About the Contributors

 

 

William C. Anderson is a freelance writer and a contributing editor at Kalamazoo College’s Praxis Center. He frequently writes news analysis and social commentary on a wide range of topics.

 

Candice Bernd is an editor and staff reporter at Truthout. Previously, she was an editor and reporter for Generation Progress, an intern at In These Times, and a co-host of a Dallas-based progressive radio program. With her partner, she co-wrote and produced “Don’t Frack With Denton,” a documentary chronicling how her hometown became the first in Texas to ban fracking.

 

Aaron Miguel Cantú is an investigative journalist and analyst focusing on the criminal justice system, national security and climate change politics. His work has been published in Truthout, Al Jazeera America, the Nation, the Intercept, and elsewhere. He was raised in the southern borderlands but is now based in Brooklyn.

 

Thandisizwe Chimurenga is currently a staff writer for Daily Kos and hosts a weekly news and public affairs show on the Pacifica Radio Network. She is the author of “No Doubt: The Murder(s) of Oscar Grant” (2014) and “Reparations … Not Yet” (2015). She is based in Los Angeles.

 

Ejeris Dixon is an organizer with 15 years of experience working in racial-justice, LGBTQ, transformative-justice, anti-violence, and economic-justice movements. She was the founding program coordinator of the S.O.S. Collective at the Audre Lorde Project and now works as the founding director of Vision Change Win Consulting.

 

Alison Flowers is an award-winning journalist and author of “Exoneree Diaries: The Fight for Innocence, Independence and Identity.” Her yearlong Chicago Public Media series was a finalist for a national Online Journalism Award in 2014. Flowers is a Social Justice News Nexus fellow and works at the Invisible Institute on the South Side of Chicago.

 

Alicia Garza is special projects director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter, organizer, writer, and freedom dreamer. She was named to The Root 100 2015 list of African-American achievers and influencers under 45, and The Politico 50 guide to thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics in 2015.

 

Kelly Hayes is Truthout’s community engagement associate. Kelly is a direct action trainer and a co-founder of The Chicago Light Brigade and Lifted Voices. She is the author of the blog Transformative Spaces, and her movement photography is featured in the “Freedom and Resistance” exhibit of the DuSable Museum of African American History.

 

Rachel Herzing is a co-founder of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization dedicated to abolishing the prison-industrial complex, and co-director of the StoryTelling & Organizing Project, a community resource for sharing stories of interventions in interpersonal harm that do not rely on policing, imprisonment or traditional social services.

 

Adam Hudson is a writer, journalist and musician based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He writes about US militarism, Guantánamo, policing and gentrification. His writings are published in Truthout, AlterNet, the Nation and elsewhere. He’s the drummer for the alternative rock band Sunata and a Stanford University alumnus.

 

Victoria Law is the author of “Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women,” editor of the zine Tenacious: Art and Writings by Women in Prison, and a proud parent. She has written extensively about the criminal justice system, particularly its impact on women, for Truthout and other news outlets.

 

Mike Ludwig is an investigative and social-justice reporter for Truthout, where he has worked since 2010. He lives in New Orleans.

 

Sarah Macaraeg, based in Chicago, is an independent journalist and fellow with New America Media and with Investigative Reporters and Editors. Her work has been published in the Guardian, VICE, and Truthout, and has been cited in Al Jazeera America, ColorLines, Crain’s Chicago Business, Fusion, and Best American Essays. She is on Twitter at @seramak.

 

Page May is a Chicago-based organizer and abolitionist with We Charge Genocide, BYP100, and Assata’s Daughters. She is one of the eight youth delegates who traveled to the United Nations and the lead author of the shadow report submitted to the UN Committee Against Torture.

 

Nicholas Powers is the author of “The Ground Below Zero: 9/11 to Burning Man, New Orleans to Darfur, Haiti to Occupy Wall Street,” published by Upset Press. He is an associate professor of English at SUNY Old Westbury, and his writings have appeared in the Village Voice, Alternet, and the Indypendent.

 

Andrea Ritchie is a Black lesbian police-misconduct attorney and organizer who has engaged in extensive research, litigation and advocacy on the policing of women and LGBT people of color over the past two decades. She is co-author of “Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women” and “Queer (In)Justice.”

 

Roberto Rodriguez, Ph.D., is an award-winning writer and associate professor at the University of Arizona’s Mexican American Studies Department. The author of “Justice: A Question of Race” and “Our Sacred Maiz Is Our Mother,” he is currently writing a memoir/testimonio, “Yolqui,” on the topic of torture and political violence.

 

Asha Rosa is a Black queer writer, student, organizer, and member of Black Youth Project 100. She led a private prison divestment campaign on her college campus, presented to the UN on police violence in Chicago with the We Charge Genocide delegation, and is dedicated to movements for prison abolition.

 

Monica Trinidad is a movement artist and organizer. In November 2014, Monica was one of eight delegates to travel to the United Nations to deliver a report on police violence against youth of color in Chicago. She is the founder of Brown and Proud Press, and organizes with We Charge Genocide.

 

Eisa Nefertari Ulen is the author of “Crystelle Mourning,” a novel described by the Washington Post as “a call for healing in the African American community from generations of hurt and neglect.” She has contributed to Essence, the Washington Post, Ms., Health, Ebony, TheRoot.com, TheGrio.com and Truthout. See EisaUlen.com and find her on Twitter at @EisaUlen.