Grantee Partner Spotlight: Liberation Library

Bettina Johnson: That’s so well said, and in line with the creation of Liberation Library. We don’t want to exist. We see ourselves as being a bridge to many worlds of young peoples’ choosing and that we are on a path of co-creating this magazine, organization, and world together with each other as volunteers and with our readers inside and outside. We really believe that young people know what is needed in their lives to transform their situation and the lives of other young people like them. We want to build those connections and relationships with young folks as they’re on this journey – connecting with us and with each other. When we talk with those who have a national perspective, we hear that there is no one doing this at the scale or in the way that we do it. One thing that people should appreciate is that there is such a high demand for reading materials inside prisons and jails generally. All books-to-prisoner projects need support and the impact of their work is critical. We also want folks to understand that prison itself is censorship. So as we talk about access and book bans we mustn’t forget folks who are inside.

The other thing about our work that I think is important, is with respect to the Magazine. We have forged and relied on our strong existing partnerships with The Final 5 Campaign and with Circles & Ciphers. We are so lucky to be able to work together as organizations invested in supporting young people inside, court-involved, and their families. When we talk about being an abolitionist project – this means that when we mess up, and aren’t working toward our stated values, we are able to own those mistakes and actually move on from there with amends and repair and make sure we don’t do that mistake again. This applies to our magazine and our relationships with other orgs towards this work of ending youth incarceration.

Q: How did you arrive at doing what you do?

Nikia Watkins: At the start of the pandemic, I was a junior at UIC. I was taking a sociology class, and my professor at the time noted that all my papers were on abolition; I couldn’t stop talking about it! They said have you heard about restorative justice, and I hadn’t, so she recommended I look up different organizations. She mentioned Circles & Ciphers, a hip hop-infused organization on the north side of Chicago in Rogers Park. When I read their mission statement, I knew I wanted to get involved. A job opened up, and I worked there as their mutual aid coordinator. While there, Anne Marie Brown told me about Liberation Library, and in 2021 I started doing this work. 

Now I know that any work I ever do will be part of liberation and abolition. I like that term care economy. And trying to ‘unoppress’ ourselves. 

Bettina Johnson: I like that – “trying to ‘unoppress’ ourselves” I started doing activism at 17. When I was young, I had a strong sense of self, and that was an issue, especially with adults. I have a strong affinity towards young people being recognized for their own agency, their political will, their ability to make decisions for themselves. I had challenging times in school, and that sort of primed the pump. When I learned of bodily autonomy and adultism, I had thought of elements of those concepts but didn’t have the language for them. So, thanks to relationships forged doing activism and organizing I discovered that language. When I went to UIC, I became a student organizer on campus and was lucky to be in the orbit of adults who knew about different student conferences and who were willing to pay for me to go to say Michigan or Ohio to meet other student activists. And I saw INCITE Women of Color Against Violence talking about abolitionist thinking at these conferences. After school I worked in the domestic violence emergency shelter; working there a few years, I saw the limitations of what the State could do to prevent harm and of non-profits generally, and eventually got burned out of that job. When Project NIA, founded by Mariame Kaba, put out a call for a book to kids in prison project, I had a stable non-organizing or services job and wanted to get back to the community work I find really purposeful—so I showed up! We learned from Mariame how she sets up organizations, learning by actually doing it with her. 

Project NIA’s whole thing was how to end youth incarceration, period. How do we show up in solidarity with young folks who are system-involved or are being pushed out of school and out of society?

It reintroduced PIC Abolition to me that helped articulate what was common sense for me based off of my experiences as a young person and as someone who worked in the Domestic Violence Sector. 

Q: Who makes your work possible?

Nikia Watkins: I have to name first Alicia Brown and Sherrif Polk - without them and their leadership, support and guidance the magazine program wouldn't have been what it is today. Forever thankful to have them to walk with while doing this work. Everyone on the magazine committee has been so supportive, and helpful and been like family to me, and I would be nowhere without my family. For the first year, it was content creation, made by us. We would take the topics that young people said they liked, and we’d write. Now we have liberation interns, and they look over the magazine before it is put to print, and suggest moving things around etc. 

We’re very grateful to the young people who are brave and share their stories of safety or of censorship. They are so kind and sweet and warm-hearted. 

And then the organizations – AFSC, Circles & Ciphers, The Final 5 Campaign. And can’t forget about my mom, and all my grandparents - they showed me what true support and love look like. 

Bettina Johnson: Shoutout to ourselves and our volunteers. We meet people where they are, not everyone has heard of abolishing prisons. Most people don’t know about engaging with prisons and jails generally. So big shoutout to the volunteers for engaging with this work and being open to the experience and learning with us. This post-2020 moment is really different because in 2015, before people were in the streets demanding police and prison abolition, we did a book event at a bookstore. 

I didn’t even use the word abolition, I just said that young people shouldn’t be incarcerated and I got shouted at for it. A volunteer and newer steering committee member a few years later brought up the fact that we should be more explicit that the organization is for the abolition of youth prisons especially as we do our packing days. 

The argument was it will be quicker to find out if people see it the way we do, and challenge them to take the demand seriously even if it’s just for an afternoon. Lo and behold, they were right. Our book packing days attracted families—even before we became more explicit with our language and political education that happens at the top of every packing day I remember inviting a young person who came with her mom regularly to our book packing days to be interviewed by the media—and this young person, under 10 years old was able to say in their own words that no young person should ever be incarcerated. I learned that when we’re not shy about our values and are clear with our communication and when we have the time to do the slow, building work and discussing the idea of a world without prison – people will arrive to their own conclusions and many times it is in alignment with us! 

Today, there are formerly incarcerated people doing programming with us, and transforming what we do. Our volunteers and our readers transform us and what we do. This magazine transforms what we do. 

Now we are at a moment where young people who are currently incarcerated are able to serve (with a stipend) on an inside editorial board for the magazine! We hope that eventually, they will be able to direct and give feedback way beyond just the magazine but help provide input for the organization itself. So having seen the most oppressive conditions in Illinois, and how empowering this is, I can say that this is life-giving. And working with Nikia is amazing. We could be spinning wheels, checking boxes; but young people are dictating the rate and pacing of the work we are doing. We take youth input very seriously. Not just tokenized, but meaningfully incorporated.

Suggested Readings, Films, and Audio:

Podcasts

• Free The Youth by Final 5 Campaign 
• Hella Black Podcast by Abbas Muntaqim and Delency Parham

Readings

• The Proletarian's Pocketbook
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• We Do This Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba 
• Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis 
• "On Both Sides of the Gun" by Christian Farias 
• "How do we prevent gun violence without police? Look to Abolitionists" by Christian Farias

Film

• Dope is Death directed by Mia Donovan

Songs

• The C&C Mixtape a mixtape by Circles & Ciphers  
• "Charles Darwin" by Pressure Bbay R, MARKO STAT$, Kofie Diamonds
• "Song 33" by Noname
• "Police State" by Dead Prez ft. Chairman Omali Yeshitela
• "Freedom" by Queen Latifa, Yo-Yo, TLC, MC Lyte, Nefertiti, Salt-N-Pepa, Patra, Meshell Ndegeocello