02/19/2026
Liberation cannot be controlled.
This is something Ella Baker deeply understood.
While others sought power, she invested in people, organizing quietly, challenging hierarchy, and building movements that could survive without a single face at the center. She believed freedom wasn’t enforced from the top down, but practiced together, day by day.
For us, Ella Baker’s work reframes abolition as community infrastructure. It asks us to move away from systems that rely on punishment and policing, and toward models rooted in shared responsibility, care, and collective wisdom.
Abolition doesn’t require heroes. It requires people who trust one another enough to build something new together because we cannot do this work alone.
This is abolition as a practice.
Throughout the month of February, we’re sharing abolitionists known and unknown, past and present whose work has shaped Black futures across time.
In what ways have movement leaders shaped your perspective on community care?
