The Praxis Center is proud to feature The Lit Review’s weekly interviews conducted by hosts Monica Trinidad and Page May. Every week, the hosts of The Lit Review chat with people they love and respect about relevant books on Black struggle, movement history, gender, cultural organizing, speculative fiction, political theory and more. Sparked by the urgency of November 2016, they recognized that political study is not accessible to many for a variety of reasons, and their hope is that his will make critical knowledge more accessible to the masses. Continue reading →

“Thinking Black” Against the Carceral State: Angela Davis and Prisoner Defense Campaigns

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

By Dan Berger | Black Perspectives

The stirring directive sounded like the denouement of a legal thriller: “I am going to ask you, if you will, for the next few minutes to think Black with me—to BE black,” famed defense attorney Leo Branton instructed an all-white California jury at the outset of his closing statement. “Don’t worry. When the case is over, I am going to let you revert back to the safety of being what you are. You only have to be Black and think Black for the minutes that it will take for me to express to you what it means to be Black in this country.”

Having temporarily empaneled an all-Black jury, Branton then delivered a stirring indictment of antiblack racism, from the Middle Passage to the Fugitive Slave Law, Dred Scott decision, and Jim Crow. Hours into his speech, Branton “relieve[d]” the jury “of that responsibility” of Blackness. Then he read a poem celebrating Black love as a redemptive act. By the time he closed, several jurors had tears in their eyes. Three days later, on June, 4, 1972, Branton’s client was acquitted on all counts: Angela Yvonne Davis was free. Continue reading →

Bresha Is Still Not Free: The Criminal Legal System Fails Another Black Girl

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

By #FreeBresha Campaign

On May 22, 2017, 15 year old Bresha Meadows accepted a plea deal that would reduce the charge against her of aggravated murder to involuntary manslaughter with a gun specification. Bresha, as a part of the plea deal, was sentenced to “a year and one day” in juvenile incarceration, at least six months in a treatment facility, and two years of probation. Essentially, Bresha will be transferred to a private treatment center on July 30th during which doctors will evaluate her and determine if she needs to stay in treatment longer. When Bresha is released from treatment, she will spend two years on probation. Her family is relieved that they will be able to see Bresha and have her home much sooner than expected. The #FreeBresha campaign supports Bresha and her family, and also sees plea deals as coercive, denying people agency and choice under the threat of long-term incarceration, exorbitant fees, and civic death. Below is our statement. –Deana Lewis, #FreeBresha Campaign and Love and Protect Continue reading →

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