Speakers Bureau (Zachary)

Speakers Bureau

The DecARcerate Speakers Bureau connects speakers covering a wide range of topics with organizations, conferences, classrooms, and community groups.

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Zachary Crow is the director of decARcerate, a grassroots coalition working to end mass incarceration in Arkansas with and on behalf of prisoners and their families. DecARcerate works through a combination of community education, smart legislation, advocacy, and activism.

Crow spent two years living alongside and learning from homeless, incarcerated, and formerly incarcerated individuals in Atlanta, Georgia as a part of the Open Door Community, a residential community in the Catholic Worker tradition seeking to dismantle racism, sexism, and heterosexism, abolish the death penalty and proclaim the Beloved Community through loving relationships with some of the most neglected and outcast: the homeless and those in prison.

Zachary is a radio personality, storyteller, filmmaker, and poet. Along with Judge Wendell Griffen, Crow hosts “The Barber and Beauty Shop Radio Hour,” a weekly call-in show centering around issues of social justice on KABF 88.3. His first feature-length documentary, “We See No Enemy,” was released in March 2013 and chronicles five Palestinian stories from the West Bank. His first book of poetry, “Dancing In The Eddies” was released in April 2018.

Crow serves as an ordained minister with New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, which describe themselves as “progressive, welcoming, inclusive followers of Jesus.”

Burn It Down: The Past, Present, and Future of Mass Incarceration in Arkansas

Due to the recent work of Byran Stevenson, Michelle Alexander, and Ava Duvernay, many have a basic understanding of the basic history and roots of mass incarceration, however, most are not aware of the particular history of enslavement, oppression, and injustice in their own backyard. In this talk, Zachary Crow addresses the particulars of mass incarceration in Arkansas, how we got here, and what we can do about it.

Death of the Carceral State: Imagining a World without Cages

What is Abolition? Why is reform not enough? What does the work of abolition actually look like? In this talk, Zachary Crow uses abolitionist history, theory, and storytelling to help audiences imagine what a world free of prisons, policing, and other punitive structures could look like, and works to highlight specific models from across the globe

The Poetics of Resistance

In this talk—part auto-biographical, part political theory, part storytelling, and part poetry-reading—Zachary Crow uses his own writings and experiences to highlight the injustices of the carceral state all while maintaining an indignant hope for a world without prisons and police.

Panel Presentations:

Zachary is also available to speak on panels and participate in moderated interviews. Zachary requires that all panels he sits on also include a person who is directly impacted by the carceral state. If you need help connecting with an individual who is directly impacted, the decARcerate Speaker's Bureau is happy to assist you.

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