note: this event is included on the NENJP calendar because there is historical (and renewed) solidarity between civil rights movements in the U.S. and the movement for justice for Palestine and justice for all indigenous peoples.
The Decarcerate Western Mass November Bail Fund Book Club will be on Saturday, November 23rd from 3-4:30 PM in the Watson Room at Forbes Library! (20 West Street, Northampton MA)
We’ll be discussing “Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt” by Orisanmi Burton!
From the publisher: “Tip of the Spear boldly and compellingly argues that prisons are a domain of hidden warfare within US borders. With this book, Orisanmi Burton explores what he terms the Long Attica Revolt, a criminalized tradition of Black radicalism that propelled rebellions in New York prisons during the 1970s. The reaction to this revolt illuminates what Burton calls prison pacification: the coordinated tactics of violence, isolation, sexual terror, propaganda, reform, and white supremacist science and technology that state actors use to eliminate Black resistance within and beyond prison walls. Burton goes beyond the state records that other histories have relied on for the story of Attica and expands that archive, drawing on oral history and applying Black radical theory in ways that center the intellectual and political goals of the incarcerated people who led the struggle. Packed with little-known insights from the prison movement, the Black Panther Party, and the Black Liberation Army, Tip of the Spear promises to transform our understanding of prisons—not only as sites of race war and class war, of counterinsurgency and genocide, but also as sources of defiant Black life, revolutionary consciousness, and abolitionist possibility.”
RSVP here November Bail Fund Book Club: “Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt” — Western Mass Bailout Project, and use the message space to let us know about any accessibility needs. We will meet in person and virtually. The link to the virtual meeting will be sent to the email you provide with your RSVP.
Masks are provided and required for the in-person meeting to keep everyone safe. 😷 We hope to see you there!
Please consider purchasing the book as part of our monthly donation program: sign up for a monthly donation of $25+, and receive the books directly from our partner Massive Bookshop.
Instagram post: Instagram / @decarwmass