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Professor Melina Abdullah is a fixture among racial justice activists in Los Angeles, leading Black Lives Matter LA (BLMLA)’s protests and actions from the campus of California State University, Los Angeles. In 2024, she became Cornel West’s choice of vice president for his independent presidential run.

As an outspoken abolitionist of policing and prisons, Abdullah has championed defunding the police using a concrete, practical, and deeply democratic method of participatory budgeting where city residents decide how their tax dollars should be spent.

In a conversation with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali Prof. Abdullah points out how BLMLA is poised to prove that defunding and abolishing police is not impossible. The interview is one of twelve conversations about abolition featured in a new book by Kolhatkar called Talking About Abolition: A Police-Free World is Possible (Seven Stories, 2025).

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