Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

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12:00pm CDT

Cross-Walls Solidarity Against Carceral Infrastructure

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

Incarcerated and detained people have always played a complex role in the movement to end caging and free them all. This session brings together abolitionist organizers focused on permanently closing facilities without replacing them to discuss the process of building cross-walls solidarity beyond campaigns. Speakers will discuss how closure impacts those inside facilities, as well as lessons learned from responding to retaliation, censorship, and a constantly adapting carceral state.

Speakers

Kendra Drysdale

Kendra Drysdale, California Coalition for Women’s Prisoners (FCI Dublin Fight)

Berty Hernandez

Berty Hernandez, California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance (Shut Down Adelanto)

Mon Mohapatra

Mon Mohapatra (Community Justice Exchange)

TBD

Sponsors

Community Justice Exchange

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Abolition

12:00pm CDT

Debates in Prison Abolitionist Theory and Practice

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

TBA

Scholars and organizers will discuss live questions of abolitionist theory and practice, from how to think about taking on police vs. ICE vs. the military (or county jails vs. prisons vs. warehousing projects) within this conjuncture of authoritarianism and imperial decline to the relationship between Marxism and prison abolition.

Moderators

Amna Akbar

Speakers

Amelia Kirby

Silky Shah

Silky Shah has been working as an organizer on issues related to racial and migrant justice for over two decades. Originally from Texas, she began fighting the expansion of immigrant jails on the US-Mexico border in the aftermath of 9/11. In 2009, she joined the staff of Detention Watch Network... Read More →

Jack Norton

Zohra Ahmed

Zohra Ahmed is an associate professor of law at Boston University, USA. She writes and teaches about U.S. militarism, domestically and globally. She is a former public defender, and works closely with grassroots movements challenging criminalization.

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Abolition

12:00pm CDT

The Merciless Society: Incarceration, Dehumanization, and American Empire

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

TBA

In our age of carceral imperialism, the return of longer and more brutal punishments reveals the pretense of civilization slipping away. As mercy toward the marginalized is demonized by a steady diet of disinformation about crime and punishment, the worst-case scenarios are quickly becoming more and more possible unless we confront the merciless society head on.

Speakers

Lyle May

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Abolition

1:30pm CDT

Letter Writing to Incarcerated Comrades

Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT

Do you want to build connections with imprisoned comrades, but don’t know where to start? Spend your lunch hour learning the political importance of and best practices for letter writing to prisoners. Participants will have the opportunity to write postcards and letters during the session with guidance and support from formerly imprisoned people. Bring a friend, or two!

Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT

Abolition

3:00pm CDT

Land and Abolition

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

Based in concrete struggles throughout what Milton Santos provocatively called “used territory,” this talk traces abolition's emergence as an aspirational totality sprouting from cracks in urbanization and agrarian upheavals.

Speakers

Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Ruth Wilson Gilmore is professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences, and American Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, USA. Co-founder of many grassroots organizations including the California Prison Moratorium Project, Critical Resistance, and the Central California Environmental... Read More →

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Abolition

3:00pm CDT

Solidarity Across the Walls and Beyond: Conversation on Inside/Outside Collaborations

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

This session is an invitation for abolitionist organizers on the outside to take steps to ensure imprisoned people are part of the movement to abolish the prison industrial complex. Join formerly imprisoned educators and organizers Stevie Wilson and James Kilgore for a conversation on the importance and potential of genuine collaborations between people in prison and their comrades on the outside. This session will also feature reflections from two members of the 9971 abolitionist study group who are currently imprisoned at SCI Dallas in Pennsylvania.

Speakers

Nick Brown

Eddy Fletcher

James Kilgore

Mon Mohapatra

Mon Mohapatra (Community Justice Exchange)

Stevie Wilson

Sponsors

Community Justice Exchange

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Abolition

5:00pm CDT

Fighting the Surveillance Apparatus: Connecting ALPRs to Larger Networks of Policing & How to Build Past Them

Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT

TBA

Panel discussion to contextualize the current anti-surveillance organizing landscape & build momentum towards utilizing local budget fights to take back resources currently going to policing/surveillance. Afterwards facilitators will lead a workshop so folks can connect across regions and build towards an anti-alpr or budget campaign.

Speakers

Austin Kral

Austin Kral (he/him) is an abolitionist organizer and geographer based in Atlanta. He is a member of Southerners Against Surveillance Systems & Infrastructure and the Atlanta Abolition Research Collective.

Tynetta Hill-Muhammad

Tynetta Hill-Muhammad (they/them) is an MPH candidate in the Community Health Sciences division at the School of Public Health and works on projects centered on policy and public health initiatives that aim to create meaningful impacts for Black, queer, and women communities, in particular... Read More →

Navjot Heer

Navjot Heer (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist and organizer of south asian-panjabi immigrant descent whose work spans architecture, urban planning, design, oral history, and more. they have supported local and national abolitionist campaigns, such as stop shotspotter in chicago... Read More →

nat palmer

Breanna Champion

Sponsors

Lucy Parsons Lab

Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
TBA

Abolition

5:00pm CDT

Prison Papers in Action: Activating Archives with Walls Turned Sideways

Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT

TBA

Join Walls Turned Sideways to learn about their current exhibition, Prison Papers: Organizing Inside/Outside Solidarity. We will do a brief presentation about the history of the penal press, solidarity publishing, and the legacy of print media as a tool for organizing across walls. This will be followed by small group readings and discussions of publications such as No More Cages, Prison News Service, Anarchist Black Dragon, The Abolitionist, and others and a hands-on collage activity!

Speakers

Mira Simonton-Chao

Carlos Ayala

Sponsors

Walls Turned Sideways

Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
TBA

Abolition

6:30pm CDT

Abolitionist Zine Writing Workshop

Saturday September 5, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm CDT

Join the Jail Solidarity Network, an inside-outside organizing project in Chicago, for this zine-writing workshop. You’ll be invited to read testimony from people jailed in Cook County and then respond with art that we’ll compile into a zine for insiders. You’ll also have the opportunity to connect with mutual aid organizations in the area organizing against jailing.

Saturday September 5, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm CDT

Abolition

12:00pm CDT

12:00pm CDT

12:00pm CDT

1:30pm CDT

3:00pm CDT

3:00pm CDT

5:00pm CDT

5:00pm CDT

6:30pm CDT

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