We’d like to begin by thanking Jas Morgan for facilitating the initial conversation between the two of us so many years ago in Montreal. We didn’t know it at the time, but this was a beginning. Thanks also to Rodney Diverlus, Sandy Hudson and Syrus Marcus Ware for publishing part of that conversation in Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada. Thanks to Kelsey Wrightson, executive director for the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning, for supporting our solidarity gathering, to all of the participants at that gathering, and to the members of Yellowknives Dene First Nation for hosting us in their homelands.
Dionne Brand planted the seeds for this book. She watered them, put them in sunlight, and encouraged them. We are so grateful to her. We are also so appreciative of the conversation between Leanne, NourbeSe Philip, Andrea Fatona and Tania Willard as part of the Contingencies of Care virtual residency co-hosted by OCAD University, the Toronto Biennial of Art and BUSH Gallery in June 2020, and between the two of us and Zoé Samudzi at NAISA 2021, on many of the same topics as these letters.
Our very first readers of these letters, outside of one another, were crucial to the development of the manuscript. We’re grateful for insightful feedback from Dionne Brand, John Munro, Michelle Daigle, Glen Coulthard, Robert Nichols, Rachel Zellars, and to La Tanya Autry, who provided feedback on the section discussing “Temporary Spaces of Joy and Freedom.” We are so appreciative of Naomi Murakawa and Lynn Henry’s editorial brilliance. Thanks to Melanie Little whose careful attention during the copy-editing stage made the book tighter. All of these people made our contributions better. Their detailed and careful reading of the work was a lovely gift.
Ruth Wilson Gilmore graciously gave us permission to adapt her words “abolition is life in rehearsal” as a title, and her influence is in every line, as is the influence of Robin D. G. Kelley. We can’t believe our words share space with theirs in this book. They are our heroes.
It would have been difficult to have the disciplined sense of possibility required to write this book in such a time without the movement of people the world over who have steadfastly committed to carving beautiful spaces of freedom over and against the brutality of these times. Especially these co-conspirators in abolitionist world-making: Andrea J. Ritchie, Sahra Soudi, Sarah Jama, Molly Swain, Karrie Auger, Rajean Hoilett, Souheil Benslimane, Danielle Smith, Beverly Bain, El Jones, Jessica Evans, Pascale Diverlus, Herman Bell, Leila Pourtavaf and Sheena Hoszko.
Extending enormous gratitude, too, to Dionne Brand, Glen Coulthard, Natalie Diaz, Nick Estes, John Munro, Katherine McKittrick, Andrea J. Ritchie, Harsha Walia, David Chariandy, Naomi Klein, and M. NourbeSe Philip for their generous blurbs. Thank you to Howardene Pindell for use of her art in the cover.
Thanks to all of the folks at Haymarket and Knopf Canada who brought this book into the world—especially to Anthony Arnove, Lynn Henry, and Aricka Foreman.