On today’s episode, we share two perspectives on the role of study, as practiced in the face of repression and directly against repression. First, we complete our interview with Garrett Felber, with a focus on his termination by the University of Mississippi in retaliation for his outspoken criticism of its white supremacist structure and how he and others have worked to ensure that the anti-prison work of Study and Struggle can continue despite his firing. Just as Garrett must also study and navigate these academic power structures, our next guest, Mwalimu describes carefully tracking the changing dynamics at the California prison where he is caged. Mwalimu discusses the careful measures he and his New Afrikan comrades take to compose a movement together with other groups of prisoners. Lastly, he goes into the importance of their inside study groups as well as the intellectual work he invests in thinking with people on the outside, sending essays out to publications and blogs.
Beginning this fall, Garrett will be a visiting faculty fellow in American Studies at Yale University, where he’ll be writing a biography of Black Puerto Rican anarchist and former political prisoner Martin Sostre and continuing to organize with Study and Struggle in Mississippi.
You can hear our previous episodes with Garrett Felber here.
You can hear our previous episodes with Mwalimu here.