Intersectional Alliances in Soledad Prison: The Exemplary Life of John Brown Childs

ABSTRACT This essay, the first of a triptych published in Jacobin-Italia, focuses on the contribution of scholar-activist and Black Native American sociologist John Brown Childs, who played an important role in producing and developing “trans-communality” theory and practice. His work came out of his experiences in Soledad Prison, where inmates developed their own trans-racial education system, which included promoting gender consciousness and social empowerment. Childs' work sheds light on the possibility of overcoming intra-communal conflicts and creating intersectional alliances among different and oppressed social groups or “nations”.