True Narratives: The Civil Death Penalty — What Are We Fighting For?

We are BACK in the cypher! What does it mean to fight for Black families in a system designed to annihilate them? And who must we become in the cracks, in the rupture, and in the struggle? In this episode of Audio Nuggets, we welcome back movement lawyer Miriam Mack to the cypher, now in her role with Movement for Family Power. Miriam brings us into her own self-inquiry about what it means to show up as a movement lawyer within the ecosystem working to abolish family policing. Together, this conversation wrestles with what it means to build power—power rooted in history, values and Black Chicano liberation movements.

We are here about the civil death penalty— termination of parental rights—and we confront the racialized narratives that determine whose knowledge is valued, whose truth is contaminated, and whose humanity is made disposable. We examine what it means for a lawyer to breach the racial contract by challenging the very narratives the legal system relies upon to justify family separation. This conversation calls us to reckon with this country’s long lineage of attempting to sever Black families from their histories, their people, and their bonds. Drawing on Bryan Stevenson’s position that the state’s power to punish must be challenged regardless of innocence, we ask what it means to defend a parent’s right to family. Full stop.

What would it look like to enter a termination trial prepared to put everything on the line? What conditions make radical defense possible, and what must attorneys be willing to endure, embody, and sacrifice to practice it?

This is a conversation about movement lawyering, yes, but even more about who we are willing to be in the struggle.