Until All Of Us Are Free

join our abolitionist book club!

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

Protests, Performance & Privilege

Ijeoma Oluo — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 13:04:16 GMT

The No Kings marches, held earlier this month, have generated a lot of conversation about protests, performance, and privilege. And I want us to talk about it! I want to talk about why so many people are frustrated with these marches, even while record numbers of people join them. And I want to talk about what the popularity of these marches can teach u…

A Lifetime of Liberation: What's Your Little Piece of the Work?

Ijeoma Oluo — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 13:03:19 GMT

Closing out our month’s focus on a lifetime of liberation work, I talk about my own personal journey with finding my peace with my own small part of this work, even when it feels like it couldn’t possibly be enough.

How we think about this work is just as important as what we do - and in fact, none of this work is doable in the long-term if we don’t address our mindset towards the work and our lives within it.

I hope these reflections help you find your little piece of the work, or help you find peace and pride in the work you’ve already found.

You are a brightly colored thread in the tapestry of liberation. It just wouldn’t look the same without you.

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

Music by Gabriel Teodros

Until All Of Us Are Free is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

A Lifetime of Liberation: What is your definition of survival?

Ijeoma Oluo — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 13:06:00 GMT

This has been one of my favorite conversations for this project so far, and I’m so glad to finally bring it to you. In the weeks since this conversation with Alexis Pauline Gumbs about the legacy of Audre Lorde and how we survive together, I’ve thought about it a lot. So many things that Gumbs said have helped ground me in recent months, and reminded me of the legacy that we are all a part of. I hope that this conversation can do the same for you.

**NOTE: In this episode, I do not say the complete title of Gumbs’ book. It is Survival Is A Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. I apologize for not getting the full title in there, because I really want y’all to read this book! Link is below.

This Episode’s Amazing Contributors

Alexis Pauline Gumbs: website | Instagram

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

Video and podcast produced by Isabel Khalili

Music by Gabriel Teodros

Welcome to a Lifetime of Liberation

Ijeoma Oluo — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 13:03:44 GMT

This month, we’re looking at what it means to engage in long-term liberation work. We’re going focus on our mindset and care practices, as we acknowledge the reality that liberation is a lifelong struggle, and we are not simply in a “moment” of resistance.

So as you watch this mini episode and get ready for the month of great discussion ahead, here are some great questions to ask yourself and your comrades.

Have you been saying in your head, “I/we just have to get through these next few months, next few years?” What strategies come to mind when you think that?
If you say, “this struggle isn’t going away any time in the near future,” how does that interact with the shorter term strategies you were just thinking of?
If you knew that you were going to be fighting for liberation for the rest of your life, what would you like your life to look like while you fight?
What plan do you have for your long-term mental health during this fight?
What plan do you have for your long-term physical health during this fight?
If this battle may not be won in your lifetime, then what will be your definition of liberation while you are alive?
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If this battle may not be won in your lifetime, then what are your definitions of success you can achieve while you are alive that will aid those long-term goals?
How have those who came before us found joy and liberation, in even more oppressive times?
How will we care for each other, and how have we cared for each other, knowing that these oppressive systems may never care for us?
What have we always known about how to care for ourselves and each other outside of these systems? What did our ancestors do? How can we reclaim knowledge and practices that have been stolen from us?

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

Music by Gabriel Teodros

What Does Black August Mean Today?

Ijeoma Oluo — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 13:02:47 GMT

For our final Black August episode, we’re talking about what Black August means to us today, and what it can mean for us in the future.

The spirit of Black August is one that we keep alive through our actions, through protecting each other, teaching our history, staying connected to our kin behind bars, and continuing to fight for abolition. Black August is a celebration of the fierce love we have for each other, and what we are willing to do to free ourselves from the shackles of systemic oppression.

As the Trump administration rolls his tanks through Black cities, as Black immigrants are kidnapped from their families, as our history is being erased from schoolbooks, and whatever protections for our communities that our government pretended to have are stripped away, it is more vital than ever that we channel the spirit of Black August every day of every month.

How will you fight for Black Liberation? The answers to that question are what Black August is all about.

Below are the resources from compiled from our month of Black August episodes, along with information about this episode’s contributors.

Study, fast, train, fight: The roots of Black August

FILMS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

The Black August Hip Hop Project, dir. dream hampton

Songs From The Hole, dir. Contessa Gayles | watch on Netflix

Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, by George Jackson

Blood In My Eye, by George Jackson

Black August: A Celebration of Freedom Fighters

Assata: An Autobiography, by Assata Shakur

Live from Death Row, by Mumia Abu-Jamal

To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton, by Huey Newton

Black Power: Politics of Liberation in America, by Kwame Ture and Charles V. Hamilton

The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther, by Jeffrey Haas

Revolutionary Suicide, by Huey P. Newton

The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America, by Marc Lamont Hill

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander

Agents of Repression: The Fbi's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, by Ward Churchill and James Vander Wall

Get Involved

Abolitionist Law Center

Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook

Stop Cop City

National Bail Out

Free Mumia

Support Political Prisoners

Fighting Mass Detention & Deportation

This Episode’s Amazing Contributors

Gabriel Teodros: website | Instagram | Bandcamp | Substack

richie reseda: website | Instagram | Songs From The Hole

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

Music by Gabriel Teodros

Join our book club

Ijeoma Oluo — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 18:43:04 GMT

Our book club is entering its second month and in September we're reading We Do This Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba.

I'm so excited to discuss this book with y'all!

If you aren't already a book club member, you can join here. It's free!

Join book club

Black August: US Political Prisoners

Ijeoma Oluo — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 17:57:19 GMT

For part 2 of our Black August focus, we’re going to look at a fundamental pillar of Black August: the recognition of US Political Prisoners.

It is important to recognize that the US has always used political prisoners to punish dissent and stifle any revolutionary movements. But even in prison, our revolutionaries are still engaging in active freedom work.

This episode features a conversation with my partner Gabriel Teodros, as well as part of an earlier conversation with richie reseda, who began his amazing community work while incarcerated in the California prison system, and continues to shed light on the fight for abolition in his work today.

Black Liberation Movement Prisoners

Political Prisoners and the fight for Black Liberation

Death by incarceration: The US prison system is slowly killing its political prisoners

Free Them All! Political Prisoners and the Black Radical Tradition

Political Prisoners in the United States: An Organizing Handbook

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ON TRUMP’S AMERICA: ‘ALL IS NOT WELL IN BABYLON’

A STATEMENT FROM FERGUSON POLITICAL PRISONER, JOSH WILLIAMS

America's protest crackdown: five months after George Floyd, hundreds face trials and prison

Cop Cities and the persecution of protestors

Cop Cities, USA

The quiet rollout of Cop Cities across the US meets a growing resistance

Atlanta’s Cop City Is Funded by Some of the Same Billionaires Who Back AIPAC

RICO and Domestic Terrorism Charges Against Cop City Activists Send a Chilling Message

Stop Cop City Activists Are Facing 20 Years in Prison for Distributing Flyers

Political Prisoners & Immigration Detention

I am a Palestinian political prisoner in the US. I am being targeted for my activism

'They wanted to separate me from my family': Mahmoud Khalil speaks after ICE release

Mohsen Mahdawi on His ICE Detention and Justice in Palestine

Why Lelo Juarez Chose Self-Deportation

Get Involved

Abolitionist Law Center

Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook

Stop Cop City

National Bail Out

Free Mumia

Support Political Prisoners

Fighting Mass Detention & Deportation

This Episode’s Amazing Contributors

Gabriel Teodros: website | Instagram | Bandcamp | Substack

richie reseda: website | Instagram | Songs From The Hole

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Study, fast, train, fight: The roots of Black August

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

Music by Gabriel Teodros

Collective Liberation in Black August

Ijeoma Oluo — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 13:31:40 GMT

This month we’ll be putting out a series of smaller posts on Black August, a very special month for Black liberation and collective liberation.

If you aren’t really familiar with Black August, don’t be ashamed! We’re glad you’re here to learn more. The revolutionary history and nature of Black August is one that often erased from most schools and from mainstream media. But Black August has always been about working outside of these systems to empower and educate ourselves.

We’re starting this month with a brief history of Black August. So if you aren’t familiar with it’s history, be sure to check it out. And over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking at what Black August means today, who our current political prisoners are, and what the fight to free all of us looks like when we center those impacted by the Prison Industrial Complex.

If you want to learn more about Black August, here are some great resources to get started with.

Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, by George Jackson

Blood In My Eye, by George Jackson

Black August: A Celebration of Freedom Fighters

Assata: An Autobiography, by Assata Shakur

Live from Death Row, by Mumia Abu-Jamal

To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton, by Huey Newton

Black Power: Politics of Liberation in America, by Kwame Ture and Charles V. Hamilton

The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther, by Jeffrey Haas

Revolutionary Suicide, by Huey P. Newton

The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America, by Marc Lamont Hill

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander

Agents of Repression: The Fbi's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, by Ward Churchill and James Vander Wall

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

This project is created and hosted by Ijeoma Oluo

Music produced by Gabriel Teodros: website | bandcamp | Instagram | substack

Creating Liberating Community Spaces

Ijeoma Oluo — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 13:02:55 GMT

We are now three months into our in-person Beloved Community gatherings and they have been so wonderful. We’ve been learning so much together, and the gatherings have given us a chance to connect and restore, so we feel more empowered to protect each other and take on these violent systems.

As word of these gatherings have spread, I’ve heard from quite a few online community members who are interested in starting gatherings like these where they live. So, never one to gatekeep, I put together this review of my experience stewarding gatherings in Seattle, in the hopes that it can help inspire people to create gatherings of their own.

I hope in this you’ll find ideas that you can apply to your own community, and tailor them to meet your community’s needs.

If you’re interested in starting your own abolitionist community gatherings, here are some things you might want to consider.

(ps: if you want to join our book club, be sure to read to the end for more info!)

What is your goal? Why do you want to create these gatherings and what would be a successful outcome of these gatherings? What do you want these gatherings to do for you, and what do you want them to do for others?
What is your skillset? What skillset do you bring to these gatherings that will aid you in organizing or facilitating them? Is it who you know in community? Is it your sense of humor? Is it your knowledge of abolition? Is it simply your willingness to make the calls to gather people? Is it your love of community? Knowing what you bring and knowing that you always have something of value to bring is important.
What are your limitations? Be honest about your limitations and ask people to take on work that might not be your areas of strength. Be honest and don’t try to be a hero. This is collective work and it is important to allow opportunities for everyone to find a place to put their skills to work in it.
What are your accessibility needs? How will people get to your gatherings? Do you need wheelchair access? Do you need a space without stairs? Do you need chairs that accommodate larger bodies? Do you need people to wear masks? Think about who you are hoping will join and try to make your gatherings as accessible as possible for those people to join. And if you find that you think you don’t need any of the above accommodations, you may want to ask yourself if your definition of community is broad or inclusive enough for liberation work.
How often will you meet? Think about, not only how often you’d like to meet up with people, but honestly about how often you could put these gatherings together without them becoming too draining. (I know that I personally can only host one gathering a month, because there is a lot of work involved and I want to be able to host my gatherings for the rest of the year without becoming burnt out.)
How will you handle conflict? Discussing how you might handle conflict before it starts and getting collective agreement to being willing to engage in a conflict resolution process is vital to the success of any community. Have these discussions as early as possible.
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How will you get feedback? How will people be able to give suggestions or feedback on how the gatherings are going? Will they call or text you? Will they email a particular address? Will there be time at the gathering for suggestions?
How will you measure the impact of these gatherings? In times like this, we need to be regularly assessing the impact of these gatherings for effectiveness to make sure that they don’t become distractions from important work, instead of aids to that work. So how will you measure success? Is it in the the healing that people feel so that they can better do important work in their communities? Is it in the actionable knowledge that people gain? Is it in the regular updates of on-the-ground work that is happening in your community that members can support or join? Is it in the improved ability to connect and protect each other?
What is your budget? You don’t need a budget to gather community together. But if you’re going to be renting a space or providing food and beverage, you will need to consider how you are going to provide that and if it’s sustainable.
How will you keep safe? While safety cannot ever be guaranteed, we can make gatherings more safe by considering where we gather, who we gather with, what boundaries we will put in place to protect privacy and respect consent, and what we will do if any abuses occur.
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Want to join our Beloved Community Book Club?

We’re starting a book club! I’ve wanted to start a book club for years and I’m so excited to finally be doing it. For our first selection for August, we’ll be reading Conflict Is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman. This book club will meet virtually, so it is open to you no matter where you live.

If you want to join, fill out this little form to be added to our mailing list.

join our book club!

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

This project is created and hosted by Ijeoma Oluo

Music produced by Gabriel Teodros: website | bandcamp | Instagram | substack

Seattle: Beloved Community Gatherings

Ijeoma Oluo — Tue, 06 May 2025 18:10:02 GMT

I’m so excited to announce that as part of Until All Of Us Are Free, my partner Gabriel and I will be hosting community gatherings here in Seattle! These will be happening about once a month, and most of them will be at LANGSTON Seattle.

I’ve been thinking a lot about safety lately. What it is, what it isn’t, and what makes me feel safe and unsafe in this world. And I realized that time and time again, no matter who is in office in our government buildings, my sense of safety is tied to community and my connections to it. I know I’m not alone in this, and I’ve heard from multiple other liberation-minded folks in the area that they struggle with building community here. So I figured I’d see what we can do about it! Not only by creating a space for abolition-minded community to come together, but also to learn how to be in community in a way that helps liberate us all.

These meetings are a chance for us to come together and learn how to be in community together. These meetings will be guided by intersectional Black Feminist and Abolitionist tradition and anyone wishes to be in abolitionist community and learn how we can get through this together is welcome to join.

For the discussion portion, masks will be required to care for the safety of attendees, as well as to make this event more accessible for our disabled, chronically ill, and covid conscious community members. After the meeting, there will be brunch, and attendees will have the option to remove their masks for the brunch portion, keep their masks on if they like, or take food home to go. I’m so excited to spend time with y’all!

For more information and to register for the event (rsvp is required) please go here.

RSVP here

Consumerism & Collective Liberation

Ijeoma Oluo — Fri, 02 May 2025 13:00:40 GMT

In our last episode on Black Liberation and the Exploitation of Africa, the topic of consumerism came up a lot. Capitalism is a primary factor of exploitation, oppression, and violence around the world, and consumerism is often a major role that those of us in the Global North are expected to play in this global system of harm.

We cannot spend our way to liberation, but how we spend does matter, especially when it comes to the exploitation of Africa. So while there may be “no ethical consumption under capitalism” there is more and less ethical consumption. So while we do the big, real, important liberation work, let’s not ignore the important harm reduction role that more ethical consumption can play.

If you are trying to be more ethical in your consumption and aren’t sure where to start, here are some basics and ideas to get started with.

Some consumerism basics:

There are multiple levels of capitalist exploitation in the items we buy. Exploitation is often found on many different levels of the product lifecycle including:

How materials are sourced - the environmental impact and treatment of laborers sourcing materials, as well as political impact in regions sourcing materials
Environmental impact of manufacturing process
Worker treatment and compensation in manufacturing process
Worker treatment and compensation in delivery process
Environmental impact of shipping and delivery process
Environmental and community impact on land use for manufacturing and corporate real-estate
Environmental impact of product use and maintenance
The political and social impact of monetizing items that were once free or community owned (like water)
The political and social impact of the financial power of corporations when used for their own political or financial gain
The end-of-life environmental and social impact of the product and where it ends up as waste

All products produced for sale have a cost, and that cost doesn’t usually correlate to the price. All human labor matters, and the human labor of people in the Global South does not matter less than the labor of the Global North, even if corporations and politicians would like you to believe otherwise. The cost to environment matters, and it doesn’t matter less in the Global South than it does in the Global North.

It is impossible to make 100% ethical buying decisions all of the time. There is not enough time in the day to research every aspect of every thing we purchase, and even if we could, there would be plenty of items that we need that don’t have a 100% ethical choice. But what we can do, is make some key impactful decisions that are more in line with our ethics and the world we are trying to create, while we also do the important long-term liberation work targeting systems of oppression.

Capitalism creates needs that aren’t real - and are real - at the same time. Often, capitalism creates a product and then creates the need in order to sell it. We will have gone through most of our lives without these things and then they show up as novelties that only elites and maybe enthusiasts pick up, but then they are sold to larger companies or integrated into the systems or processes that we interact with regularly, and then before we know it, we actually do need these things in order to participate in many aspects of public life. It is important that we be aware of how this works, so that we can demand and support alternatives that preserve our access to vital services without increasing the products we need to do so.

Capitalism sells us products to help us endure…capitalism. Ever wonder why the self-care industry became an industry more tied with buying products and spending money than a movement dedicated to collective care and freedom from harm and exploitation? Well, because one puts the onus on us to heal from the ways capitalism harms us and will keep harming us using funds that we must earn by continuing to participate in exploitative capitalism, while the other pulls us from the grip of capitalism and gives us the strength to demand systemic change. One of the most powerfully oppressive tools of capitalism is the way in which it replaces our collective survival tools and skills with individualist products, to keep us tied to capitalism and make it harder for us to fight oppressive systems. It is vital that we break from this and return to more collective ways of meeting our needs.

Getting Started

Okay, so even that very very brief amount of info is a lot. And this can feel overwhelming. So let’s look at some things we can do right now to make an impact:

Buy less. This is really important in general to lessen the grip that capitalism has on us. Buy less, especially from larger corporations or from companies where you can’t verify the ethics of their practices and sourcing. Don’t fall for greenwashing or tactics to trick us into thinking that large corporations are “good” or care about us. They don’t. You can’t be an ethical large corporation, because ethics aren’t profitable on a scale that satisfies shareholders.
Treat the items you have like they took valuable labor to make - because they did - no matter how much they actually cost you in dollars. Fix things that are broken or need mending when you can.
Lend and borrow instead of buying, especially for items that you will not use regularly (our neighborhood has a tool library where communities can check out household tools instead of buying them, this is a fantastic example).
Repurpose items that no longer work for their originally intended purpose.
Go without - especially with impulse or emotional purchases. I often make a list of things I want to buy on impulse, I do my research and sometimes even add them to cart. Then I make myself wait. In the meantime I examine my emotions in the moment: am I feeling bored, stressed, sad? I try to address those core emotions while I wait. After a few days or weeks, if I am still thinking about that product I will try to find it second-hand or will buy it. But at least 70% of the time I’ve completely forgotten that I wanted to buy that item in the first place.
Join a boycott. Strategic boycotts are very important. They maximize the economic, social, and political impact of your buying decisions. They are so important that many governments have moved to ban them because they don’t want us leveraging that level of power. There are official boycotts designed to make specific political impacts (like the bds movement for Palestine) and there are smaller and more local boycotts you can join. There are even sites like buycott that list various boycotts, how many people are participating, and what companies are being boycotted. You can also find boycotts by linking up with the activist groups that are working on specific issues. So pick an issue or two and join up with others who are trying to use financial pressure to create real change.
Buy Better. First use what you have, then buy less, then buy better. This is the general order of operations for maximizing your impact for good - or, to put it another way - decreasing the negative impact of your consumption.
Buy from companies that care for the entire lifecycle of the products they sell. Products designed to have a lifecycle instead of just a lifespan are better choices. And companies who care about what happens to a product when it can no longer fulfill it’s original intended purpose deserve more support than those who don’t.
Buy local. Local, ethical, small businesses - especially those owned by people from marginalized communities - will always be a better choice than larger companies and will have a better overall impact on your immediate community.
Buy for long-term. Yes, many things made to last cost more (although, many things that are very expensive are just as poorly made and mass-produced as items that cost a lot less, so don’t let price alone be your guide), but where you can, invest in the best quality option possible for items that you will need for a long time - especially if those items have a steep environmental or human cost (like clothing, leather-goods, and technology).
Buy secondhand. I buy a lot of my clothing, shoes, and bags secondhand, and I buy almost all of my teenagers shoes and clothing secondhand. With the way he grows and the wild ways in which teenagers often treat their clothes and shoes, it just makes great economic and environmental sense. For cell phones, we try to repair any issues at local repair shops (teenagers with cracked screens, y’all). And when the phone absolutely must be replaced (like with a work phone I had to buy) I buy refurbished. My last phone came from BackMarket and it was a good buying experience that saved me money and reduced my contribution to the devastating impact of rising tech purchases).

How are you making more ethical consumption choices? Leave them in the comments below so we can all join in!

This Episode’s Amazing Contributors:

Francesca Eluhu: website | Instagram | bandcamp | YouTube

Aja Barber: website | Instagram | book - be sure to read her book for more on consumerism!

Alsarah: bandcamp | Instagram | music IG |

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

This project is created and hosted by Ijeoma Oluo

Video and podcast produced by Isabel Khalili

Music produced by Gabriel Teodros: website | bandcamp | Instagram | substack

Black Liberation & the Exploitation of Africa

Ijeoma Oluo — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 13:03:37 GMT

Welcome to Month 4 of our year-long focus on Black Liberation as Collective Liberation. This month we’re focusing on Black Liberation and the exploitation of Africa.

Now, Africa is a whole, big continent. So we cannot cover everything in this post or in this month. But I hope that this will be a helpful starting point to think of Africa and it’s connection to Black Liberation in the US and through the West. In this episode we will be discussing Sudan, Congo, the West’s trashing of Africa, and it’s connection to Black American liberation. And we have wonderful contributions from Francesca Eluhu, Aja Barber, and Alsarah. And we are also featuring music from Alsarah and Francesca Eluhu.

Be sure to check out the resources below to learn more, and different, perspectives on what is currently happening in Africa and how it’s related to Black America. And be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss out on this continuing conversation throughout the month.

Sudan Solidarity Collective

Conflict in Sudan

The Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been in heightened conflict since April of 2023. Since that time, between 61,000 and 150,000 people have been killed, and at least 12.5 million people have been displaced. There are many factors at play in this conflict, but at the heart of it are certainly the vast natural resources that Sudan has, and the way in which conflict in Sudan gives other countries increased access to those natural resources much more cheaply than they would were they dealing with a stable government. We’ve barely scratched the surface of this conflict in the episode, so please check out some of the links below to learn more.

Follow

Women of Sudan

Sudanese Resistance Front

Conflict in Congo

The current conflict in Congo, between the Congolese government forces and an armed group called M-23 has killed thousands of people in recent months and has displaced more than 7 million people. The people of Congo have had to endure decades of devastating violence, much of it directly connected to the lasting legacy of European colonization. As in Sudan, the current conflict has many factors at play, but the fight for Congo’s rich natural resources is at the core of this conflict, with foreign countries like Rwanda exacerbating this conflict in order to access these minerals to serve the ever-expanding appetites of the Global North for these resources. As with the section on Sudan, we barely scratch the surface of the conflict in this episode, so please check out the resources below for further reading!

Follow

Friends of the Congo

F O C U S C O N G O

Team Congo

Western Capitalism is Trashing Africa

Our seemingly endless need for new technology is not only contributing to war and exploitation in Africa, our discarded tech and textile waste is literally trashing many African countries. Black Americans are a targeted community for the sales of fast fashion, the primary culprit behind the mountains of textile trash that is polluting Africa.

The Legacy of the Scramble for Africa

While we should never reduce Africa simply to colonization and the impacts of it, we should also be careful to not ignore the lasting impacts of the violent colonization of Africa by Europe, and current neo-colonial policies that create and exacerbate problems on the continent. What happens in Africa does not happen in a vacuum, and the Global North continues to be a violent factor in the state of many African nations.

Nigeria Info FM Lagos 99.3

Follow

Africa Is a Country

A-APRP International

This Episode’s Amazing Contributors:

Francesca Eluhu: website | Instagram | bandcamp | YouTube

Aja Barber: website | Instagram | book

Alsarah: bandcamp | Instagram | music IG |

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

This project is created and hosted by Ijeoma Oluo

Video and podcast produced by Isabel Khalili

Music produced by Gabriel Teodros: website | bandcamp | Instagram | substack

Collective Liberation 101: Boycotts & Strikes

Ijeoma Oluo — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:03:39 GMT

Let’s close out our Collective Liberation 101 focus for March (a few days late) with talk about some of the most powerful tools we have in our fight for liberation: Boycotts and Strikes! Be sure to check out the other March installments talking about Abolition, if you haven’t already.

There has been a lot of discussion on boycotts and strikes in recent months. And they have left a lot of people frustrated and confused. Why does it seem so hard to put together an effective boycott or strike these days?

I think there are a lot of factors that have made organizing an effective boycott or strike more difficult. While some have been effective (and we are still seeing some amazing labor strikes in the US, even if they aren’t making headlines), many seem disorganized and don’t have the level of participation that our dire political situation would seem to call for. The truth is, boycotts and strikes have been heavily discouraged by our government, and our local and national legislatures have done a lot to weaken our ability to effectively organize. And when you combine that with the confusing, and often fractured, nature of social media, and it can make modern protest actions quite difficult.

But this is something that I know we can, and must, do!

Now, let me add a caveat here. I grew up in a union family, and have participated in many boycotts and have supported strikes over the years, and I have researched boycotts and strikes for my writing - but I am not an expert here at all! This installment provides some very basic info on boycotts and strikes, as well as my opinion based on my research, but I hope that you’ll check out some of the resources below to get a much better education on this! And be sure to check out the handy printable document I put together, with questions to ask yourself when planning your next boycott or strike!

Boycotts & Strikes Print Banner

541KB ∙ PDF file

For personal, non-commercial use only. For use outside of this, please contact Ijeoma Oluo (ijeoma@ijeomaoluo.com) for permission

Boycotts

Labor Strikes

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

This project is created and hosted by Ijeoma Oluo

Music produced by Gabriel Teodros: website | bandcamp | Instagram | substack

Collective Liberation 101: Living Abolition Now

Ijeoma Oluo — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 13:02:58 GMT

We’re continuing our Collective Liberation 101 series this month with further discussion on abolition. It is easy to see what we want systems to stop doing to us, but it’s harder to see what we are doing to each other. Abolition isn’t just about ending systems of incarceration, it’s also about building new liberated ways of being together.

In this episode, we talk about how carceral behavior harms our relationships and our movements - and what we can do to live our abolitionist values today while we fight these systems.

If you want to investigate your own relationships and movement work for carceral behavior, I’ve made a handy downloadable worksheet of questions you can ask yourself and your peers. This is a great starting point for finding opportunities to further liberate your relationships and movement work.

Abolition Relationships Print Banner

598KB ∙ PDF file

this worksheet is for personal, non-profit use only. For wider use or distribution, please contact Ijeoma Oluo for permission in advance.

We have more important content coming out this month for our Collective Liberation 101 series before we move on to our next month’s focus on Black Liberation and the exploitation of Africa. So be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on any of it!

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

This project is created and hosted by Ijeoma Oluo

Music produced by Gabriel Teodros: website | bandcamp | Instagram | substack

Collective Liberation 101: What is Abolition?

Ijeoma Oluo — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 13:03:35 GMT

We’re doing something a little different this month. Instead of looking at one larger issue and how it relates to Black liberation, we’re going to take this month to focus on some of the primary aspects of Collective Liberation.

We’re starting with one of the most important ideas to Collective Liberation: Abolition.

To put it plainly: without abolition and abolitionist principles, we can’t get free.

This post is a basic introduction to Abolitionism and why it is so important. And we’ll have more posts here and on social media this coming week talking more about it. Coming up we’ll be discussing how carceral practices and carceral mentality threatens our movements and our relationships; and we’ll be discussing the future that abolitionists want, and what we can do right now to get there.

I’ll also be answering your questions about abolition, so now is your chance to ask! Leave your questions in the comments below and I’ll add them to a Q & A post and resources.

Later this month we’ll be discussing other vital collective liberation topics like conflict resolution, boycotts & strikes, and revolution vs harm reduction, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out - and share these posts with a friend who is looking to deepen their collective liberation work!

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

This project is created and hosted by Ijeoma Oluo

Music produced by Gabriel Teodros: website | bandcamp | Instagram | substack

White Supremacy and Black Relationships

Ijeoma Oluo — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 14:01:36 GMT

Relationship goals.

How often do we hear people in Black community talk about certain couples as “relationship goals”? These “goal” couples are almost always straight, almost always wealthy, almost always thin and conventionally attractive, always romantic and monogamous, and pretty much never disabled. These are the relationships we are supposed to aspire to. They represent Black success and Black triumph over white supremacy.

White supremacy worked so hard to destroy Black family and these relationships are our way of restoring what has been so violently taken from us.

But is it?

Are we really restoring what was taken from us, or adopting white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal norms and calling them our own?

“There’s a reason only 20 percent of y’all are married even black men are starting to realize how mediocre you guys are.”

This was one of a series of emails I received over the past weekend from a white man who was apparently angry at my…existence. This was the entirety of this particular email, as if he felt that was all that needed to be said to make a devastating point.

I get emails, DMs and comments like this quite often. Many are from white men, but in all honesty, they come from any man of any race or ethnicity who thinks I’m just a little too opinionated for my own good. This is absolutely the death blow, they think, to point out how unmarryable I am (it doesn’t actually matter to them that I am married because I don’t exist to them as a real person). And with two kids - TWO KIDS - of course I must be single and bitter and desperate for a man to love me and save me from the ghetto that they imagine I must be languishing in.

For most of my adult life I have been a single parent, now married since 2022. To be a Black single mother with two kids with two different dads - wooh, the insults seem to write themselves. I remember when I became pregnant with my first child at 19, everyone told me that my life was over. People mourned me like I was being laid into the ground. My life would only know struggle from thereon out, they were sure. Even now, people will tell me, “I can only imagine how hard your life is, to do what you do as a single parent.”

When I was in my early twenties I was in relationships primarily with cis, straight men. By my thirties I was mostly done with all that. Now in my forties I think I would rather eat my own foot than be in a relationship with a straight, cis man again.

But for the majority of my adult life I have been single. I have been dating, in brief relationships, had sex, all that. Between the age of 21 and 38, I had only one romantic relationship that lasted longer than four months.

For this, people felt sorry for me, and tried to make me feel sorry for myself. I was seen as sad and assumed to be lonely, often by the very people who were also loving me, spending time with me, and forming some of the most important relationships of my life.

The truth is, I have been so fortunate in love, even though I’m only just now in my forties in a long-term romantic partnership. I have been blessed with my relationships my entire adult life.

People have lamented how difficult it must have been to raise my boys. Raising kids is difficult, no matter what. But I did not raise them alone. I raised them how I wanted to raise them. I raised my boys in a feminist, pro-Black household. And I raised my boys with the support of my community and my family.

I remember when I decided to leave my first marriage at 21. It was abusive and controlling. I was told that this was better than being a single parent. But I remember working two jobs and going to school full-time and taking care of an infant and being told by my husband that I wasn’t giving him enough attention and that now that I was back in school I thought I was better than him. I remember finally relenting to the pressure and leaving school, even as my professors begged me not to. And then I remember one day looking down at my beautiful baby and realizing that I could do anything in the world that I set my mind to while mothering him, but I wouldn’t be able to accomplish much of anything if I stayed married.

Almost every accomplishment that I have been able to achieve these last twenty years has been aided immensely by being in healthy relationship with community, and by not being in romantic relationships - especially the unhealthy ownership-based relationships promoted by white supremacy.

We are a communal people. That is how we have survived. The most sustaining relationships in many of our lives are non-traditional and often non-romantic. I deeply believe that we are not “nuclear family” people, meant to wall ourselves and our children off from the rest of the world in our overly-large houses; depending on our partners for all of our physical, emotional, social, and financial needs. This doesn’t mean that I’m against straight relationships or families, or that I think that people who aspire to those relationships are misguided. But I do think that just as the ideas of gender and sexuality that we had before white supremacy have been purposely stripped from us and replaced with those that serve white supremacist capitalism, ideas of relationship and family that we have long known have been stripped from us as well.

We love each other, we care for each other, we provide for each other across our community. We have always done this. And for hundreds of years we have been told that it doesn’t count, that it isn’t real. Because it doesn’t fit into white supremacist, capitalist ideas of ownership and individualism. Can you really love someone if they aren’t “yours”? Can you really have a family if you don’t share blood? Can you really be a good parent if your community helps you parent, instead of a partner?

If we want our relationships to truly be liberating, we have to investigate how our relationship goals have been shaped by white supremacist patriarchal capitalism, and we have to learn how to appreciate the relationships that have been sustaining us - all of the relationships, romantic or not.

So let’s talk about “relationship goals” and what they could be when we shed the definitions of relationship that have been forced upon us. From a collective liberation mindset, what would be “relationship goals” to you?

Thank you to Erika Hart for this wonderful conversation. You can find more of her amazing work here:

Ericka Hart: website | Instagram | podcast

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Marsha P Johnson Institute

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

This project is created and hosted by Ijeoma Oluo

Video and podcast produced by Isabel Khalili

Gender, Sexuality, & Black Liberation

Ijeoma Oluo — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 14:03:19 GMT

Welcome to Month 2 of our year-long focus on Black Liberation as Collective Liberation. This month, we’re focusing on gender, sexuality, and Black liberation. I’m so excited to bring you these amazing conversations and resources. This episode focuses heavily on Black queerness with contributions from Ericka Hart, J Mase III, Angelica Ross and richie reseda. Throughout the month we’ll cover other aspects of gender, sexuality and Black liberation in depth - including focus on reproductive justice and on Black women friendship. This episode meant a lot to me and I hope that it means a lot to you as well as we continue to work on getting free together.

Blackness, Transness, Queerness and the current political climate

Are you sick of talking about the election yet? I know I am. And yet, we must place this conversation in political context if we are to understand where we are now and what we need to be aware of in the future. Palestinians, Black people and trans people found their bodies and their freedoms at the center of political debate this election season, even more so than in recent years. And as our lives were used for political gain or ignored for political expediency, we were left more unsafe and yet somehow blamed for that unsafety.

The History of the Denial of Bodily Autonomy of Black People in the US

The denial of bodily autonomy is at the core of white supremacy and the oppression of Black people in the United States. We cannot ignore how fundamentally gender justice and reproductive justice issues are tied to Black liberation.

Why Intersectionality Matters

Black women, Black trans and gender-expansive people, and Black queer people are at unique risk from state violence and oppression. And while many Black women and Black queer and trans people have been the fiercest fighters in our Black liberation movements, it is rare that Black women or Black queer and trans people are centered by Black liberation movements as a whole. When we are not intersectional in our Black liberation work, we are not doing Black liberation work at all.

The Queering of Blackness

If queerness is to exist outside of established “norms” then has not Blackness always been queer? Let’s explore how Blackness has been queered, what it means to be Black and queer and our history before whiteness and white supremacy.

Queerphobia in the Black Community & White Supremacy’s Impact on Black Relationships

Let’s Get To Work: Organizations to join, support, and learn from in the fight for Gender Justice, Queer and Trans Liberation, and Black Liberation

Lavender Rights Project

Incite!

Black Trans Travel Fund

SnapCo

TENT

Black Women Radicals

Black Feminist Future

SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Initiative

The Afiya Center

Black Mamas Matter Alliance

Black Trans Prayer Book

This Episode’s Amazing Contributors:

Ericka Hart: website | Instagram | podcast

J Mase III: website | Instagram | Black Trans Prayer Book

Angelica Ross: website | Instagram | Podcast

richie reseda: website | Instagram | Songs From The Hole

Where you can find more Until All Of Us Are Free

Ijeoma Oluo: website | Instagram | Behind the Book | Be A Revolution

This project is created and hosted by Ijeoma Oluo

Video and podcast produced by Isabel Khalili

Palestine & Anti-Blackness: A Conversation, part 2

Ijeoma Oluo — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 14:01:18 GMT

Here is part 2 of my discussion with Majd on Palestine and Anti-Blackness. I’m so happy with the response to part 1 that went out last week, and I know that you will love part 2 as well.

While this episode marks the end of our month-long focus on Palestinian liberation and Black liberation, it does not end the work that we must do together to get free. And so, along with this beautiful conversation with my friend, I want to leave you with some things to consider as we work to maintain and grow the solidarity that we are going to need in the months to come.

In light of the recent ceasefire, it can be hard to maintain focus on Palestine and Palestinian liberation, especially with the Trump administration’s rapid-fire attacks on so many marginalized communities in the US.

It is important for all of us to remember that this sort of widespread political violence is by design. It is designed to overwhelm us, and to make us all feel individually targeted, in order to keep us from coming together over any single issue.

It is important that we remember that like Black Americans, Palestinians are fighting for more than just survival, they are fighting for liberation. The genocide in Palestine did not start on October 7, 2023, and it did not end with this ceasefire - even as we recognize that the rate of killing has dropped and how important that is to Palestinian existence and resistance. Even now, in the days after the ceasefire went into effect, Palestinians are being murdered by Israeli forces and their land is being illegally seized by Israel, and that murder and theft is still being funded by the U.S. government.

Further, the Trump administration has been targeting Palestinian-Americans and those who have supported Palestinian liberation in ways that threaten all of us who wish to stand up to oppression, exploitation, and state violence.

So it is vital that we stay connected and deepen our connections, that we stay informed about what is happening in Palestine, that we continue to be aware and talk about how Palestinian and Black liberation or connected and the threats all of our liberation, and that we continue to push for justice for all oppressed peoples. Be sure to check out the episode notes on Palestine & Black Liberation for more resources.

Let’s make this the year that we show up at everybody’s protests, that we boycott the companies and organizations that harm any of us as if they harm all of us, that we refuse to vote anyone into office who tries to sacrifice some of us with the promise of benefit for others. Let’s let this administration and all of those to come know that we will not be divided, that we will not be played against each other.

Let’s make sure that they know that we are building for a liberated future together.

Thanks for reading Until All Of Us Are Free! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Palestine and Anti-Blackness: A Conversation

Ijeoma Oluo — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 14:03:11 GMT

When talking about Black/Palestinian solidarity, it is inevitable that the topic of anti-Blackness within the Palestinian community will come up.

No population is exempt from anti-Blackness, it is at the foundation of many systems of racial oppression and imperialism around the world. And the Palestinian community - both in Palestine and across the diaspora - is no exception to this.

But I’ve long had a few frustrations with how anti-Blackness within the Palestinian community is discussed.

Anti-Blackness within the Palestinian community is often only brought up when Black/Palestinian solidarity is high, and often by people who wish to create divisions within our communities. And, most importantly:
Discussions of anti-Blackness within the Palestinian community often leave out those most impacted by anti-Blackness in the Palestinian community: Afro-Palestinians.
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So, since this month is dedicated to Palestinian Liberation and Black Liberation, I couldn’t not discuss anti-Blackness. But I wanted to do so with some care.

And so, I reached out to my friend Majd Baniodeh and asked if she’d be willing to chat with me about anti-Blackness in the Palestinian community. Majd is an Afro-Palestinian born and raised in Palestine, with a Black Palestinian mother and a light-skinned Palestinian father. She has experienced anti-Blackness in both Palestine in the US, but her experience is very much informed by the horrific anti-Palestinian violence of the Israeli state and the U.S..

This video was originally supposed to be about 10 minutes long, but there were so many important things that we covered, that I decided to split this video into two segments. Part 2 of this conversation will go live next week - so make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss it!