Root Cause Collective

Liberation cannot be controlled.

This is something Ella Baker deeply understood.  

While others sought power, she invested in people, organizing quietly, challenging hierarchy, and building movements that could survive without a single face at the center. She believed freedom wasn’t enforced from the top down, but practiced together, day by day. 

For us, Ella Baker’s work reframes abolition as community infrastructure. It asks us to move away from systems that rely on punishment and policing, and toward models rooted in shared responsibility, care, and collective wisdom. 

Abolition doesn’t require heroes. It requires people who trust one another enough to build something new together because we cannot do this work alone. 
This is abolition as a practice. 

Throughout the month of February, we’re sharing abolitionists known and unknown, past and present whose work has shaped Black futures across time. 
In what ways have movement leaders shaped your perspective on community care?  

Today, on the eve of Frederick Douglass’ chosen birth date, we honor a man who understood that freedom was never meant to be solely symbolic, it was meant to be lived. 

Douglass fought for the abolition of slavery with his words, his organizing, and his refusal to accept half-freedom. But his vision extended beyond emancipation. He challenged the systems, narratives, and power structures that made oppression possible in the first place. 

For us, abolition didn’t end with the Emancipation Proclamation. It didn’t end when the news reached Galveston. Nor does it end with reform alone. 

Abolition, today, asks us to imagine safety without cages, and accountability without violence. We imagine systems that don’t rip families apart or criminalize survival, but instead support people living whole, dignified lives. 

This is the legacy we carry forward. This is abolition as practice. 
Throughout the month of February, we’re sharing abolitionists known and unknown, past and present whose work has shaped Black futures across time. 

Who’s an abolitionist who inspires your work today?