Overview

For 35 years, the New Orleans-based Black feminist collective Women With A Vision (WWAV) has fought for the liberation of their communities through reproductive justice, harm reduction, abolition feminism, racial justice, and sex workers rights. In 2012, shortly after one of their biggest organizing victories, arsonists firebombed and destroyed their headquarters. Fire Dreams is an innovative collaboration between WWAV and Laura McTighe, who work in community to build a social movement ethnography of the organization's post-arson rebirth. Rooting WWAV in the geography of the South and the living history of generations of Black feminist thinkers, McTighe and WWAV weave together stories from their founders' pioneering work during the Black HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s and their groundbreaking organizing to end criminalization in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with other movements for liberation around the globe. Together, they refuse the logics of racial capitalism and share WWAV's own world-building knowledges as well as their methods for living these Black feminist futures now. Fire Dreams is a vital toolkit for grassroots organizers, activist-scholars, and all those who dream to make the world otherwise.

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9781478020806

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Reviews

“Providing an urgent and layered account of Black feminist abolitionist organizing, this book is a model of nuanced, accessible, and theoretically deft scholar activist work. Laura McTighe and Women With A Vision demonstrate that Black feminism mobilized with persistence is a worldmaking politics and practice. Fire Dreams is a gorgeous work of care, radical planning, and theory that will inspire and enlighten readers.” -- Sarah Haley, author of * No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity * “When fighting the amassed forces of injustice, our oppressors must remember that fire burns and fire also replenishes. The inspiring story of Deon Haywood and Women With A Vision recounts how nothing can quench the determination of people demanding freedom, and nothing can quell the passion of those who have committed their lives to justice and human rights. These warrior goddesses are fierce and loving in this wonderfully moving story told with Laura McTighe. This is essential reading for those of us learning to be fearless in the service of our people.” -- Loretta J. Ross, activist, author, and MacArthur fellow “In the tradition of Callie House, Queen Mother Moore, and other foremothers, Women With A Vision organizes with the belief that caring for the people is inseparable from speaking truth to power. That is why this grassroots New Orleans group of Black women has won policy fights that others thought impossible. This book shows us how the history of Black women’s resistance continues to birth new movements for structural change.” -- Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine Segal Professor of American Social Thought, History and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania “What are the possibilities for all of us, if we liberate poor Black women, cisgender and trans, in the Deep South? Fire Dreams, which documents the history of the work of Women With A Vision, shows how one organization in New Orleans has shouted this question to the world, with its bold model of organizing, policy advocacy and service provision using a Black feminist praxis for the women whose power is most often ignored, and rarely channeled towards radical change.” -- Kenyon Farrow, writer, activist, and contributor to * Healing Justice Lineages: Dreaming at the Crossroads of Liberation, Collective Care, and Safety * “We are all indebted to the minds, hearts, and work of Women With A Vision. They’ve lovingly and forcefully led our collective movement to build deeper relationships and create more expansive visions. They’ve shifted power so that they could demand accountability for the people and the communities that need WWAV’s Fire Dreams to be reality.” -- Kassandra Frederique, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance “Unapologetically rooted in experiences and visions of Black women and trans people living at the intersections of multiple interlocking oppressions, drawing on thirty-five years of fierce Black feminist resistance to abandonment of Black HIV-affected women, the war on drugs, and criminalization of sexual and reproductive autonomy, and consistently centering Black women’s dignity, self-determination, and cultures of care, Fire Dreams illuminates what Black feminism in action looks like and shines essential light from the South on the path forward in this moment.” -- Andrea J. Ritchie, cofounder of Interrupting Criminalization and coauthor of * No More Police: A Case for Abolition * “WWWWAVD (What Would Women With A Vision Do) has been a constant question and guiding principle throughout my life as an activist. WWAV has taught us all what it means to center the health, rights, safety, and self-determination of people in drug using and sex worker communities and to unwaveringly use the power of harm reduction to free us all. Their story is inspiring, it is incredible, and it is necessary for anyone working toward liberation.” -- Cyndee Clay, Executive Director of HIPS (Honoring Individual Power & Strength) “What would our world look like if Black women, queer and trans people of color, sex workers, and drug users had everything they needed to survive, to thrive? Women With A Vision answers this question through radical acceptance, love, and transformation—guiding so many of us to stay and fight back. Through all the floods and fires, WWAV’s ethic of Black Feminist community building has been the force that has led our repair and restoration.” -- R. Cielo Cruz, writer, cultural organizer, Racial Justice facilitator, former WWAV board member, former sex worker, long time New Orleans local “Fire Dreams captures the essence of Women With A Vision brilliantly—beautifully resilient, perfectly intersectional, and Black community centered. The history, struggle, and sacrifice are Herstory that all of us should celebrate.” -- Heidi Williamson, Principal Creative & RJ Advocate, Hummingbird Black Creative “A community of practice that has been coming together to learn and serve our people for nearly forty years, with a track record of meeting needs and saving lives. What an honor it is to follow the leadership of Deon Haywood and the Women With A Vision family.” -- Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Co-Executive Director, Highlander Research and Education Center

“Providing an urgent and layered account of Black feminist abolitionist organizing, this book is a model of nuanced, accessible, and theoretically deft scholar activist work. Laura McTighe and Women With A Vision demonstrate that Black feminism mobilized with persistence is a worldmaking politics and practice. Fire Dreams is a gorgeous work of care, radical planning, and theory that will inspire and enlighten readers.” -- Sarah Haley, author of * No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity *

Author Information

Laura McTighe is Assistant Professor of Religion at Florida State University and the Cofounder of Women With A Vision’s research arm, Front Porch Research Strategy in New Orleans. Deon Haywood is Executive Director of Women With A Vision, a New Orleans-based organization that has organized for Black feminist liberation in the South for decades.

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