Join us on Friday, August 21 at 6:00 PM for a conversation with Dr. Orisanmi Burton about Black August, the living legacy of the Attica Revolt, and the urgent call to be in solidarity with our incarcerated comrades and all who rebel against the prison. Please RSVP at bit.ly/abolitionist-worldmaking and note that this event will not be livestreamed.

Community Conversations is a program presented by the Community Church of New York, aiming to facilitate open dialogue with movement leaders and thinkers on justice issues that demand our engagement, understanding, and action.

Speaker Bio

Orisanmi Burton is Associate Professor of Anthropology at American University. His research employs ethnographic and archival methods to examine historical collisions between Black radical organizations and state repression in the United States. Dr. Burton received his BA in interdisciplinary social inquiry from Hampshire College, an MA in library and information science from Long Island University, and a PhD in sociocultural anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Burton’s work has been published in North American Dialogue, The Black Scholar, Radical History Review, and American Anthropologist among other outlets, and has received support from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and The Marguerite Casey Foundation, which selected him as a 2021 Freedom Scholar. Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt is his first book (University of California Press, 2023).