Stories for Power – Details, episodes & analysis

What does transformative justice look like and where did it come from? Join us for a journey across local communities as we explore the last 25 years of building community accountability, transformative justice and abolitionist practice. Through the Stories for Power podcast, hosted by Deana Lewis, we trace the work of some of the architects and radical organizers of this current wave of work. 

This podcast is part of the relaunch of STOP – the StoryTelling & Organizing Project – presented by Creative Interventions and Just Practice Collaborative. STOP collects and shares stories of everyday people, organizations and networks taking action to confront and end domestic and sexual violence through people power – not the power of the state. 

Tune in on April 15th for the official launch of the Stories for Power Podcast!☆

Learn more at StoriesforPower.org

Presented by Creative Interventions and Just Practice Collaborative

Executive Producers — Mimi Kim, Rachel Caïdor & Shira Hassan

Producer, Sound Recordist, and Editor — iLL Weaver for Emergence Media

Host - Deana Lewis

Music Editor and Audio Engineer — Joe Namy

Digital Strategy- Yessica Gonzalez

Graphic Design - And Also Too

Theme song & music composed by — Scale Hands and L05 of Complex Movements in collaboration with Ahya Simone

Stories for Power is supported by Collective Futures Fund and Libra Foundation

Learn more and share your stories at StoriesforPower.org

Welcome to Stories for Power! Creative Interventions and Just Practice Collaborative joined forces to re-launch the StoryTelling & Organizing Project (STOP) project to document and collect histories and stories about how we have been working to respond to violence without the use of prisons, police and other carceral systems. Deana Lewis, our podcast host and Just Practice Collaborative member, speaks with producers Mimi Kim, Rachel Caidor and Shira Hassan to introduce Stories for Power. These abolitionist feminists share how they envisioned and curated the podcast series to document the evolution of community accountability and transformative justice frameworks and local/national strategies since their own origins in the anti-violence movements of the 1980’s and 1990’s. Join us as we talk about some of the critical ideas and juicy parts of the podcast and reflect on over 20+ years of organizing captured in this precious archive of stories and feelings that shape our current abolitionist movement.

List of organizations/historic/current references mentioned in this episode:

Incite! Women & Trans People Against Violence

Critical Resistance

StoryTelling Organizing & Project (STOP)

Stories for Power

Just Practice Collaborative

Creative Interventions

Presented by Creative Interventions and Just Practice Collaborative

Executive Producers — Mimi Kim, Rachel Caïdor & Shira Hassan

Producer, Sound Recordist, and Editor — iLL Weaver for Emergence Media

Host - Deana Lewis

Music Editor and Audio Engineer — Joe Namy

Digital Strategy- Yessica Gonzalez

Graphic Design - And Also Too

Theme song & music composed by — Scale Hands and L05 of Complex Movements in collaboration with Ahya Simone

Stories for Power is supported by Collective Futures Fund and Libra Foundation

Learn more and share your stories at StoriesforPower.org

In this episode, host Deana Lewis talks with micah hobbes frazier and Morgan Bassichis, two trans/nonbinary leaders of the transformative justice/prison abolition movement emerging out of radical organizing in queer/trans spaces in the early to mid-2000’s. micah, in his role at generationFIVE and in the harm reduction movement, and Morgan, formerly at Communities United Against Violence (CUAV), reflect on the centrality of queer/trans justice, racial and economic justice, and prison abolition as anchors to early transformative justice work. In stark contrast to the conservative LGBTQ movement’s embrace of marriage, military inclusion, hate crimes and “pinkwashing” that continue to shape neoliberal discourse, micah and Morgan trace abolitionist BIPOC-led queer/trans organizing back to the radical roots of the Black Panthers and Oakland–based racial and economic justice movement origins.

List of references mentioned in this episode:

Jewish Voice for Peace

Communities United Against Violence (CUAV)

Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project

Critical Resistance

Justice Now

Living Room Project

generationFIVE

White Night riots

Transforming Justice Conference

US Social Forum - Detroit (2010)

US Social Forum - Atlanta (2007)

Black Panthers (Archive)

Audre Lorde Project - Safe Outside the System (SOS)

StoryTelling Organizing & Project (STOP)

Pinkwashing

Mohammad el-Kurd

Dean Spade

Presented by Creative Interventions and Just Practice Collaborative

Executive Producers — Mimi Kim, Rachel Caïdor & Shira Hassan

Producer, Sound Recordist, and Editor — iLL Weaver for Emergence Media

Host - Deana Lewis

Music Editor and Audio Engineer — Joe Namy

Digital Strategy- Yessica Gonzalez

Graphic Design - And Also Too

Theme song & music composed by — Scale Hands and L05 of Complex Movements in collaboration with Ahya Simone

Stories for Power is supported by Collective Futures Fund and Libra Foundation

Learn more and share your stories at StoriesforPower.org

Host Deana Lewis speaks with abolitionist feminists kai lumumba barrow, Paula X. Rojas, and Ejeris Dixon about organizing in New York City during the late 90’s and early to mid 2000’s. Their work to end police violence was spurred by police murders of Black and Brown people in New York City, sexual violence by police that targeted young people in Brooklyn, and anti-queer and transphobic violence throughout the city. Their projects ~ Sista II Sista, Critical Resistance NYC, Safe Outside the System, and the creation of Harm-Free Zones ~ built transformative justice and community accountability organizing at the local level to forge collective strategies that went on to shape the course of our abolitionist movement.

List of organizations/historic/current references mentioned in this episode:

Incite! Women & Trans People Against Violence

Critical Resistance

Audre Lorde Project and SOS Collective

Harm Free Zone

Vision Change Win

This amazing newsletter from 2004 has many projects from community based organizers in New York City including: Sista II Sista, FIERCE, Community Voices Heard, DRUM and more!

Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM)

El Puente Academy for Peace & Justice

Presented by Creative Interventions and Just Practice Collaborative

Executive Producers — Mimi Kim, Rachel Caïdor & Shira Hassan

Producer, Sound Recordist, and Editor — iLL Weaver for Emergence Media

Host - Deana Lewis

Music Editor and Audio Engineer — Joe Namy

Digital Strategy- Yessica Gonzalez

Graphic Design - And Also Too

Theme song & music composed by — Scale Hands and L05 of Complex Movements in collaboration with Ahya Simone

Stories for Power is supported by Collective Futures Fund and Libra Foundation

Learn more and share your stories at StoriesforPower.org

In this episode, our host Deana Lewis, speaks with three Black feminist abolitionist organizers from Durham’s SpiritHouse. Nia Wilson, Mya Hunter and Alexis Pauline Gumbs discuss the Black and Brown survivor led group they formed called Ubuntu as a response to the Duke lacrosse rape case that led to the creation of one of the first Harm-Free Zones in the country. Their work as artists, educators and cultural organizers prompted a culture of care and community and fierce organizing that changed the way we understand and practice abolition today.

List of references mentioned in this episode:

Incite! Women & Trans People Against Violence

Critical Resistance

Ubuntu

Spirit House

Duke Lacrosse Case

National Day of Truth Telling

Read about Harm Free Zones from Critical Resistance and watch this short video on Harm Free Zone history from Spirit House

Presented by Creative Interventions and Just Practice Collaborative

Executive Producers — Mimi Kim, Rachel Caïdor & Shira Hassan

Producer, Sound Recordist, and Editor — iLL Weaver for Emergence Media

Host - Deana Lewis

Music Editor and Audio Engineer — Joe Namy

Digital Strategy- Yessica Gonzalez

Graphic Design - And Also Too

Theme song & music composed by — Scale Hands and L05 of Complex Movements in collaboration with Ahya Simone

Stories for Power is supported by Collective Futures Fund and Libra Foundation

Learn more and share your stories at StoriesforPower.org

Deana Lewis chats with Beth Richie and Alisa Bierria about the historical context and motivations behind their influential books that have been informed by and inform abolition feminism. Emphasizing practice as a lead to theory, both authors discuss the importance of their decades long on-the-ground work in the anti-violence movement, the struggle against anti-Black racism and the defense of criminalized survivors as a long arc towards freedom. They also reflect on their shared grounding in faith as necessary to remaining steady along the ever-changing pathway to liberation. 

List of references mentioned in this episode

Incite! Women & Trans People Against Violence

Critical Resistance

Arrested Justice

Abolition. Feminism. Now. 

Compelled to Crime

Abolition Feminisms Vol. 1 

Abolition Feminisms Vol. 2

Social Justice: Special Issue: Reimagining Community Accountability in Theory and Practice, 37(4) by Rojas Durazo, A., Bierria, A., & Kim, M. (2010). 

Presented by Creative Interventions and Just Practice Collaborative

Executive Producers — Mimi Kim, Rachel Caïdor & Shira Hassan

Producer, Sound Recordist, and Editor — iLL Weaver for Emergence Media

Host - Deana Lewis

Music Editor and Audio Engineer — Joe Namy

Digital Strategy- Yessica Gonzalez

Graphic Design - And Also Too

Theme song & music composed by — Scale Hands and L05 of Complex Movements in collaboration with Ahya Simone

Stories for Power is supported by Collective Futures Fund and Libra Foundation

Learn more and share your stories at StoriesforPower.org

Deana Lewis talks with Valli Kalei Kanuha, Mimi Kim and Andrea Ritchie, whose entry into the feminist of color movement spans the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s. Together, they weave a long view of the abolitionist feminist movement that crosses generations, geographic expanses from Hawaii to Minnesota to Toronto and movements including HIV AIDS, anti-imperialist/Third World feminism, anti-police violence, and trans and queer justice spaces. They discuss the importance of Critical Resistance and INCITE! which provided  collective homes for radical abolitionist feminist of color organizing, joining seemingly isolated and disconnected political trajectories into a powerful force that has evolved into today’s abolitionist movement.

List of references mentioned in this episode:

Incite! Women & Trans People Against Violence

Critical Resistance

Gay Men’s Health Crisis 

Roger McFarland 

Larry Kramer

ACT UP

Community Accountability within the Progressive POC Movement 

Ejeris Dixon 

Safe Outside the System

Morgan Bassichis 

Community United Against Violence

Young Women’s Empowerment Project

Nadine Naber 

Paula Rojas

kai lumumba barrow

Presented by Creative Interventions and Just Practice Collaborative

Executive Producers — Mimi Kim, Rachel Caïdor & Shira Hassan

Producer, Sound Recordist, and Editor — iLL Weaver for Emergence Media

Host - Deana Lewis

Music Editor and Audio Engineer — Joe Namy

Digital Strategy- Yessica Gonzalez

Graphic Design - And Also Too

Theme song & music composed by — Scale Hands and L05 of Complex Movements in collaboration with Ahya Simone

Stories for Power is supported by Collective Futures Fund and Libra Foundation

Learn more and share your stories at StoriesforPower.org

Deana Lewis talks with Mariame Kaba, Erica Meiners, and Shira Hassan - three abolitionist feminists who discuss the work they created and built in Chicago from the early 2000’s through the early 2010’s. They reflect on their path from witnessing the failures of the mainstream anti-violence movement especially for survivors, young people, formerly incarcerated people and sex workers – to experimenting and documenting their work in what became known as community accountability processes, transformative justice and abolitionist organizing. They talk about their relationships and how their solidarity and partnership fed their ability to experiment, find joy in the grief and ultimately create spaces and strategies for people to stay as safe as possible.

List of references mentioned in this episode:

Incite! Women & Trans People Against Violence, Critical Resistance, Roger’s Park Women’s Action Team (YWAT), Young Women’s Empowerment Project (YWEP), Project NIA, Just Practice Collaborative, Claudine O’Leary, Laura Janine Mintz, New York Peer AIDS Education Coalition & Edith Springer, Kelly McGowan, We Charge Genocide, Chicago Freedom School, Chicago Taskforce on Violence Against Girls & Young Women, Love and Protect, Interrupting Criminalization, People Leftist Library Project, Between Friends, Illinois Deaths in Custody Project, Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project, Education for Liberation Network, (more show notes at StoriesforPower.org) 

Presented by Creative Interventions and Just Practice Collaborative

Executive Producers — Mimi Kim, Rachel Caïdor & Shira Hassan

Producer, Sound Recordist, and Editor — iLL Weaver for Emergence Media

Host - Deana Lewis

Music Editor and Audio Engineer — Joe Namy

Digital Strategy- Yessica Gonzalez

Graphic Design - And Also Too

Theme song & music composed by — Scale Hands and L05 of Complex Movements in collaboration with Ahya Simone

Stories for Power is supported by Collective Futures Fund and Libra Foundation

Learn more and share your stories at StoriesforPower.org

Our host, Deana Lewis, chats with Theryn Kigvamasudvashti, Kiyomi Fujikawa and Shannon Perez-Darby whose early community accountability work in Seattle rippled throughout the country. Their feminist abolitionist work inside and outside the evolving local domestic and sexual violence non-profit context in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s innovated so much of what we still use today. They discuss the critical work from Black-led, survivor-led, punk and queer and trans communities to create the many iconic projects such as Communities Against Rape and Assault (CARA) and API Chaya that were born during this critical era and that together dismantled the foundations of rape culture.

List of references mentioned in this episode:

Communities Agaisnt Rape and Abuse (CARA), Alisa Bierria, Eliaichi Kimaro, Incite! Women & Trans People Against Violence, Critical Resistance, African American Task Force Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment, Sista II Sista, Sister Song, Xandra Ibarra, For Crying Out Loud, Accountable Communities Consortium, Northwest Network, Seattle Rape Relief, API Chaya, Mia Zapata and The Gits, Home Alive, Girl We Got You, Collective Justice, Incite Diagram on Community Accountability (see more at StoriesforPower.org)

Presented by Creative Interventions and Just Practice Collaborative

Executive Producers — Mimi Kim, Rachel Caïdor & Shira Hassan

Producer, Sound Recordist, and Editor — iLL Weaver for Emergence Media

Host - Deana Lewis

Music Editor and Audio Engineer — Joe Namy

Digital Strategy- Yessica Gonzalez

Graphic Design - And Also Too

Theme song & music composed by — Scale Hands and L05 of Complex Movements in collaboration with Ahya Simone

Stories for Power is supported by Collective Futures Fund and Libra Foundation

Learn more and share your stories at StoriesforPower.org

Join our host Deana Lewis as she interviews Esteban Kelly and Jenna Peters-Golden who were core collective members of Philly Stands Up that worked to restore trust and justice within the Philadelphia punk community starting in the early 2000’s. Philly Stands Up developed essential frameworks and practices for supporting accountability and change for people who cause harm while also supporting survivors in their rage and healing via Philly’s Pissed. They talk about how their close knit queer and trans community impacted the larger activist world and supported the long term work to end sexual violence throughout the city and beyond.

List of references mentioned in this episode:

Food Not Bombs 

Young Women’s Empowerment Project (YWEP) 

Prometheus Radio

Philly’s PISSED

Cristy Road

Philly Stands UP

Presented by Creative Interventions and Just Practice Collaborative

Executive Producers — Mimi Kim, Rachel Caïdor & Shira Hassan

Producer, Sound Recordist, and Editor — iLL Weaver for Emergence Media

Host - Deana Lewis

Music Editor and Audio Engineer — Joe Namy

Digital Strategy- Yessica Gonzalez

Graphic Design - And Also Too

Theme song & music composed by — Scale Hands and L05 of Complex Movements in collaboration with Ahya Simone

Stories for Power is supported by Collective Futures Fund and Libra Foundation

Learn more and share your stories at StoriesforPower.org