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Derecka Purnell

Derecka Purnell is a lawyer, writer, organizer, and author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom. She is also a Guardian columnist.

Articles

Derecka Purnell discusses her new book Becoming Abolitionists, how she came to join the movement against policing and prisons, and what a just world looks like.

Derecka Purnell, Nia T. Evans

Imagining a more just society.

Derecka Purnell
Activist Derecka Purnell interviews historian Elizabeth Hinton about her new book, America on Fire, and how the label “riot” discredits Black political demands.
Derecka Purnell, Elizabeth Hinton

Abolition is not about transforming the police; it is about transforming the nation.

Derecka Purnell
Derecka Purnell, Boston Review

Forum Responses

Our demonstrations should make us smarter.
Derecka Purnell

Reading Lists

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Get a free copy of
Poems for Political Disaster!

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For National Poetry Month, sign up for our newsletter and get a digital copy of our out-of-print chapbook Poems for Political Disaster.