Cover of Read This When Things Fall Apart

Read This When Things Fall Apart

by Kelly Hayes

172 pages2025AK PressISBN 9781849355841

About this book

From the co-author of Let This Radicalize You, a collection of letters to inspire activists to continue the fight Organizers are well seasoned in defeat. We study movement histories, strategize collectively, and gather strength in direct action, knowing that liberation does not arrive overnight, but that the fight is worth it. But what happens when political and personal crises overlap, and the despair becomes overwhelming? Where do we turn when the process of organizing no longer feels like a site of refuge, but isolating, or even tragic? Read This When Things Fall Apart is a collection of letters written to organizers in crisis who are struggling with the conflicts, heartbreaks, and catastrophes that activists so often experience. From grief to exhaustion, fractured relationships, state violence and interpersonal violence, the struggle for justice can be tumultuous. Each letter invites the reader to the writer's particular world in abortion defense, organizing within prison walls, recuperating from state repression after the 2020 uprisings, or as a new parent struggling to find their way in movement spaces, and offers an authentic account of moving through difficult times. Personal, reflective, and hopeful, Read This When Things Fall Apart is a new type of book for radicals that harnesses the writers' individual moments of despair into living, breathing wisdom capable of chipping away at the supposed inevitability of fascist life. Restorative like a letter from a trusted friend and invigorating like a story from a mentor, the book is an indispensable companion for all of us navigating the challenging times ahead.

Publication Details

Publisher
AK Press
Published
2025
Pages
172
ISBN
9781849355841
Language
en

About Kelly Hayes

Kelly Hayes is a Menominee author, organizer, movement educator, and photographer. She is also the host of Truthout’s podcast Movement Memos. Hayes is a cofounder of the Lifted Voices collective and the Chicago Light Brigade. Her written work is featured in numerous publications and multiple anthologies, including Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Police Violence and Resistance in the United States (Haymarket Books, 2016), Education in Movement Spaces: Standing Rock to Chicago Freedom Square (Routledge, 2020), and The Solidarity Struggle: How People of Color Succeed and Fail at Showing Up for Each Other in the Fight for Freedom (BGD Press, 2016). Hayes also coauthored an essay with Mariame Kaba in Kaba’s book We Do This ’Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (Haymarket Books, 2021). Hayes’s movement photography is featured in the Freedom and Resistance exhibit of the DuSable Museum of African American History.-Haymarket Books

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