What do gentrification in Atlanta, an 85-acre police training facility, and the trial against Young Thug's YSL have to do with one another? Everything.

Now more than ever, the Black South's urban landscape shows us the high stakes of an abolitionist future. It's in the music, and it's in the trees.


Part I:


Part II:


This two-part series is a part of pop justice, Scalawag's newsletter that wrestles with the way popular culture warps our understanding of justice—and stalls abolition. Subscribe to pop justice for more in-depth perspectives like this.