Making Worlds Book Launch and Discussion: Assata Taught Me with Donna Murch

Join us for a book launch and discussion of Assata Taught Me with author Donna Murch, Koren Martin, Chenjerai Kumanyika, and Christina Jackson. Black Panther and Cuban exile Assata Shakur has inspired generations of radical protest, including the contemporary movement for Black lives. Drawing its title from one of America's foremost revolutionaries, this collection of thought-provoking essays by award-winning Panther scholar Donna Murch explores how social protest is challenging our current system of state violence and mass incarceration.

Murch exposes the devastating consequences of overlapping punishment campaigns against gangs, drugs, and crime on poor and working-class populations of color. Through largely hidden channels, these punishment campaigns generate enormous revenues for the state. Under such conditions, organized resistance to the advancing tide of state violence and mass incarceration has proven difficult.

This timely and urgent book shows how a youth-led political movement has emerged in recent years to challenge the bipartisan consensus on punishment and looks to the future through a redistributive, queer, and feminist lens. Murch frames the contemporary movement in relation to earlier struggles for Black Liberation, while excavating the origins of mass incarceration and the political economy that drives it.

Donna will be in conversation with Koren Martin, Chenjerai Kumanyika, and Christina Jackson.

Please note: this is an in-person event at Making Worlds Bookstore and Social Center. See below for registration requirements and livestream options.

Registration is free but required in advance.

Donna Murch is an Associate Professor of History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and sits on the Executive Council of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT.She is the author of Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California (University of North Carolina Press).

Koren Martin is a Philadelphia-based photographer originally from Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her work is a mixture of candid portraiture and immersive documentary photography. She has passion for highlighting the beauty and strength of the African diaspora. Her current photo series, “Birthing the Resistance,” is a celebration of Black mothers who are involved in activism. She received honorable mention in MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora, a biannual journal committed to establishing and representing a collective voice of women photographers of African descent. Her work has been exhibited in Photoville 2018, Your Art Gallery, The Black Joy Archive (2020), and the PPAC-Everyone of Us Campaign (2020).

Chenjerai Kumanyika is a researcher, journalist, and organizer who works as an assistant professor in Rutgers University’s Department of Journalism and Media Studies. His research and teaching focus on the intersections of social justice and emerging media in the cultural and creative industries. He has written about these issues in journals such as Popular Music & Society, Popular Communication, The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture and Technology, and Pedagogy and Education. Dr. Kumanyika is also the Collaborator for Scene on Radio's Season 2 "Seeing White" and Season 4 on the history of American Democracy he is the Co-Executive Producer and Co-Host of Uncivil, Gimlet Media’s Peabody award-winning podcast on the Civil War. He has also been a contributor to The Intercept, Scene on Radio, Transom, NPR Codeswitch, All Things Considered, Invisibilia, and VICE, and he is a news analyst for Rising Up Radio with Sonali Kolhatkar. As an organizer, Chenjerai is on the executive committee of 215 People's Alliance, and a member of the Philadelphia Debt Collective and the Media Inequality and Change Center.

Christina Jackson is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Sociology and Anthropology program at Stockton University in Galloway, NJ. Christina resides and was raised in Philadelphia, PA. She specializes in urban sociology and inequality from an intersectional and interdisciplinary perspective. She is the coauthor of Embodied Difference: Divergent Bodies in Public Discourse (Lexington Books) and Black in America: The Paradox of the Color Line (Polity Inc). She is also the producer of the documentary, The Philadelphia Clef Club : A Continuing Legacy. She is on the board of the West Philadelphia Coalition for Neighborhood Schools.

IN-PERSON EVENTS

Please note, out of concern for everyone’s well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic, we require proof of vaccination for entry to all in-person events. Attendees are asked to wear masks at all times. Advance registration via eventbrite is required for all events, so we can plan for attendance and gather safely. 

Event registrations will be honored until 15 mins after start time of the event; afterwards, availability will be on a first-come basis. 

LIVESTREAMING

Whenever possible, we offer livestream recordings of our events, graciously hosted by Common Notions Press on their YouTube channel. Feel free to subscribe to that channel and spread the word!

The livestream typically starts 15 mins after the listed start-time of the event.

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Note: there are ample opportunities to receive a free COVID-19 test, vaccine, or booster in most neighborhoods, at walk-in clinics or by appointment. All of the COVID-19 vaccines are free. They are available to anyone in the United States. You do not need to provide identification to receive a vaccine. Visit phila.gov for latest info and please support the work of the Black Doctors’ COVID Consortium.