Lifting As They Climbed

An essential guidebook to influential Black women from Chicago’s South and West Sides, and their social, cultural, and artistic contributions to movements both past and present.

Geographically, historically, and politically, Lifting As They Climbed gives readers an in-depth understanding of the numerous Black women, from the nineteenth century to today, who empower(ed) their neighborhoods and communities. Structured as a self-guided walking tour, with crisp maps and accessible narratives, Lifting As They Climbed showcases seventy-five women—activists, artists, musicians, and more—through sites and landmarks on Chicago’s South and West Sides.

Including Margaret Burroughs, Gwendolyn Brooks, Mahalia Jackson, and many others, this updated and extended edition is a testament to women whose stories have gone largely untold, and whose lives reveal powerful connections between their endeavors and present-day struggles for radical community-building and solidarity. With no “official” landmarks to preserve the history of their social justice efforts, this book is an intervention against their erasure.

Mariame Kaba is an organizer, educator, librarian, and prison industrial complex (PIC) abolitionist who is active in movements for racial, gender, and transformative justice. Kaba is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots abolitionist organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. Mariame co-leads the initiative Interrupting Criminalization, a project she co-founded with Andrea Ritchie in 2018.

Kaba is the author of the New York Times Bestseller  We Do This Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (Haymarket Press 2021), Missing Daddy (Haymarket 2019), Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability Faciltators  with Shira Hassan (Project NIA, 2019), See You Soon (Haymarket, March 2022) and No More Police: A Case for Abolition with Andrea Ritchie (The New Press, Aug 2022).pport and tools for repair, restoration, and moving toward a future beyond incarceration.

Essense McDowell is a writer, researcher, and communications strategist who has worked with numerous organizations including the Illinois Humanities Council, Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, INCITE!, Black Feminist Future, Chicago Public Library, and the Cook County Historic Archives. She is currently the director of arts and communications at the Social Justice Initiative and community organizing to create a resource hub for a national Black Women's Organizing Coalition.