignant history of community response to the
violence of white supremacy and carceral systems in the US, told
through interviews, archival reproductions, and narrative.
In
the summer of 2020, the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and
Tony McDade ignited a movement that led to the largest street
protests in American history. Abolitionist grassroots organizers
around the country unified around a clear demand: defund the police
and refund our communities. While the majority of the country
supported the call to reform the police, what followed was a backlash
from mainstream politicians and the press, all but defeating the
movement to end the continued violence against Black Americans.
Defend
/ Defund examines the
history of how communities have responded to the violence of white
supremacy and carceral systems in the United States and asks what
lessons the modern abolitionist movement can draw from this past.
Organized in a series of thematic sections from the use of
self-defense by Black organizers, to queer resistance in urban
spaces, the narrative is accompanied by over one hundred full-color
images including archival materials produced by Emory Douglas, the
Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the Young Lords in the 1960s
and 70s, CopWatch and the Stolen Lives Project in the 1980s and
1990s, and contemporary material from the Movement for Black Lives,
Project NIA, and INCITE!, Defend
/ Defund shows how deep
the struggles for abolition go and how urgent they remain.
In
addition to full-color reproduction of archival materials, the
narrative includes transcripts of interviews with activists,
scholars, and artists such as Mariame Kaba, Dread Scott, Dennis
Flores, Dr. Joshua Myers, Jawanza Williams (VOCAL-NY and Free Black
Radicals), Cheryl Rivera (NYC-DSA Racial Justice Working Group and
Abolition Action), and Bianca Cunningham (Free Black Radicals). Each
conversation dives into the history of specific struggles with, and
organizing against, police and police brutality.
In
total, the publication shows how the modern Defund movement builds on
powerful Black feminist and abolitionist movements past and imagines
alternatives to policing for community safety for our present.