Watch Video of the Event

 

Defund. Abolish. Reconstruct

 A National Dialogue 

Abolition hosted by LRNA

April 17, 2021

 DEFUND.ABOLISH.RECONSTRUCT-FLYER PDF

Guest

Tifanei Ressl-Moyer is a civil rights attorney whose work supports social justice movements. She is the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Fellow at Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. There she leads her team’s work against violent policing and carceral systems. Tifanei uses strategic litigation, policy advocacy, direct services and organizing on behalf of people of color in Northern California. For example, she litigates cases where people have been targeted and brutalized by police violence, publishes reports on the profound and dangerous impacts of low-level policing, and has designed successful campaigns that compelled multiple California cities to drop charges against protesters after the summer of 2020 uprisings. Previously, Tifanei worked for Disability Rights California where she investigated and litigated cases regarding dangerous conditions of jail, psychiatric institutions, juvenile detention centers, and cases regarding Black people’s access to mental health care in their communities. Tifanei also regularly provides legal support to grassroots abolitionist organizations in her Sacramento community.

Damon A. Williams is a movement builder, organizer, hip-hop performing artist, educator and media maker from the south side of Chicago. He is the co-director of the #LetUsBreathe Collective, an artistic activist organization birthed out of supply trips to support the Ferguson uprising in resistance to the murder of Mike Brown. Williams and #LetUsBreathe transplanted the experiences from the front lines and continue to organize direct actions and community enrichment events throughout the streets of Chicago and in their movement building community center The #BreathingRoom Space, with the mission of utilizing cultural production and popular education to redistribute power and resources, eradicate systemic violence, and transform inequity. In the summer of 2020 Damon co-created the Black Abolitionist and launched #DefundCPD, a mass redistributive campaign aiming to redirect power and resources away from the Chicago Police Department. Damon is also the co-host of AirGo, a radio show and podcast showcasing culture workers reshaping Chicago and beyond for the more equitable and creative.

Brian Kaneda is a founding chapter member of California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) Los Angeles. He has spent the past decade monitoring, challenging and exposing the abusive conditions inside women’s prisons and advocating for the rights of incarcerated people. A tireless fundraiser for prison abolition, Brian’s development work has been widely recognized. Brian became CURB staff in January of 2019 and was selected to join the 2019-2021 SVP Systems Change Accelerator cohort of emerging Los Angeles leaders. In 2020, he joined the steering committee of Re-imagine LA and helped pass Measure J. Brian became CURB’s Deputy Director in 2021 and was elected community co-chair of LA County’s Measure J subcommittee on Health, Mental Health, Behavioral Health & Diversion

Recommended Reading:

From Abolition of Slavery to Abolition of Private Property: African American History and the Liberation of Us All, Rally Comrades

https://rallycomrades.org/2021/01/from-abolition-of-slavery-to-abolition-of-private-property-american-history-and-the-liberation-of-us-all/

Police Terror, Rebellion and Revolution

https://rallycomrades.org/2021/01/police-terror-rebellion-and-revolution/

DEFUND.ABOLISH.RECONSTRUCT-FLYER PDF