A literary mixtape of transformative dialogues on justice with a cast
of visionary rebel activists, organizers, artists, culture workers,
thought leaders, and movement builders.
Rebel Speak sounds the alarm for a global movement to end systemic
injustice led by people doing the day-to-day rebel work in the prison
capital of the world. Prison activist, artist, and scholar Bryonn Rolly
Bain brings us transformative oral history ciphers, rooted in the
tradition of call-and-response, to lay bare the struggle and sacrifice
on the front lines of the fight to abolish the prison industrial
complex.
Rebel Speak investigates the motives that inspire and sustain
movements for visionary change. Sparked by a life-changing interview
with working-class heroes Dolores Huerta and Harry Belafonte, Bryonn
invites us to join conversations with change-makers whose diverse
critical perspectives and firsthand accounts expose the crisis of
prisons and policing in our communities. Through dialogues with
activists including Albert Woodfox, founder of the first Black Panther
Party prison chapter, and Susan Burton, founder of Los Angeles's A New
Way of Life Reentry Project; a conversation with a warden pushing beyond
traditions at Sing Sing Correctional Facility; and an intimate exchange
with his brother returning from prison, Bryonn reveals countless unseen
spaces of the movement to end human caging. Sampling his provocative
sessions with influential artists and culture workers, like Public Enemy
leader Chuck D and radical feminist MC Maya Jupiter, Bryonn opens up and
guides discussions about the power of art and activism to build
solidarity across disciplines and demand justice.
With raw insight and radical introspection, Rebel Speak embodies the
growing call for "credible messengers" on prisons, policing, racial
justice, abolitionist politics, and transformative organizing.
Reimagining the role of the writer and scholar as a DJ and MC, Bryonn
moves the crowd with this unforgettable mix of those working within the
belly of the beast to change the world. This is a new century's sound of
movement-building and Rebel Speak.
