Honoring Malcolm X, Yuri Kochiyama and George Floyd
+ Issue 43 of The Abolitionist
& more
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Malcolm, Yuri, and the Fight for Abolition Now

Dear Comrades,

This May, we at Critical Resistance (CR) honor the revolutionary legacies of Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama—comrades who shared a May 19 birthday and whose lifelong commitment to dismantling racial capitalism, imperialism, and state violence remains urgent and necessary. Their deep political clarity, unwavering internationalism, and cross-racial solidarity remind us that liberation is built collectively—across borders, walls, and generations.

This month also marks five years since police killed George Floyd, whose public execution ignited a global rebellion. Millions rose up to demand defunding of police, an end to racist state violence, and investment in community care during a global pandemic—not cages and control. A culmination of generations of loss, grief, and righteous rage, that rebellion was shaped by decades of organizing and resistance against the daily brutalities of capitalism and the prison industrial complex (PIC).
In the years since, the state has responded with backlash.

Rather than heed the people’s calls, governments have doubled down—expanding police budgets, escalating surveillance, and deepening border violence. Organizers have been targeted, protest criminalized, and repression intensified. Behind prison walls, our comrades face heightened censorship, transfers, solitary confinement, and brutal retaliation.
This is the terrain we are organizing on—
and why abolition must be our guide.
Malcolm taught us that there is no capitalism without racism.
Yuri showed us that solidarity must be lived through action—finding each other across walls and borders and never ceasing to organize with those the system discards. Together, they remind us that liberation is a global project—and that the PIC is one of fascism’s most entrenched frontlines.


Mural in East Austin by Chris Rogers and Thao French
Their intertwined legacies call us to keep building the collective power it will take to realize the world envisioned in the George Floyd uprisings of 2020—a world their lives and struggles helped make imaginable decades earlier, where policing and punishment no longer suppress our dignity, safety, and liberation.

At CR, we carry these legacies forward by building cross-wall power—connecting imprisoned people and outside organizers to strategize, study, create, and resist. Through political education, campaigns, projects, and media, we organize not only to dismantle the PIC, but to build the liberatory structures we need in its place.

Our upcoming issue of The Abolitionist—Issue 43—prints next month and examines censorship and repression. Featuring Mariame Kaba’s “Grounding Thoughts” for the Return to Sender Art Exhibition, the issue explores how the state once failed to censor radical thinkers like Malcolm—and how today, it works overtime to erase those who resist.

Tracing how movements maneuver through repression—from kai lumumba barrow’s surrealist abolitionist art in Gallery of the Streets, to Emily Hobson’s research on peer-led HIV/AIDS education in prisons during the 1980s-1990s, Movimiento de Familias’ organizing against mass imprisonment under the Bukele regime in El Salvador, to research from Prison Policy Initiative with testimonials from imprisoned readers and reprinted work by Orisanmi Burton and Garrett Felber— Issue 43 maps the growing architecture of repression not just to name it, but to equip our movements to outmaneuver it and build worlds beyond its reach.

As we sharpen our analysis and defense, we also prepare for a Cross-Wall Strategy Retreat this August—an invite-only space for inside and outside organizers to share strategy and strengthen our capacity to resist this escalating repression. Held in the spirit of Black August—a tradition started by revolutionary Black prisoners that sharpens study, discipline, and rebellion—this retreat is not a retreat from struggle but a deepening of it, guided by the legacies we honor this month.

PIC abolition is the antidote to fascism. It is how we resist repression, remember our martyrs, mentors, and elders, and rebuild movements capable of transforming everything.

With every campaign, study group, issue of The Abolitionist, and connection we forge across walls, we honor the fire of Malcolm and Yuri, and the global call for change that surged in 2020. These legacies live through our struggle now—until every cage is empty, and every wall dismantled.

With love & rage, for liberation,
—Critical Resistance


** More Announcements
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Sneak a Peek Inside Issue 43 ([link removed]) : Imprisoned Columnist Stevie Wilson Calculates Risks in the Belly of the Beast

After preparing for early release and hoping to come home to a full-time fellowship with CR this spring, Stevie was denied parole as an act of repression for his organizing behind the wall in Pennsylvania.

Read all about it in this early-release article ([link removed]) for Issue 43 on censorship and repression, and subscribe by June 20 ([link removed]) to receive your own copy hot off the press. Match your subscription with a donation to Stevie's fundraiser for 9971 ([link removed]) to support mutual aid resources for imprisoned organizers.
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Fund Cross-wall Strategy: Sponsor CR's Black August Cross-wall Retreat

We’re raising $10,000 by July 5 for the Cross-Wall Strategy & Power Building Retreat—covering travel, food, materials, and mutual aid that fuel our collective resistance. While the retreat is invite-only for select movement partners, anyone can support or sponsor this critical convening. Donate today ([link removed]) and help us spread the word throughout June! Bit.ly/CrosswallFund ([link removed])

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Saturday, June 7 in the Bronx, New York City: Join past & present CRNYC members for "After Accountability"

Pinko Magazine, Take Back the Bronx, and Critical Resistance invite you to join us for a robust discussion of After Accountability, a collection of oral history interviews conducted by members of the Pinko collective after the 2020 uprising on the history and present of the concept of “accountability,” narrated by CR’s own Pilar Maschi, Kim Diehl, and former members Trevor Nicholas, Sache'l Thompson, and Jaime Rivera.

Don’t miss this opportunity for community building and abolitionist regrounding, June 7 from 1-4pm at Andrew Freeman Home in the Bronx. For more information, visit Pinko Magazine’s website here. ([link removed])
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ICE out of Dublin: No new ICE Detention Center in Shuttered Federal Dublin Prison!

Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has signaled serious interest in reopening the notorious FCI Dublin federal prison in Dublin, CA as an immigration detention center - a facility closed last year due to powerful survivor-led organizing following years of horrific staff sexual abuse, retaliation, and medical neglect.

Sign Detention Watch Network's petition ([link removed]) to keep FCI Dublin closed!
Critical Resistance is majority grassroots-funded. Donate today!
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Mural by Leslie “Dime” Lopez at 4400 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA, 2019.
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