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The Red Scare and the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s destroyed the careers of many progressive and left writers and performers in film, music, and the arts. Black women performers who already faced racism and marginalization in the entertainment industry were particularly vulnerable to the blacklist. Pianist and composer Hazel Scott, actor and journalist Fredi Washington, actor Lena Horne, and musician and writer Shirley Graham, all of whom Red Channels, an anticommunist publication targeting the entertainment industry, named as so-called subversives, were among those most affected.
Mariame Kaba is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots abolitionist organization focused on ending youth incarceration, and co-leads the initiative Interrupting Criminalization with fellow organizer Andrea J. Ritchie. Kaba is the author of the New York Times Bestseller We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (Haymarket Books, 2021), among several other titles that offer support and tools for repair, transformation, and moving toward a future without incarceration and policing.