While the idea of prison abolition hit mainstream consciousness only recently as part of the uprising for racial justice in response to the killing of George Floyd, the concept—and the movement for its realization—has been a rallying cry since at least the 1971 Attica Prison uprising, which brought to national attention the dehumanizing conditions experienced by those in the American prison industrial system.
For over two decades, Critical Resistance, a national organization founded to challenge the idea of “imprisonment and policing as a solution for social, political and economic problems,” has been issuing those rally cries. And now they’re organizing a series of events, alongside an exhibition and auction, with the aim of ushering in the “last days of the abolitionist movement,” according to exhibition curator Ashara Ekundayo.