"How Are We Going To Build Power To Get What We Want?" - Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba on Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

For this conversation we are honored to welcome Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba back to the podcast. 

This is part 1 of a 2 part conversation on their latest book Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care.

For both of these folks, I’m going to read shorter bios today, and then link to more of their work, because for each of them I could easily spend 10 to 15 minutes just talking about their backgrounds.

Kelly Hayes is a Menominee author, organizer, movement educator and photographer. She is also the host of Truthout's podcast Movement Memos. Kelly is a co-founder of the direct action collective Lifted Voices and the Chicago Light Brigade.

Mariame Kaba is an organizer, educator and curator who is active in movements for racial, gender, and transformative justice. She has founded or co-founded a number of organizations including but not limited to the Chicago Freedom School, Project NIA, We Charge Genocide, and Survived and Punished. She is also the author or co-author of many books and zines including but not limited to No More Police and We Do This ’Til We Free Us.

Both of our guests today are known for their extensive organizing around, writing about, and advocacy of prison-industrial-complex abolition and all that entails as a liberatory horizon and arena of radical organizing.

Much like this conversation, the book is a radical invitation for folks to organize and take action in big and small ways, but most importantly in collective ways. We really appreciated this book and encourage all of our listeners to get a copy. The book is an excellent resource, it’s funny, it’s engaging, and no matter where you are coming from I’m sure you will find it useful for your organizing, activism and radical engagement with others. 

We want to extend our gratitude to Mariame and Kelly for this conversation and part 2 which we will release in a few days, for their organizing and writing and for the many ways that they invite people into abolitionist practice. We will include links to some free companions created for the book as well. These can deepen your study of the book, hopefully collectively, offer reading lists, reading questions and many other really great resources.

This episode marks our first episode of June, we released seven episodes in the month of May. That is only possible because of the support of our listeners. We have been experiencing a lot of folks unable to renew pledges lately on the show, which is understandable during harder financial times. We do want to thank all of the folks who support us on an ongoing basis or for however long they can. And we invite new listeners and those who haven’t become patrons yet to do so. You can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year. We receive no revenue from foundations or advertisers so it is only through the support of our listeners that we are able to bring you conversations like this on a weekly basis and often more frequently than that. Become a patron of the show at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

Links:

Mariame Kaba is currently seeking to raise $50,000 for abortion funds. Support here.

Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care (look to resources heading on middle of page for the free workbook and discussion guide)

The Prison Culture Blog

Movement Memos

Lifted Voices

Survived and Punished

Our first conversation with Mariame Kaba (2019)

Our previous (panel) discussion with Kelly Hayes (2022)