In 1994, eighteen-year-old Kirk “Jae” James was a college freshman with no prior record. But he made the mistake of getting caught in the net of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, and for that, the state of New York stole his life. He was denied bail and processed through Rikers Island, where Jae died in a very real sense. In his place, the state created 94A6325—a number branded onto a new piece of state property. That number would define the next 3,268 days of his existence. You might expect that story to end in despair. You might expect it to end in violence. And for countless others, it does. But for Jae, something else happened inside those walls. Surrounded by systemic violence and racial tension in places like Coxsackie—known as “The Cat”—he found something unexpected: mentors. Elders called “Pops” and “Ninja” didn’t just teach him to survive. They taught him to think. They introduced him to revolutionaries like George Jackson, and in doing so, they gave him the tools to decolonize his mind. He began to see that his cage wasn’t just made of steel—it was built on a historical foundation of slavery, maintained by the loophole in the 13th Amendment. When he was finally released in 2003, after three parole denials and a deportation order he had to fight, he didn’t just walk free. He walked out with a mission. Today, Dr. Kirk Jae James is a professor at NYU. And he uses his voice to advocate for one thing: Abolition. Not reform. Not repair. But the complete dismantling of a system he argues is a direct descendant of chattel slavery. His life is proof that you can force a garden to grow through concrete. But his question to us is this: Why should anyone have to?

Our two co-editors, Ayo Ogunremi and Russell Lamey, discuss with Jae about his life, the book and our journey together.