Abolitionist Sanctuary

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We celebrate Juneteenth and five years of Abolitionist Sanctuary by telling the truth about how freedom gets reclaimed through sisterhood, legacy, and community care. We name what it takes to protect Black mothers from punishment-first systems and why faith-based abolition has to look like real support, not shame. 

• introducing Reverend Dr Najuma Smith Pollard and Candace Benbow and grounding in faith, abolition, and Black motherhood 
• sharing pronouns, what we’re wearing, and naming our people as a practice of presence 
• catching up on current priorities, creativity, parenting, peace, and joy as survival 
• reflecting on vision boards, courage, and betting on ourselves beyond credentials 
• unpacking what Juneteenth means amid recalling, contradiction, and commodification 
• remembering founding board service and why Black women saying yes matters 
• honoring our mamas, grief, gratitude, and the complexity of Black mother daughter bonds 
• naming the criminalization of Black motherhood and rejecting carceral “solutions” 
• lifting up abolitionist virtues like compassion, care, courage, creativity, and community 
• making the case for training, funding, and building sanctuaries nationwide 

As we close, please download and share on all platforms. You can follow us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and download our social mobile app. Also enroll in our courses at abolitionacademy.com and become certified. Don't forget to become a member and subscribe to our mailing list at abolitionistsctuary.org. 

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We talk with Leslie Campbell about surviving abuse, being incarcerated as a mother, and rebuilding a life through education, faith, and community. We name the harm mass incarceration does to families and push for a world where Black women are believed, protected, and free to thrive. 
• Leslie’s testimony of self-defense, incarceration, and finding a way forward 
• Education as the turning point for voice, self-esteem, and reentry success 
• What Leslie sees when bringing hope and resources into women’s facilities 
• Realities of incarceration at Rikers and upstate, including prison labor 
• The impact of separation on children, mothers, and extended family caregivers 
• Reentry guilt, family alienation, and the trauma of reunification 
• Faith as survival in solitary confinement and a guide for restoration 
• Practical ways churches can support incarcerated people and returning citizens 
• Encouragement for mothers to practice grace and release perfection myths 
Please download and share on all platforms. 
Follow us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and download our social mobile app. 
Download the Abolitionist Sanctuary Social Mobile app. 
Also enroll in our courses and become certified at abolitionacademy.com. 
Don't forget to become a member and subscribe to our mailing list at abolitionistsanctuary.org. 

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Monuments, memory, and movement power collide when we sit down with Pastor William Lamar IV of Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, DC. We start with Abolition April and why faith-based abolition cannot stay theoretical when regressive policies and public violence keep targeting Black communities, especially Black women. From the first minutes, this conversation is clear: abolition is not only a practice, it is a way of life that forms what we believe, how we worship, and how we organize.

Pastor Lamar takes us deep into the spiritual technology of ancestral veneration through his book “Ancestors: The Names That Bless Us, Curse Us, and Hold Us.” We unpack the difference between ancestors of light who bless and hold us and “shadow ancestors” whose energy can reinforce white supremacist culture, even through the architecture and rituals of Washington, DC. We also talk theology with our whole chest, from unlearning who is “in our head” when we read scripture to challenging harmful church teachings like gendering God and the violent logic of penal substitutionary atonement.

Then we get concrete about strategy: how to organize in an authoritarian political climate without being rattled into burnout, what it meant for Metropolitan AME to sue after the Proud Boys attack, and why building power is not optional. We close with hard-won fundraising and philanthropy lessons on relational grantmaking, transparency, and expanding the table so the work can last.

Subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review to help more people find this faith-based abolitionist conversation, then tell us in the comments: what would an abolitionist sanctuary look like in your city?

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Start with open windows, end with open hands. We sit down with Rev. Dr. Renita Weems—writer, AME elder, and pioneering biblical scholar—to trace the unlikely roads from paper dolls and public libraries to Princeton and the pulpit. She takes us into the classrooms and kitchens that mothered her, the librarians who handed her systems and keys, and the teachers who crossed boundaries to keep a brilliant, mouthy teenager from disappearing. What emerges is a map of how ordinary people and imperfect institutions become sanctuaries.

We go deep on womanism—both the folk wisdom and the academic methodology. Renita names it as an unapologetic commitment to Black women’s thriving, with labels that signal our politics and hold us accountable. She pushes past caricatures of elitism and the “mean elder” trope, inviting a sharper critique of systems—patriarchy, misogyny, white supremacy—rather than personalities. The conversation also confronts the Bible’s patriarchy without flinching, while still mining its poetry and resistance for today’s struggles, especially where Black mothers are punished for surviving.

When the topic turns to calling, Renita reframes ministry as elder work: walking with people in grief, crisis, and ambiguity, not performing on a platform. She mourns how easily we discard the Black church, even as its songs, casseroles, and stubborn love continue to steady us in surgery rooms and sorrow. Through stories of mentors, tough love, and intergenerational repair, we explore how to be mothered—and motherable—so that movements gain discipline without losing joy.

If you’re hungry for a conversation that is tender, rigorous, and unafraid—about faith, womanism, Black motherhood, and the craft of surviving with your soul intact—press play. Then share it with the teacher, coach, or church mother who kept your window to the world wide open.

Subscribe, rate, and leave a review. Share this episode with a friend who needs courage today.

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We trace Black history as living resistance, linking Reconstruction to today’s bans and misinformation while centering Henry McNeal Turner’s radical theology and the Colored Conventions as blueprints for action. Faith, rhetoric, and archives become tools to confront white Christian nationalism and build abolitionist sanctuaries.

• significance of Black History Month amid erasure
• Reconstruction as a mirror for current politics
• rhetorical strategies for truth in a noisy age
• Africa as origin and identity anchor
• Henry McNeal Turner’s evolution and legacy
• women’s influence in AME leadership and ministry
• “God is a Negro” as liberating claim today
• abolition as faith practice and community design
• the 19th‑century Colored Conventions movement
• current books, research, and ways to support

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Start with the sting, end with a plan. After a brutal political cycle and a year of losses, we refuse to romanticize resilience and instead ground it in what Bishop Leah Daughtry calls the ripple effect: small, faithful actions that travel farther than the splash. Together, we unpack how to turn communal values into public power, why the most radical choice today is real community, and how churches can move from Sunday language to Monday policy.

We get specific. Community isn’t a vibe—it’s an operating system for change. You’ll hear how to map the most urgent local needs, identify who holds the policy levers, and meet electeds like employers meeting employees: with clarity, receipts, and accountability. We break down voting rights, disinformation, and the false lure of perfectionism at the polls. No candidate is flawless, but values show up on ballots every time. Choose the closest alignment, organize for the rest, and don’t cede ground to suppression that fights so hard precisely because our votes work.

Strategy runs through every beat of this conversation. Project 2025 didn’t appear overnight, and neither will our counter. We outline a great reimagining—rebuilding agencies and systems not as they were, but as our communities need them to be, from education to health to global partnerships. That requires year-round organizing, local party engagement, and a willingness to lead. The leadership line is short. Step in.

At the center stand Black women, whose civic muscle and economic impact move families, churches, and cities. Invest here and you lift entire ecosystems. Bishop Daughtry shares updates on Power Rising and her relaunch of The Faithful Citizen, inviting all of us to practice a public faith that protects dignity, expands opportunity, and wins material change.

If this moved you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more candid conversations at the intersection of faith, abolition, and policy, and leave a review so others can find the show. Then tell us: what ripple will you start this week?

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What changes when we treat girls as sacred rather than disposable? We sit down with Dr. Monique Couvson —scholar, author of Pushout, and leader of G4GC—to map how schools, policies, and everyday assumptions push Black girls toward punishment instead of possibility. From her roots in San Francisco and the wisdom of ancestors to a clear-eyed analysis of data and discipline, she shows how faith, research, and philanthropy can work together to build learning spaces where belonging is the default and healing is the norm.

We explore the core idea of pushout: the policies, practices, conditions, and prevailing consciousness that heighten contact with the juvenile and criminal legal systems. Dr. Morris explains why Black girls are overrepresented at every disciplinary decision point, how adultification bias and sexual violence histories shape outcomes, and why carceral language in schools—detention, infractions, zero tolerance—primes children for future harm. Her answer isn’t a softer version of punishment; it’s a different paradigm: restorative approaches with structure, culturally grounded social-emotional learning, and a commitment to schools as locations for healing.

You’ll also hear how participatory research reframes power by recognizing participants as co-keepers of knowledge, and why the “righteous mind” matters for real learning—inviting students to bring their whole selves, question boldly, and practice discernment. We connect these insights to philanthropic strategy and community design, highlighting Girls Unlimited and funds that resource Black, Indigenous, and gender-expansive youth of color. The through line is agency: when we invest early, honor lived experience, and expand our collective imagination, justice stops being a pie to slice and becomes a garden we grow.

If you care about education justice, restorative practices, and ending the criminalization of Black girls, this conversation offers both clarity and a blueprint. Listen, share with an educator or policymaker, and then tell us: what’s one carceral habit your community is ready to replace? Subscribe, leave a review, and join us as we build a faith-based abolitionist movement grounded in repair, relationship, and real safety.

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Faith, numbers, and land meet in a bold conversation about how Black families—and especially Black mothers—can move from survival to ownership. With guest Tawan Davis, CEO of The Steinbridge Group and NYU adjunct professor, we unpack the cycles behind DEI whiplash and government contraction, then chart a different route: activating underused HBCU and church land, replacing consumer debt with asset-backed leverage, and negotiating from ownership in a global economy that won’t wait for anyone.

We look squarely at the statistics: rising unemployment for Black women, the caregiving load, and a persistent wage gap that stings hardest when paired with student debt. Then we pivot to solutions that build compounding value. Tawan lays out the matching principle in plain language—pair long-term debt with long-term, appreciating assets—and shows how mortgages, whole life policies, and stock portfolios differ from credit cards and car notes. From there, we zoom into practice: structuring projects on HBCU campuses and church-owned land to create housing, services, and jobs while keeping control and sharing upside.

The heart of the story is ancestral. Matriarchs who crossed hostile highways bought homes, welcomed relatives, and built neighborhoods a down payment at a time. Their method still works—small money, big conviction, assets first—and their faith still sets our posture. We carry that ethic into a global frame: build mutual aid and community funds while accessing institutional capital on our terms. It’s not either-or. It’s Ubuntu and underwriting, legacy and leverage, scripture and spreadsheets.

If this mission resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review to help others find the show. Join our movement: follow Abolitionist Sanctuary on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, download our mobile app, enroll at abolitionacademy.com, and become a member at abolitionistsanctuary.org. Your voice—and your assets—matter.

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We trace Dr. Jamal Bryant’s journey from family roots and grief to a movement-facing ministry that blends sermon craft, organizing, and economic imagination. We press into DEI rollbacks, leadership succession, and building power that feeds, houses, and employs our people.

• personal roots, parental influence, and grief as teacher
• love, accountability, and prayer as intimacy
• sermon craft for an unscripted, attention-thin culture
• Target Fast strategy and reawakening the Black church
• community organizing beyond Sunday metrics
• economic empowerment, land use, and viable revenue
• DEI rollbacks as financial violence against Black women
• shared agendas for elections and policy lanes
• leadership succession and youth pipelines
• abolitionist building alongside reforms

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Visit abolitionistsanctuary.org to give, become a member, and subscribe to our mailing list

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Susan Burton shares her powerful journey from cycling through prison to founding A New Way of Life, an organization providing housing and support for formerly incarcerated women with a 94% success rate. Her story illuminates how systemic racism criminalizes Black women's survival strategies while offering a model for healing through love, tolerance, and community care.

• Experiencing the tragic death of her five-year-old son and lacking access to healing resources in South LA
• Discovering the disparity between how addiction is treated in Black communities (prison) versus white communities (treatment)
• Creating A New Way of Life to offer housing, family reunification, workforce development, and time to heal
• Describing prison conditions as dehumanizing systems that strip identity and dignity
• Emphasizing how faith grounds her work as "a vessel for God's work"
• Challenging churches to move beyond judgment to practical support and abolition
• Extending her mission beyond reentry to community mutual aid during crises

Visit anewwayoflife.org to learn more about Susan Burton's work and upcoming events including the Justice on Trial Film Festival on October 4th and their annual gala on December 7th.

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