How Black people fought for dignity from behind the bars at 201 Poplar Photo illustration by Andrea Morales for MLK50. The image in the frame is cropped from a 1981 Memphis Press-Scimitar newspaper clipping showing the first inmates arriving at the Shelby County Crimi…

In celebration of Black August, revisit the first 10 years of our Downtown jail — and the struggle to make it humane

[W4G] [05/20/25] PRE-RELEASE Franklin, Kamau, Micah Herskind, Mariah Parker (eds): No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement Haymarket Books, paperback Publication Date: May 20, 2025 Publisher Marketing: A collection of essays from the Stop Cop City movement on the fight for police abolition and for a liveable planet for al...

No Cop City, No Cop World is officially out today :) it was a massive collective effort, not to give a definitive account of a movement that could never be fully captured in a book, but to document tactics tried, lessons learned, & successes & failures.

Order supports @workshops4gaza.bsky.social:

Thanks for reading! 🙏🏾

Who is the “Us” in “Not Like Us”? – Scalawag Within a cultural landscape that consumes everything, scrubbing away context in the process, anyone can be “us.”

Scalawag in their bag on this one. It’s been tough parsing the obvious politics of today’s hip hop with the pure PLEASURE of the Kendrick & Drake beef but no sacred cows and all that

scalawagmagazine.org/2025/05/who-...

Who is the “Us” in “Not Like Us”? – Scalawag Within a cultural landscape that consumes everything, scrubbing away context in the process, anyone can be “us.”

I wrote some reflections on the biggest rap song of the past year—and the political landscape that let it become anything to anyone. Check it out over at Scalawag! scalawagmagazine.org/2025/05/who-...

When Fire Is the Only Way Out - Inquest At a far-flung prison in Virginia, conditions are so inhumane that those imprisoned there are setting themselves ablaze in protest—and to assert their humanity.

At a remote prison in Virginia, a number of incarcerated people are resorting to an extreme form of protest: they're setting themselves on fire. Jennifer Black and Noel Hanrahan of @prisonradio.bsky.social on what's driving these men to assert their humanity this way.

Mike Explains His Credit Card Statement The New York indie-rap titan talks through recent purchases, including weed, $2000 glasses, and a wild night at a Tokyo strip club.

spoke to MIKE about spending $$$ on Chrome Hearts glasses, panther suits, and Japanese strip clubs for our Credit History series at @hearingthingsco.bsky.social

Jailing the homeless: New data shed light on unhoused people in local jails Our analysis of Jail Data Initiative data confirms the troubling practice of shuffling unhoused people into jails, at enormous moral and fiscal cost.

After analyzing data from our collab with Jail Data Initiative, "We find that people booked into jail who were marked as unhoused at intake are held for longer than average, while being handed some of the lowest-level charges like trespassing or petty theft"
www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2025/02...

The Union of Southern Service Workers can’t be crushed Low-wage workers at the Union of Southern Service Workers’ summit are ready to go up against their employers, racist labor laws, and Trump

Low-wage workers at the @raiseupthesouth.bsky.social's summit are ready to go toe-to-toe against their employers, racist labor laws, & the Trump administration. In a dispatch from Greensboro, North Carolina, @tinavasquez.bsky.social reports on how this union can’t be crushed in the South.

The sanitation workers’ strike without a name Near the end of the 19th century, Memphis found itself in an unenviable position. A series of yellow fever outbreaks had killed thousands of residents and caused tens of thousands more to flee the …

In 1919, Black garbage collectors and street cleaners in Memphis went on strike for higher wages—almost half a century before MLK came to town. I’ll be at @mlk50memphis.bsky.social telling labor stories throughout Black History Month! mlk50.com/2025/02/04/t...

The sanitation workers’ strike without a name Near the end of the 19th century, Memphis found itself in an unenviable position. A series of yellow fever outbreaks had killed thousands of residents and caused tens of thousands more to flee the …

The 1968 sanitation strike was not the first time Memphis' sanitation workers walked off the job to demand better wages. For Black History Month, we looked at the strike that Memphis forgot:

"Soul-Folk": A conversation with Ashawnta Jackson Charles talks to the author of a new book on the genre

New at No Fences Review: Ashawnta Jackson on her fantastic new book. "We’re surrounded by ghosts all of the time, and sometimes music lets us hear them...One of the reasons I wanted to write this book was to let those voices of the past speak again." Don't miss this one. Please share and subscribe.

My latest, ICYMI! 👇🏾

Whole Foods Workers in Philadelphia Vote to Form Chain’s First Union (Gift Article) The union win comes as Amazon, which owns the grocery chain, is also fighting labor organizing in its warehouse and delivery businesses.

Workers at a Whole Foods in Philadelphia just voted to become the first unionized store in Amazon’s grocery chain

a relevant starter pack:

go.bsky.app/2Fq4P6e

Sexyy Red / Bruno Mars: “Fat Juicy & Wet” Even Sexyy Red’s signature raunch can’t save this.

A collab that’ll make you shut your laptop and sit in silence

So, are we not going to get advisories about recalls related to salmonella etc?

That sounds like a bad time (all of this is bad obviously)

This Rap Song Is for Anyone Who’s Ever Had a Neighbor From Hell On “Zugzwang,” underground rappers Miles Cooke and Defcee tell their building mates how they really feel.

On "zugzwang," rappers Miles Cooke and Defcee laugh about their horrible neighbors since they can't, y'know, shoot them into space

The play that Trump just pulled, making himself look like the savior of TikTok when he's been its foremost opponent, reminds me of what he did when he put his name on the stimulus checks. Don't underestimate the ability of moves like this to trick people.

Can Free Public Transit Eliminate the Need for Police? Activists are calling for New York City’s subway system to be fully funded and police-free.

Free public transit has become an abolitionist demand in NYC, but the path to get there is full of barriers. I explored this debate for YES! Magazine—check it out here: www.yesmagazine.org/social-justi...

You’re too kind 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

Cop City, Gentrification, and Young Thug: Atlanta's uneven war over greenspace in 'The City of the Forest' The ongoing YSL trial that swept up a suite of Atlanta rappers from Young Thug to Gunna reveals how gentrification under the guise of urban renewal and the police state sustain each other.

One of my best friends @ankhdelillo.bsky.social wrote a fantastic article connecting that trial to the persecution of Cop City opponents.
scalawagmagazine.org/2023/02/cop-...

The Conceptual House Album That Tells the Bittersweet Story of Newark’s Post-Civil Rights Era The New Jersey trio Blaze’s singular 1990 record ‘25 Years Later’ wrestles with the unfulfilled promises of Black liberation.

Blaze's 1990 album 𝟤𝟧 𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘓𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 captures the nuances of Newark’s distinct take on house within a strikingly ambitious concept—using the sound and style of Newark’s nightclubs to ask complex questions about the end of the Civil Rights Movement

A Political History of the NFL Jersey In its design and symbolism as much as its materials and production, the NFL jersey is an artifact of an industrial society shaped by racism and capitalism.

New essay out with Strange Matters! I look at the NFL’s deep political tensions through the design, production, and culture of football jerseys. strangematters.coop/a-political-...