This is the first episode of  our new series titled “Over the Wall: The Abolitionist Hour with Critical Resistance.”

This will be a regular series on Beyond Prisons, hosted by members of Critical Resistance’s The Abolitionist Editorial Collective, in which they will discuss articles and key interventions made by Critical Resistance’s cross-wall, bilingual newspaper, The Abolitionist. The first episode of this series focuses on Issue 39 of The Abolitionist and is titled, “Beyond Abortion: Reproductive Justice and Abolitionist Struggle.” 

This episode is hosted by Molly Porzig and Dylan Brown, and discusses why reproductive justice is an essential field of struggle for prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition. Together, they analyze the political conditions shaping the struggle for PIC abolition and reproductive justice in this moment, discuss core points made by various articles in the issue, and weave in follow-up interviews with contributors from the latest issue of the newspaper—including Ash Williams, Moonlight Pulido, Targol Mesbah, and imprisoned columnist for The Abolitionist, Stevie Wilson. 

To learn more, make sure to check out Critical Resistance’s upcoming webinar this Thursday, September 21, “Our Bodies, Our Freedom: Abolishing the Prison Industrial Complex Post-Roe,” and register at bit.ly/OurBodies9-21  

Dylan Brown is a 24 year old Black organizer and educator based in New York City, and has been a member of Critical Resistance since 2020. As a member of the New York City chapter of Critical Resistance, Dylan is organizing within the Abolish ICE New York/New Jersey Coalition on their current NY Dignity Not Detention campaign, which seeks to  build power to end immigrant detention throughout NY State. For the past three years, Dylan has been an editor for The Abolitionist Newspaper. 

Molly Porzig is a Bay Area based organizer and educator in California with nearly 20 years of organizing experience with Critical Resistance (CR). Molly first became a member of CR in 2006 as a transitional-aged youth with experience in the juvenile system and systems-impacted youth-based, queer, and women-led anti-violence organizations. On behalf of CR, Molly has organized in Stop the Injunctions Coalition against the use of gang injunctions, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition against solitary confinement, No New SF Jail coalition to close a county jail in downtown San Francisco, Plan for a Safer Oakland in partnership with All of Us or None, the CR 10th Anniversary Conference organizing committee, the StoryTelling and Organizing Project with Creative Interventions, and more. In 2020, Molly joined CR’s national staff as CR’s National Media & Communications Manager, as well as the organization’s project manager of its cross-wall bilingual newspaper, The Abolitionist.

Follow Critical Resistance on Twitter at @C_Resistance

Music Credits

Taste of Freedom by Steven Beddall

I Wish - drum loop by Artlist Original

Special thanks to Freedom Archives for the clip of Assata Shakur

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