The author of Becoming Abolitionists speaks virtually on Tues., Oct. 5th, at 6 p.m. (EDT)!
Derecka Purnell is a human rights lawyer, writer, and organizer. She received her JD from Harvard Law School and works to end police and prison violence by providing legal assistance, research, and training to community-based organizations through an abolitionist framework. Her work and writing have been featured in the New York Times, NPR, the Atlantic, the Boston Globe, Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, the Appeal, Truthout, Slate, and many other publications. She is the co-creator of the COVID19 Policing Project at the Community Resource Hub for Safety Accountability.
Purnell will be in conversation with Michelle Alexander, a highly acclaimed civil rights attorney, advocate, legal scholar, and author of the New York Times bestseller The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Jim Crow helped spark a national debate about the crisis of mass incarceration in the United States and inspired racial justice organizing and advocacy efforts nationwide.