“I envision a future in which the systems we create—far more than those we have inherited—are guided by movements built on our shared humanity.”
—Bryonn Bain
Rebel Speak: A Justice Movement Mixtape is a literary mixtape of transformative dialogues on justice with a cast of visionary rebel activists, organizers, artists, culture workers, thought leaders, and movement builders. Sparked by a life-changing interview with working-class heroes Dolores Huerta and Harry Belafonte, Prison activist, artist, and scholar Bryonn Rolly Bain 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.
Bryonn Rolly Bain is a prison activist, artist, scholar, and author of four books including The Ugly Side of Beautiful: Rethinking Race and Prison in America. Learn more about his critically acclaimed hip hop theater and spoken word multimedia production, Lyrics from Lockdown, and his Emmy Award–winning work on LA Stories, at www.bryonn.com.
Looking for inspiration in the fight for social change? Bryonn shares a playlist of artists and hip-hop heroes who fought for change and who inspired his own activism.
“This powerful book combines the perspectives of elder activists like Harry Belafonte and Dolores Huerta with the perspectives of younger ones, to address issues of mass incarceration and racial violence by the police in new and profoundly important ways.”
—Pedro Noguera, Professor of Sociology and Dean, USC Rossier School of Education