Reimagining the Revolution

These are the architects of the modern civil rights movement: 4 profiles of revolutionary groups making change beyond protest

A radically different approach to sustaining social justice movements—4 strategies for abolition and liberation from the new architects of the modern civil rights movement

Many of us think, I don’t support the police. But what should take their place? Or: Prisons don’t keep us safe. But what new systems could?

A lot of books about racial justice ask us how we got here, but Reimagining the Revolution is different: award-winning journalist and activist Paula Lehman-Ewing presents an inside-access look at the activists redefining where we go from here. Readers will hear from:

Ivan Kilgore, an incarcerated activist who founded the 501c3 nonprofit United Black Family Scholarship Foundation from behind prison wallsCritical Resistance, one of the oldest grassroots organizations in the nation working to dismantle the prison-industrial complexThe co-founders of Greenwood, a Black-owned financial technology institution designed specifically for Black and Latino people and businesses: Michael Render, aka Killer Mike, Amb. Andrew Young and Ryan GloverIncarcerated activist Heshima Denham on his grassroots efforts to build a society for Black and Brown people independent of the state The Movement for Black Lives, the Alliance for Safety and Justice, BYP 100, and 8toAbolitionIncarcerated and formerly incarcerated artists using art to heal from trauma, connect with other incarcerated people, and amplify abolitionist change
Lehman-Ewing frames each profile within two fundamental truths: The current system—built and sustained by oppression, extraction, and inequity by design—cannot be reformed. And, knowing this, we need abolition; we need creative solutions designed by the people most impacted by the systems they fight to change. Reimagining the Revolution is a call to action for each of us: if we can access the tools we have, we can dream bigger, think outside the box, and follow the paths laid out by change-making activists toward nothing short of revolution.