About the Book
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, 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.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Legacies of Violence
Self Defense
Living Under Disinvestment
Whose Streets? Our Streets!
Civilian Watch Groups
A Conversation with Mariame Kaba
Attempts at Reform
Civilian Complaint Review Board
Diversifying The Force
Eyes on the State
Copwatch
Stolen Lives Project
Copaganda
A Conversation with Dread Scott
A Conversation with Dennis Flores
Naming the Problem: Pig Nation
The Black Worker and Police Brutality
Riot!
Queer Resistance
Fighting for Demilitarization
Cultural Organizing
A Conversation with Joshua Myers
Imagining An Abolitionist Future
A Conversation with Occupy City Hall
About the Author :
Interference Archive is a community-supported archive of material from social movements around the world, created with a mission to explore the relationship between cultural production and social movements. This work manifests in an open stacks archival collection, publications, a study center, and public programs including exhibitions, workshops, talks, and screenings, all of which encourage critical and creative engagement with the rich history of social movements.
Brooke Darrah Shuman is a video producer atMore PerfectUnioncovering labor and workers' rights. Her video and writing has appeared inHuffPost,Bon Appetit,The New Yorkerand the Southern Foodways Alliance. She is a volunteer at Interference Archive, an open stacks archive of political movement material, where she has worked on exhibitions on antifascism in the United States and disability/crip activism.
Jen Hoyer is a librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology and has volunteered on collections, exhibitions, and education projects at Interference Archive since 2013. Her writing about the intersections of education, archives, and social movement history is available inThe Social Movement Archive(Litwin Books, 2021) andWhat Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom(Libraries Unlimited, 2022).
Josh MacPhee
has been collaboratively making, researching, and collecting political art for over twenty years. In 2011, he cofounded the Interference Archive, a library, exhibition, event, and research space in Brooklyn dedicated to the exploration of social movement culture. He is also a member of the Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, and the author/editor of multiple books including Celebrate People's History: The Poster Book of Resistance and Revolution (Feminist Press, 2010 and 2020), An Encyclopedia of Political Record Labels (Common Notions, 2019), and Graphic Liberation: Perspectives on Image Making and Political Movements (Common Notions, 2023). His solo exhibition We Want Everything was hosted by the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2022.
Interviews with 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).
Review :
Planning endorsements from: Alex Vitale, author of End of Policing Alec Karakatsanis, author of Usual Cruelty, Executive Director of Civil Rights Corps Andrea Ritchie, author of No More PoliceSarah Leonard, founder of Lux magazineJoy James, author of New Bones AbolitionRuth Wilson Gilmore, author of Abolition Geography: Essays Towards LiberationDerecka Purnell, author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of FreedomWilliam C. Anderson, author of The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and AbolitionGeo Maher, author of A World Without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops ObsoleteWalidah Imarisha, author of Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, and RedemptionPlanned review attention from publications include: Inquest, Lux, Colorlines, VICE/Broadly, them, The Nation, Hyperallergic, In These Times, Scalawag, Teen Vogue
