No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement -- The Editors in Conversation

This event takes place in person at Charis and on Crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. This event is free, but registration is required for virtual attendance. Register at the link below to attend virtually. Please read the in-person event guidelines at the bottom of this page to be sure you can participate in the event.

Charis welcomes anthology editors Kamau Franklin, Micah Herskind, and Mariah Parker in celebration of No Cop City, No Cop World, a collection of essays from the Stop Cop City movement on the fight for police abolition and for a liveable planet for all. Additional appearance from local contributors, organizers, and community members TBA!

The Stop Cop City movement is a decentralized effort to stop the construction of a $120 million police training facility and the destruction of 170 acres of the Weelaunee Forest outside of Atlanta, Georgia. This is the first collection of essays bringing together organizers and activists who have been involved in the years-long struggle to Stop Cop City. Connecting movements for environmental justice, police abolition, and Indigenous sovereignty, this expansive collection highlights the strategy, tactics, and ideologies that transformed a local collective action into a powerful international movement.

Featuring the voices of forest defenders, environmental justice advocates, political prisoners, Indigenous activists, abolitionists, educators, legal scholars, and academics, these wide-ranging essays explore the history of the intersectional movement, the diverse tactics embraced by activists, tributes to Tortuguita, and the intense police and legal repression faced by organizers. Making critical connections between oppression and resistance at home and abroad, the movement to Stop Cop City has expanded to a fight against a Cop World.

Kamau Franklin (he/him) is the founder of Community Movement Builders. He’s been a dedicated community organizer for over thirty years. For 18 years, Kamau was a leading member of a national grassroots organization dedicated to the ideas of self-determination and the teachings of Malcolm X. He’s spearheaded organizing work in areas, including youth organizing, police misconduct, and developing sustainable urban communities. Kamau has coordinated community cop-watch programs, liberation schools for youth, electoral and policy campaigns, large-scale community gardens, organizing collectives and alternatives to incarceration programs. Kamau was an attorney for ten years in New York with his own practice in criminal, civil rights and transactional law. He now lives in Atlanta with his two children.

Micah Herskind is an organizer, writer, and law student who is active in abolitionist movements against police and jail expansion. He is the co-editor of No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement.

Mariah Parker is an emcee and labor organizer born and raised in the South. Their cultural work and organizing have been featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, SPIN, Al Jazeera, Scalawag and Hammer & Hope.

The Refaat Mobile Library is a traveling memorial library created in honor of Refaat Alareer, the beloved Palestinian poet and educator who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in December 2023. The volunteer-run mobile library travels all over Atlanta, bringing Palestinian, anti-Zionist and Indigenous literature rooted in collective liberation to protest trainings, divestment teach-ins, college graduations, community markets, charity basketball games, festivals, galleries, and more. If interested in contributing to the library, please explore our Charis wishlist here. Follow us on Instagram (@refaatlibraryatl) and Twitter (@refaatlibrary) for regular updates and pop-up schedule! You can also find us at our website.

The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Donate on Crowdcast or via our website: www.chariscircle.org/donate or in person at the event.

Charis Books is a fully wheelchair accessible space with on site van accessible parking, two ramps, and additional overflow accessible parking nearby. Additional accessibility information can be found on the Accessibility page of our website.

In-person event guidelines:
- All attendees must wear a face mask during the event.
- We will begin seating people at 7:00 PM ET.
- This event will be live-streamed via Crowdcast. Register at the link below.
- As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event.

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By attending our event, whether in person or virtually, you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Unsolicited sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers. Please report all harassment to Charis staff immediately or email aW5mbyB8IGNoYXJpc2NpcmNsZSAhIG9yZw==.

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