Our guest today is lawyer, writer, activist, organizer, and author Derecka Purnell. Derecka joins us to discuss her forthcoming debut book, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom out October 5th. Our conversation is an inspiring discussion of the questions surrounding police abolition, the power of our imagination, and the books that have informed much of Derecka’s thinking.

The Stacks Book Club selection for September is Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson. We will discuss the book with Derecka Purnell on Wednesday September 29th.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find everything we talked about on Amazon.

Books

• Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell
• Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson
• Maya Angelou
• Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
• Columbine by Dave Cullen
• Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala 
• Paradise by Lizzie Johnson
• All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstien and Bob Woodward
• Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge

• Freedom Dreams by Robin D. G. Kelley
• Breathe by Imani Perry
• Decarcerating America by Ernest Drucker
• The Kidnapping Club by Jonathan Daniel Wells 
• Mariame Kaba
• Andrea J. Ritchie
• Change Everything by Ruth Wilson Gilmore
• Haymarket Books
• Violent Order by David Correia and Tyler Wall
• The Three Mothers by Anna Malaika Tubbbs
• America on Fire by Elizabeth Hinton
• Jesmyn Ward
• Sankofa (Washington DC)
• Red Emma’s (Baltimore, MD)
• Charm City Books (Baltimore, MD)
• Left Bank Books (St. Louis, MO)
• Trident Booksellers & Cafe (Boston, MA)
• Bolerium Books (San Francisco, CA)
• Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
• My Story as a Jena 6 by Bryant Ray Purvis 
• The Coldest Winter Ever by Sista Souljah
• Vengeance by Zane
• The Broken Heart of America by Walter Johnson
• Life in the Struggle by George Lipsitz
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor 

Everything Else

• The Stacks Patreon
• Derecka’s Column at the Guardian (The Guardian)
• Fred Moten
• Stefano Harney
• Dream Defenders
• “Bill Cosby is a free man after Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturns sex assault conviction” (Ray Sanchez, Sonia Moghe and Kristina Sgueglia, CNN)
• Suboptimal Pods
• Yo, Is this Racist (Andrew Ti, Tawny Newsome)
• The Impossible (J.A. Bayona, 2012)
• Naomi Watts
• “The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years” (The New York Times)
• The Camp Fire
• Richard Nixon
• “Ep. 4 Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward — The Stacks Book Club (Sarah Fong)” (The Stacks)
• “Ep. 122 Breathe by Imani Perry — The Stacks Book Club (Kiese Laymon)” (The Stacks)
• “Ep. 34 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison — The Stacks Book Club (Renée Hicks)” (The Stacks)
• By the Book (The New York Times)

Connect with Derecka: Twitter | Instagram | Website

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