On the evening of May 29th, 2025, we gathered at 27th Letter Books in Detroit to hear our 2024-25 Artist in Residence, Cherise Morris, read from the work she wrote during her time with DJC. Cherise opened the space by reading a list of names of people who were killed by police and dedicated the work to the memory of all those who have died at the hands of law enforcement. Through the course of her essays, Cherise invited the audience to consider the world before policing and incarceration and how it can inform our contemporary conceptions of abolition. She illuminated the work of African scholars who wrote that communal living created a sense of collective responsibility where punitive and carceral responses to harm were simply unnecessary. She also uplifted the history of collective grieving that allowed communities to process trauma and loss together. Cherise’s work speaks to the difficulty of being an abolitionist parent in a world filled with copaganda, and acknowledges how grief can show up as unrelenting anger at the ongoing genocides across the globe.
Cherise let the audience know that she plans to expand the essay collection into a full-length project after the publication of her first book next year. While we all eagerly await the chance to read her book, we’re excited to share the essays she wrote with us below. We’re also sharing the video of her reading from the collection, captured by 888 Creative.
