June 2025 | What We're Reading
Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt by Orisanmi Burton
This month, we’re very excited to turn to a book that has been on our reading list for some time, a book that powerfully reframes one of the most well-known prison uprisings in U.S. history: Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt by Orisanmi Burton.
Tip of the Spear offers a deeply researched and urgent account of the 1971 Attica Rebellion—not as a five-day event, but as part of a sustained and still-unfolding struggle for Black liberation and resistance to carceral violence. Through this work, we’re invited to see Attica not as a discrete moment in history, but as part of a larger continuum of state repression and radical response.
Earlier this spring, Maya, connease, and I had the opportunity to hear Orisanmi share insights from the book during a keynote address at the Abolition, Everywhere conference. We’ve been eager to engage more deeply with this book ever since—and now we hope you’ll join us.
We'll be reading throughout the month of June and as always, we’ll host a virtual discussion at the end of the month (details coming soon). We can’t wait to read and reflect with you.
In solidarity,
Alan
ps. A note on where to purchase Tip of the Spear. We are, of course, still avoiding Amazon. Here are some alternatives:
Bookshop.org: Support independent bookstores.
University of California Press: Buy directly from the publisher's website.
I agree this book is _very_ important in that it gives voice to the unheard in a full throated and unprecedented manner. At the same time I feel there needs to be a content warning for this book. In the age of Black Lives Matter many Black people have expressly pointed out that they have a hard time seeing harm done to Black bodies, and Black people. This book has _extreme_ descriptions of harm done to Black people by prison authorities. Readers need to be aware.