Mariame Kaba is an American activist, grassroots organizer, and educator who advocates for theabolition of theprison industrial complex, including allpolice.[1] She is the author ofWe Do This 'Til We Free Us (2021). The Mariame Kaba Papers are held by theChicago Public Library Special Collections.[2]
Mariame Kaba was born inNew York City to immigrant parents.[3] Her mother emigrated from theIvory Coast;[3] her father was involved in the independence struggle inGuinea.[4]
Kaba views prison abolition as the total dismantling of prison and policing while building up community services and opposes the reform of policing.[17][18] Her work has created the framework for current abolitionist organizations including Black Youth Project 100, Black Lives Matter Chicago, andAssata's Daughters.[6] She also helped found the organization Survived and Punished, an abolitionist organization that seeks to end sentencing for victims ofintimate partner violence who defend themselves.[19] This project grew out of efforts to freeMarissa Alexander.[20]
Kaba maintained a blog, "US Prison Culture," beginning in 2010. She has been active on Twitter under the account @prisonculture.[21][22]
In 2012, she wroteResisting Police Violence in Harlem, a historical pamphlet detailing the policing and violence in Harlem.[23]
In March 2018, she wroteLifting As They Climbed: Mapping A History Of Black Women On Chicago’s South Side with Essence McDowell. Started in 2012, the book is written as a guidebook that maps the history of the influential Black women who contributed to the development of Chicago during the 19th and 20th centuries.[24][8]
In 2021, she publishedWe Do This 'Til We Free Us withHaymarket Books. It debuted at number nine onThe New York Times bestseller list for non-fiction paperbacks.[25] In a review for theChicago Reader, Ariel Parrella-Aureli described it as “a collection of talks, interviews, and past work that can serve as an initial primer on the PIC [prison-industrial complex] abolition and community building rooted in transformative justice.”[26] Kaba was reluctant to write the book, but themass protests in the summer of 2020 persuaded her, in the interests of lending her tools for collective action to newly activated organizers.[26]
In 2023, Kaba publishedLet This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care, co-written with fellow organizerKelly Hayes. In the book's introduction, Kaba described it as "one that I wish I had as a young activist. It’s our attempt to distill some of the lessons we’ve learned about organizing over the past few decades and to include some lessons from other organizers. We wrote it with new activists and organizers in mind."[27] The book was recommended by theNew York Times[28] and was reviewed inThe Nation,[29]The Chicago Reader,[30] and elsewhere. The book is named after a tweet of Kaba's that took hold as a slogan on the left: "Let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair."[29]
Co-curatedBlood at the Root – Unearthing the Stories of State Violence Against Black Women and Girls.[51][52][53]
Co-curatedMaking Niggers: Demonizing and Distorting Blackness[54]
Co-curatedBlack/Inside. Black/Inside: A History of Captivity & Confinement in the U.S. Art Exhibit on display at African American Cultural Center Gallery[55]
"To Live and Die in "Chiraq.""The End of Chiraq: A Literary Mixtape. EdsJavon Johnson and Kevin Coval. Northwestern University Press.[56]
"Bresha Meadows Returns Home After Collective Organizing Efforts."Teen Vogue.[57]
"For Mother's Day, Activists Are Bailing Black Mamas out of Jail."Broadly.[58]
Introduction,Trying To Make the Personal Political, with the Women's Action Alliance, Lori Sharpe, Jane Ginsburg and Gail Gordon, and Jacqui Shine. Half-Letter Press. 2017.[59]
Foreword,As Black As Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation, by Zoé Samudzi and William C. Anderson. AK Press. 2018.[60]
Kaba, Mariame; Hassan, Shira (June 18, 2019).Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability Facilitators.Project NIA.
^Samudzi, Zoé; Anderson, William C.; Kaba, Mariame (June 5, 2018).As Black As Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation. Chico, California:AK Press.ISBN9781849353168.
