Personal Essay Archives – Scalawag

SALT, SOIL, & SUPPER

A Generational Love Letter to Western Hills Mall

by NaBeela Washington August 12, 2026August 12, 2026

Despite the promises made, renovations announced, and significant economic impact predicted, the Western Hills Mall project has offered nothing more than silence, abandonment, and a community left to figure out what comes next without a say in the matter.

On Being Undocumented in Houston’s Gaza Solidarity Student Movement

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

On Being Undocumented in Houston's Gaza Solidarity Student Movement

by Anonymous October 31, 2024October 31, 2024

Florida’s LGBTQ+ community defies queer repression with advocacy and preservation

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Florida's LGBTQ+ community defies queer repression with advocacy & preservation

by Cordell Jones October 30, 2024October 30, 2024

Boiling on the Inside: Texas Inmates Weather Extreme Heat in non-Air Conditioned Prisons

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Boiling on the Inside

by Kwaneta Harris April 11, 2024April 16, 2024

Nnenna Freelon, the voice behind Great Grief, shares her family recipe for sweet potato pie, memories of her late grandmother, and how she has found ways to cope with the grief that always seems more present around the holidays—through baking.

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On grief and sweet potato pie: A holiday meditation

by Nnenna Freelon November 29, 2023November 29, 2023

In this November 2005 file photo, Larry Greene, public information director of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, demonstrates how a curtain is pulled between the death chamber and witness room at the prison in Lucasville, Ohio. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File) Author Keith LaMar's execution date was moved to 2027 after 30 years on Death Row in Ohio, awaiting the death penalty.

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

A Death Row Reprieve: One man's bittersweet reflection

by Keith LaMar November 16, 2023November 15, 2023

The weather bears witness: On calamity, rebirth, and Blackness in the face of climate crisis and the chaos of the natural world. "Perhaps in every wind roaring, in every storm raging, our ancestors are not only watching over us, but watching out for us."

Emergence

by Cherise Morris September 28, 2023September 28, 2023

Having spent the first wave of COVID-19 in Rikers Island, David Campbell found the pandemic lockdowns he was met with after his release strangely familiar. The parallels of self-quarantine and incarceration can be tools for abolitionist solidarity.

What living through COVID in jail taught me about abolition

by David Campbell September 21, 2023September 21, 2023

The author, Mira Ugwuadu, posing for a portrait in the months after graduating from high school in Marietta, Georgia. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) Funding, education, and safety are at the top of the list of demands to dismantle the youth mental health stigma in Georgia schools.

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

In Georgia, we need proactive—not reactive—mental health support in schools

by Mira Ugwuadu September 14, 2023November 13, 2023

A wheelchair standing between other chairs in a school classroom. Disabled students are overlooked in the youth mental health crisis. How navigating an impossible system drove one disabled student to activism in their quest for solutions to the youth mental health crisis.

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Young people struggle within a capitalist, ableist system. We can change it.

by Marrow Woods September 14, 2023November 13, 2023

Death penalty opponents gather on the steps of the State Capitol in Atlanta, Ga., Monday, March 2, 2015 to protest the death penalty and the planned execution of Kelly Gissendaner. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ben Gray)

On the execution of my friend, Kelly Gissendaner

by Carla J. Simmons August 31, 2023August 30, 2023

In paintings: Life, Death, Carcerality, and the Pursuit of Abolition

by Obie Weathers August 29, 2023August 29, 2023

Alim Braxton and Sabur Tyler have served a combined 53 years on Death Row. Six years ago, they found a profound friendship with each other—one that provides hope, solace, purpose, and companionship amidst the unique injustices they each face.

To dream, or not to dream: Friendship, innocence, and redemption on Death Row

by Alim Braxton and Sabur Tyler August 28, 2023August 29, 2023

Mausoleums: The Art of Necromancy

by Jaiden Butler July 25, 2023November 13, 2023

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Imprisoned in Gaza, Imprisoned outside of Gaza

by Maram M. AbedAlBari June 29, 2023November 14, 2023

A Black mother in prison exposes the greed and hypocrisy of the system that keeps her behind bars and rips apart families.

Only Mercy

by Chanell Burnette June 27, 2023November 13, 2023

Mourning in prison: How "total institutions" punish the grief of the incarcerated.

Against Regulations: Grieving inside a total institution

by E.J. June 27, 2023November 13, 2023

The geography of disaster, storms, and prison.

Perfect Storm: A time to refrain from embracing

by Richard Hunsinger June 23, 2023September 27, 2023

An artist's tribute to painter Duniyana Al-Amoor, killed in her room in Gaza at age 22.

Art Under Aggression

by Malak Mattar June 22, 2023November 14, 2023

State conspiracies and censorship of the incarcerated in prison.

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Conspiracyz, Scum Pigz, & the Dept. of Censorship

by G. Z. June 21, 2023September 27, 2023

Solitary confinement in maximum security prison

Nightmares & Daydreams: Welcome to maximum security

by Zakaria Amara June 20, 2023September 27, 2023

Our home outside these walls: My love letter to you, son

by Devon Terrell June 16, 2023November 13, 2023

Victim or survivor? The language of patriarchal violence. Assigning language of victimhood or survival to those who have experienced gender violence is dehumanizing—not empowering.

Who said we all survived?

by Breya M. Johnson May 25, 2023May 24, 2023

My heart is wrapped in concertina wire

by K.C. Johnson May 24, 2023November 13, 2023

A storybook illustration of a Black mother playing soccer with her Black son in the park.

'Please Keep Playing.' An open letter to my son, Remix

by Ariana Brazier May 5, 2023November 13, 2023

There is no healing in an antiblack world

by Da'Shaun L. Harrison February 1, 2023December 1, 2023

Successors and failures: Adulting after death

by Maya Miller January 25, 2023December 1, 2023

Grief, a (grand)mother tongue

by Mele Girma January 10, 2023December 1, 2023

Haunting the archive

by Victoria Newton Ford December 2, 2022December 1, 2023

Something about mysticism, Coyote's Ghost, and being afraid of owls

by Autumn Fourkiller October 21, 2022December 1, 2023

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