Talking About Abolition: Participatory Budgeting
Melina Abdullah, Ph.D., is a fixture among racial justice activists in Los Angeles, leading Black Lives Matter LA’s protests and actions from the campus of California State University, Los Angeles. In 2024, Cornel West, Ph.D., chose her as the vice president for his independent presidential run.
As an outspoken abolitionist of policing and prisons, Abdullah has championed defunding the police using a concrete, practical, and deeply democratic method of participatory budgeting, in which city residents decide how their tax dollars should be spent.
In a conversation with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali, Abdullah explores how Black Lives Matter LA is poised to prove that defunding and abolishing police is not only necessary but possible. The interview is one of 12 conversations about abolition featured in Kolhatkar’s new book, Talking About Abolition: A Police-Free World Is Possible (Seven Stories, 2025).
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