Manhattan
Manhattan, originally inhabited by the Lenape people, became a site of colonization, immigration, and Black life, with neighborhoods like the Lower East Side, Chinatown, and Harlem serving as vibrant centers for working-class, immigrant, and Black communities. Over the decades, waves of gentrification—driven by luxury development, rezoning, privitization, and displacement—have reshaped these historic neighborhoods, displacing long-time residents and eroding cultural legacies in the name of profit and urban renewal. Yet Manhattan has long been a cradle of abolitionist and progressive action: the Underground Railroad, Stonewall rebellion, and ACT-UP all left indelible marks. Today, Manhattan’s abolitionist organizing often targets the heart of systems: shutting down Rikers Island jails, divesting from police and ICE on the city budget, and transforming the courts. The borough’s diverse communities fuel organizing at intersections of housing justice, education, immigrant rights, queer and trans liberation, and anti-gentrification. Student activism is strong here (CUNY, Columbia, etc.). Manhattan’s high population density and visibility make public protest a key tactic, from Black Lives Matter marches that flood downtown to occupiers camping at Columbia for Palestine. Overall, robust legal advocacy tied to grassroots organizing, mutual aid for unhoused neighbors, and orgs collaborating with newcomers, fights for abolition and education justice is still living in people throughout the borough!
Revolution books
Revolution Books in Harlem is an independent bookstore and political hub connected to revolutionary communism, specifically the Revolutionary Communist Party USA. The bookstore organizes events like author talks, film screenings, and community discussions.
Defend Harlem
Via the NY Interfaith Commission on Housing Equality, Defend Harlem is an initiative dedicated to advocating and protecting Harlem residents from displacement. Defend Harlem organizes public events to raise community awareness about predatory development and work to preserve the historical integrity and importance of Harlem.
Marc Resources – Mothers Matter Initiative
Peer-led program in Central Harlem offering health, mental health, breastfeeding education, and community building for young mothers
Maysles Documentary Center
Harlem-based nonprofit organization committed to community, education, and documentary film. They utilize filmmaking to amplify and expand under-represented artists and narratives, while empowering young filmmakers in creative self-expression, communicating ideas, and advocating needs.
Word Up Community Bookshop
Washington Heights bookshop and arts hub offering multilingual selections, community readings, and safe creative space
The Brotherhood Sister Sol (BroSis)
Harlem-based organization empowering Black & Latinx youth through education, organizing, leadership training grounded in love and community
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (NY Chapter)
Organizing New Afrikan youth scouts, political education, copwatch, and supporting political prisoners as part of building Black community power .
We the People NYC
Abolitionist mutual aid collective feeding 200+ people weekly in Bed-Stuy & Harlem—building neighbor-led care and collective survival systems .
Parents Supporting Parents NY (PSPNY)
A grassroots organization advocating for Black parents and students in NYC—offering resources like laptop giveaways and fostering community-led education efforts
sylvia Rivera Law project
Collective providing free legal aid to low-income trans, intersex, and gender non-conforming people, with emphasis on those facing criminalization. SRLP’s Movement Building Team works on ending trans detention and abuse on Rikers and in ICE jails. By combining legal help with advocacy (like the campaign that ended NYC’s practice of jailing trans women at men’s facilities), SRLP tackles state violence against trans people.
NYC jericho
A Harlem-based chapter of the Jericho Movement, which advocates for U.S. political prisoners (many former Black Panthers/Black Liberation Army). They organize letter-writing, parole hearing support (e.g., for Mutulu Shakur, Kamau Sadiki), and educate on COINTELPRO. Jericho’s stance: these elders are freedom fighters, and true abolition means freeing them all.
CUNY for palestine
A network of CUNY students and workers organizing for the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement and in solidarity with liberation of Palestine. They call on the City University of New York to divest from genocide and weapons manufacturing in Gaza.
Columbia/barnard students for justice in palestine
The Students for Justice in Palestine chapter that helped spearhead 2023–24’s campus encampments. Through sit-ins, teach-ins, and coalition building, it connects Palestinian liberation with abolition (e.g., divesting university funding in policing & genocide). They also confront campus policing that surveils and attempts to quell student protest.
Met council on housing
NYC’s oldest tenant union (since 1959) headquartered in Manhattan. While focused on tenants’ rights (rent control, eviction defense), it links evictions to policing by highlighting how “housing insecurity is policed insecurity.” Provides a tenant rights hotline, organizes NYCHA residents, and fights luxury rezonings—essentially, abolishing the pipeline from homelessness to jail.
Communities United for Police Reform
A citywide coalition that led the successful fight to end NYPD stop-and-frisk and to pass the Community Safety Act. CPR unites dozens of orgs to advocate for defunding the NYPD, banning chokeholds (Eric Garner Law), and removing police from mental health response, and laying policy groundwork for abolition.