There are some truths that don’t arrive in textbooks. They arrive in kitchens.
On front porches. In whispers between women who survived something and decided survival wasn’t enough.
This episode of The Practice of a Hoodoo Baptist sits inside that lineage.
I’m joined by Jenn M. Jackson (they/them) — abolitionist, writer, organizer, and author of Black Women Taught Us — for a conversation that reframes how we understand political thought, resistance, and care. Because what Jenn makes clear is this: Black women were never just participants in freedom movements. We were theorists. Architects. Strategists. Teachers.
And we still are.
We talk about abolition not just as policy, but as practice. As relationship. As an ongoing spiritual discipline that asks us to imagine safety without cages and care without punishment.
Jenn invites us to consider what it means to take Black women seriously — not symbolically, not sentimentally — but intellectually and politically. What would shift if we actually lived what Black women have been teaching for generations?
We explore racial trauma and the body. The cost of respectability. The necessity of queer and gender-expansive voices in shaping liberation. The role of love — not as softness, but as accountability and clarity.
There’s a moment in this conversation where it becomes clear: abolition is not only about dismantling systems. It’s about building worlds where Black life is not constantly negotiating its own survival.
Jenn’s work insists that Black women’s wisdom is not supplementary — it is foundational. And if we are serious about freedom, we have to move beyond quoting Black women to practicing what they’ve already mapped out.
This episode is layered. Tender. Unapologetically political. And deeply human.
If you’ve ever wondered what it means to love Black people enough to change the world — this conversation will sit with you.
Listen to the full episode of The Practice of a Hoodoo Baptist via Menärchē on Substack, YouTube, or listen on Apple.
Be sure to explore more of Jenn’s work at jennmjackson.com
