This zine situates study itself as an act of defiance, remembrance and freedom work by tracing the enduring legacy of David Walker’s An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829), a radical pamphlet calling for Black resistance, self-determination, and liberation. Through archival photographs of Black people studying across generations—including images from Mariame Kaba’s personal newswire collection—Black Study meditates on the long lineage of intellectual and political struggle sparked by Walker’s words. Banned and denounced in its time, The Appeal nevertheless circulated widely, fueling abolitionist movements and shaping the philosophies of Black nationalism, civil rights, and direct action.
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.
Publication date: March 24, 2026
by Tara Betts, Tempest Hazel, et al.
