Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Memories of Abolition Day
Albina Zone by Lisa Bates
Albina Zone Synopsis
In near future Portland, the police have been abolished, but what else is needed for real liberation? A gifted young woman and her mother struggle to communicate across a rift of unspoken history.
Read Albina Zone, a short story by Lisa Bates.
Listen to Albina Zone, read by the author.
About the Author
Lisa K. Bates, PhD is Associate Professor at Portland State University in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning and is a Portland Professor in Innovative Housing Policy. She is also affiliated with PSU’s Black Studies department. Her scholarship focuses on housing and community development policy and planning, and her research and practice aims to build new models for emancipatory planning practices and to dismantle institutional racism.
Learn more about Dr. Bates.
Rememory by Walidah Imarisha
Rememory Synopsis
Set in a future world where those who believe in liberation have set up autonomous zones across the United States, teen Ayo contemplates her place in this society without prisons and police. While her chosen sibling Essakai is fighting to free more territories, Ayo decides to journey into the Rememory, the collective consciousness of past Black liberation movements, to find out what her role in creating these new just worlds should be.
Read Rememory, a short story by Walidah Imarisha.
Listen to Rememory, read by the author.
About the Author
Walidah Imarisha is Director of the Center for Black Studies and Assistant Professor in the Black Studies Department at Portland State University. Imarisha is an educator and a writer. She is the co-editor of two anthologies, Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements and Another World is Possible. Imarisha is also the author of Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison and Redemption, which won a 2017 Oregon Book Award. She spent 6 years with Oregon Humanities’ Conversation Project as a public scholar facilitating programs across the state about Oregon Black history and other topics. In 2015, she received a Tiptree Fellowship for her science fiction writing. In the past, Imarisha has taught at Stanford University, Oregon State University, and Pacific Northwest College of the Arts.
Learn more about Walidah Imarisha.
These short stories are part of the anthology, Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Memories of Abolition Day, hosted in PDXScholar, the institutional repository for Portland State University, part of the University Library’s Racial and Gender Equity Collection, one of the Featured Collections.
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Beatrice Morrow Cannady, NAACP Founding Member
Racial and Gender Equity Collection
The Racial and Gender Equity collection brings together a wide variety of research generated by the Portland State University community that is centered on the issues of racial justice, gender equity and related topics. The collection is designed to support people and organizations to interrupt institutionalized racism and sexism while developing knowledge and skills to deepen and broaden diversity, equity, and inclusion in their personal, professional and organizational practices.
Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations
The Black Studies Department, officially established in 1970, centers the experiences, voices, and research of people of African descent as a way to challenge dominant narratives.
The Black Bag Speakers Series
In an effort to develop a forum for people and organizations doing work that addresses issues related to the community of Black people in Portland, PSU Black Studies began the Black Bag Speaker Series in October of 2006. We have featured many key people and organizations speaking on important issues in Portland and the region, including but not limited to Oregon Senator Avel Gordly, Joann Bowman from Oregon Action, and Dr. Joy Leary from Portland State University. Our series has focused on the following issues: race and sustainability, slavery, police violence, segregation and gentrification, education, the Black Panthers, AIDS and health in Portland, to name a few.
Find more in PDXScholar with the advanced search feature: Black Lives Matter