During a Q&A at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, someone asked me what person or place most impacted me while writing Reimagining the Revolution. I didn’t hesitate. My answer will always be the incarcerated activists and artists who trusted me with their stories.

These are people living under some of the most dehumanizing conditions imaginable. They’re in environments designed to crush the spirit—where control is absolute and isolation is weaponized. And yet, in conversation after conversation, I was floored by the clarity of their vision, the fire in their language, and above all, their hope.

Not the empty kind—the Hallmark-card optimism that insists on silver linings. I’m talking about the kind of hope that’s forged in struggle. Hope as resistance. Hope as a refusal to let the state define who you are or what you’re capable of becoming.

Mariame Kaba said it best: “Hope is a discipline.”

Writing this book forced me to confront the ways I’d internalized despair. I had to ask myself: Who benefits when we believe nothing can change? Who wins when we give up?

The people I spoke to on the inside refuse to give up. Not because they’re naive, but because they know the stakes. They know their own survival, their ability to organize, create, imagine, and endure—that is what the system wants to extinguish most. And they won’t let it.

Their stories changed how I approach my work. I no longer write just to raise awareness or evoke empathy. I write to expose power. To amplify those already pushing back. To remind people outside that the fight isn’t over—and never has been.

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed, cynical, or numb, I invite you to borrow some of that radical hope. Read their words. Share their art. Support their organizing. Let their vision stretch your own.

If they can believe in liberation from within prison walls, how dare we not?

Want to take action?
🖼️ Support Scotty’s artwork here – 100% of proceeds go to his commissary fund.
📬 Write a letter to an incarcerated person—connection matters.
📚 Come to an event near you and be part of the conversation.