From Revolution to Liberation—For All Beings
This Black History Month draws to a close, but the truth remains—Black history does not begin and end with February. It is a constant, shaping force, essential to understanding justice and liberation in all their forms. It should not be a seasonal acknowledgment or a moment of performative reflection that fades as the weeks pass. Black history is an enduring narrative that informs our understanding of justice across every facet of society and beyond. The revolutionary spirit woven into this history challenges us to remain vigilant and committed to liberation in all forms, long after February ends.
This month has been an opportunity for deep reflection, to examine the legacies of Black revolutionaries whose uncompromising resistance to exploitation and domination continues to inform and shape the fight for justice. These leaders did not view their resistance as isolated; their movements sought to dismantle entire systems, not piecemeal reforms. Their vision was profound and universal in its scope, recognizing that liberation is never confined to one group, one issue, or one struggle. Instead, it is a battle for collective liberation against all forces that devalue life. This principle is as relevant now as it was then, urging us to take a more holistic approach to the struggles we align ourselves with.
We tread carefully in this acknowledgment—not to co-opt their words or reduce their visions to serve a narrow agenda, but to engage with their work as they intended. For those of us in advocacy spaces, this requires humility and a willingness to critique ourselves. Too often, well-meaning movements unintentionally fragment justice, prioritizing one cause while neglecting the interconnected systems of oppression that sustain exploitation. To truly honor Black revolutionary leaders, we must resist this instinct. Their work was expansive in scope, fundamentally abolitionist in nature, and infinitely tied to the eradication of all oppression. Their struggle was rooted in the abolition of all forms of oppression, and it calls us to interrogate how even our own movements might fall short of these principles of total justice.
This is why we see our work for animal liberation as an extension of their vision, not a divergence from it. Many social justice fighters, including Angela Davis, have explicitly connected the fight for animal rights to the fight against other systems of oppression. Coretta Scott King also affirmed this connection, stating that “veganism is the next logical extension” of Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violence. These connections between nonviolence and universal justice illuminate how oppression functions systematically and across different realms. By addressing how oppression operates across species lines, we honor the revolutionary spirit of Black leaders and ensure their legacies are carried forward into every facet of activism, leaving no one—human or nonhuman—behind. Their radical calls for total freedom resonate deeply, and our work must reflect this interconnected understanding of justice.
The animal rights movement, in particular, has often failed to meet this standard. Too frequently, it appropriates Black resistance while ignoring the intersecting systems of oppression that shape exploitation. This dishonors the revolutionary histories we claim to honor, histories that recognized justice as systemic and interconnected—not confined to specific issues or easy slogans. Because the truth is, injustice doesn’t occur in isolation. It never has. The exploitation of some is inherently tied to the exploitation of others. The struggle against speciesism must reckon with its entanglement in systems of racism and classism if it is to mean anything at all.
The exploitation of nonhuman animals does not stand apart from the mechanisms that brutalize humans. Industrial animal agriculture thrives within and reinforces a racist and classist framework. Slaughterhouses and factory farms poison Black, Brown, immigrant, and low-income communities. They displace Indigenous stewards of the land, feed environmental destruction, and cultivate zoonotic diseases that disproportionately harm the vulnerable. These harms are not side effects; they are built into the very systems that prioritize profit over life itself.
At its core, this industry operates on a brutal and systemic foundation—the commodification of life for power and profit. This practice is not merely a mentality but a foundational principle of colonial systems and capitalism, deeply embedded in the exploitation and domination that define these frameworks. It is the same logic that built the systems of industrialized animal agriculture, the pet industrial complex, chattel slavery, imperialism, slave labor, and mass incarceration, each designed to extract value from life itself to sustain and expand structures of dominance and control.
The capitalist approach to commodifying life operates seamlessly across human and nonhuman contexts. Historically, colonial economies exploited enslaved people and other marginalized human groups for labor, while simultaneously exploiting animals as resources for systemic wealth accumulation. The pattern has never been broken; it has simply evolved into different mechanisms of extraction. When we speak of dismantling speciesism, we cannot omit capitalism, white supremacy, or environmental degradation from the discussion. They are not separate issues but deeply intertwined.
As Black History Month ends, our engagement with this truth must continue. To honor Black resistance is to understand that human and nonhuman liberation are indivisible. The abolition of systems that exploit animals cannot exclude the abolition of frameworks steeped in anti-Blackness, colonialism, and classism. These interconnected forces demand that our approach to justice takes into account every point of convergence. For those fighting against speciesism, remember this—your work is part of a larger battle. Speciesism doesn’t exist independently; it thrives within structures of racial and economic oppression. If we are to demand radical justice for animals, we must also reject the mechanisms of white supremacy and capitalism that allow all forms of dehumanization and commodification to persist.
Black revolutionaries taught us that justice exists in the refusal to compromise with oppressive systems. Their fight demonstrated that liberation for one must entail liberation for all. Acts of abolition require us to adopt a lens of radical solidarity. Advocacy for one issue cannot justify complacency on others. To honor their legacies, we must commit to equity in all spheres and to uprooting every system that exploits and oppresses.
This month, and every month, we reflect on the necessity of abolitionist thought and action. We deepen our understanding of abolition not as a fragmented pursuit but as an uncompromising fight for total liberation. To honor the legacies of Black revolutionaries, we must refuse to limit their visions, and instead, carry them forward into every aspect of our advocacy. This means seeing our work within the wider context of liberation movements around the world, learning from their histories, and working toward futures that leave no lives outside the scope of justice.
Total liberation is the only liberation. Are you ready to continue the fight?
