Archive of Tear Gas

The police have always been used as a tool for the social control of minority populations and to protect the power and property of the elite. A reading list that puts the call for the abolishment of the police in historical context.

The political prisoner has played a central role in the history of modern liberation struggles, argues Angela Davis. 

Riots, rebellions and uprisings that have changed the world.

These activist demands to defund the Seattle Police Department, prepared by COVID-19 Mutual Aid Seattle, emerged out of the city-wide movement that made headlines last week when the SPD abandoned a police precinct in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood and activists reclaimed the space, naming it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.

40% off all our books through June, plus FREE eBooks announced each week!

While delegates made their way to Chicago for the 1968 Democratic National Convention, tens of thousands of protesters were set to converge in the city for a week of civil disobedience. Protesters, passersby, and even residents out on their porches were beaten. The chasing, swinging, and clubbing was indiscriminate. Journalists, denied any special treatment, were battered and taunted, at times even targeted.

"What separates a martyr from an ally lies in who calls the shots, who does the grunt work, who gets the glory and who decides, in the aftermath, how the story of the uprising is told." Audrea Lim reports on this week's protests against racist police violence in New York City.

In this excerpt from Tear Gas, Anna Feigenbaum describes the history of the Himsworth Report, used by governments around the world to justify the use of tear gas.

50% off our May Day reading! Includes new reading from Bhaskar Sunkara, Nancy Fraser, and Eric Blanc.

Aria Alamalhodaei interviews Anna Feigenbaum about airborne politics, the use of tear gas as border control, and what resistance to nonlethal weapons looks like.