Rememory

Short Story SummarySet in a future world where those who believe in liberation have set up autonomous zones across the United States, teen Ayo contemplates her place in this society without prisons and police. While her chosen sibling Essakai is fighting to free more territories, Ayo decides to journey into the Rememory, the collective consciousness of past Black liberation movements, to find out what her role in creating these new just worlds should be.Foreword to Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Memories of Abolition Day There are times when our lived reality feels stranger than science fiction - a viral pandemic, an economic crisis, global conflicts on multiple frontlines, the rise of white supremacist racism, a wave of state violence against Black bodies, the fiery uprisings across the nation, and militarized guards deployed in response… It was the Red Summer of 1919. Barely past 100 years later, it is as if we are quarantined in a time loop. As Black organizers call to divest, defund and abolish the police state - they have recast their roles from movement builders into worldbuilders. At a time when we need a big vision to show what is abundantly possible for liberation - Black creatives, writers and culture creators pave the way, setting the course for the investments, policy and ultimately the more free and just world we want to live in. In the tradition of Black Freedom Beyond Borders,1 Wakanda Dream Lab and PolicyLink collaborated on the Speculative Writer’s Room for Abolitionist Futures inviting 10 Black writers to imagine a world 100 years liberated from mass incarceration and generate immersive abolitionist stories across time, place, and communities. These stories are compiled into this digital anthology, Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Memories of Abolition Day. The anthology sets a vision and a marker for PolicyLinksupported campaigns that are underway today to reimagine safety and restore resources to communities, including the People’s Coalition for Safety and Freedom—working to dismantle the harmful provisions of the 1994 Crime Bill— and Freedom Labs—supporting local organizers who are advocating to divest funding from the criminal-legal system and invest those resources directly in their communities. These surreal times call for visionary fiction. These stories not only explore Black Freedom beyond the borders of the prison, police and surveillance state - but also beyond the borders of time. We are being called to dream of liberated futures while also remembering, and repairing, our collective past. We are honoring the Fallen whose names we sing as hymns. We are dreaming the wildest dreams to gift our future beloveds. We are claiming the hard-won victories for new truths to emerge. We are celebrating Abolition Day! Because just like the protest chant echoing in our streets: “I. Believe. That. We Will. Win!” -- Calvin Williams | Impact Producer | Wakanda Dream La

Why Aren’t There More Black People in Oregon? A Hidden History

Why aren’t there more Black people in Oregon? That’s the provocative question Imarisha poses – and then proceeds to answer. Start with the state’s original constitution, which banned blacks from living here. The law was repealed in the 1920s, but the language remained in the constitution until voters finally excised it in 2002. Oregon’s continued difficulty with welcoming communities of color stems from this history and has become ingrained in the state’s economic and social structures, says Imarisha, who teaches Black Studies at PSU.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/pdxtalks/1004/thumbnail.jp

Foreword: Sycorax’s Daughters

Foreword in the book, Sycorax’s Daughters

Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements

Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing visionary fiction. Organizers and activists envision, and try to create, such worlds all the time. This book brings twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia\u27s Brood span genres--sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism--but all are united by an attempt to experiment with new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be. The collection is rounded off with essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a foreword by Sheree Renée Thomas. Contents:Revolution shuffle / Bao Phi -- The token superhero / David F. Walker -- the river / adrienne maree brown -- Evidence / Alexis Pauline Gumbs -- Black angel / Walidah Imarisha -- The long memory / Morrigan Phillips -- Small and bright / Autumn Brown -- In spite of darkness / Alixa Garcia -- Hollow / Mia Mingus -- Lalibela / Gabriel Teodros -- Little brown mouse / Tunde Olaniran -- Sanford and sun / Dawolu Jabari Anderson -- Runway blackout / Tara Betts -- Kafka\u27s last laugh / Vagabond -- 22XX : one-shot / Jelani Wilson -- Manhunters / Kalamu ya Salaam -- Aftermath / LeVar Burton -- Fire on the mountain / Terry Bisson -- Homing instinct / Dani McClain -- children who fly / Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha -- Star Wars and the American imagination / Mumia Abu-Jamal -- The only lasting truth / Tananarive Due -- Outro / adrienne maree brown

How Oregon’s Racist History Can Sharpen Our Sense of Justice Right Now

Writer Walidah Imarisha on eight years of talking about the brutal history of race in Oregon. Name a small town in Oregon. I have most likely been there, talking about race. For the past eight years, starting as part of Oregon Humanities’ Conversation Project, I’ve stood in front of thousands of attendees in packed libraries, community centers, senior homes, college campuses, and prisons. I’ve seen it all: multiple people arguing the Ku Klux Klan was and remains a “civic organization,” chiding me for focusing solely on the “negatives” while adamantly denying they support racism or are themselves racist. I’ve received death threats and seen physical disruptions from white supremacists in Oregon towns large and small. And in my travels, I’ve used history as an organizing catalyst, and worked with social justice groups for positive change, from city hall resolutions to curriculum overhauls to ballot measures

Literature and Performance Showcase, Part 4 of 8

Reading/Performanc

Scars/Stars

In her book Beloved, Toni Morrison describes the whip scars on a former slave’s back as a tree sprouting from her flesh. Walidah Imarisha’s first poetic collection Scars/Stars invokes this same process of alchemy, transforming both individual and collective scars into North Stars, guideposts that center us and keep us moving in the right direction. Scars/Stars reminds us that even in ravaged earth, something beautiful can still grow

Octavia E. Butler, Visionary Fiction, and Social Change

This is the recording of an online event held by Deschutes Public Library. Walidah Imarisha explores the connection between visionary fiction and social justice movements. Writer and educator Walidah Imarisha will explore the idea of visionary fiction, fantastical art that aids in imagining and building new just futures. She will do so engaging with the work of Octavia E. Butler, renowned Black feminist science fiction writer and public intellectual. Connecting science fiction to social change, Imarisha will show the necessity of imagination to change the world