This dissertation is, ultimately, concerned with questions of liberation, freedom, and futurity. In particular, it is motivated by the understanding that we as social scientists cannot fully or adeptly understand why people navigate the political arena in the ways that they do without first having a more robust understanding of how and what they think about liberation and futurity. This is further rooted in the idea that if the inextricable virulence of systems of domination causes certain groups to endure precarious life experiences that leave them on the margins of society, it must then follow that these communities are forced to assemble their path to liberation in remarkably novel ways. They are forced to “think otherwise” about what it means to get and be free. As such, this project takes seriously the political commitments of young Black activists and organizers, who identify as women and gender expansive, and intentionally poses them as architects of freedom engaged in a project of thinking otherwise.

The animating phrase that breathes life into this project is “we do this ‘til we free us”, which is a phrase commonly heard in spaces of social movement activity. This dissertation is taken up with the task of understanding the “this” in we do this ‘til we free us. When these organizers, political navigators, and imagineers make that statement, what are they referring to? In probing this inquisition, I ask: how do young Black women and gender expansive activists think about achieving political equity, freedom, and liberation? How do they decide to engage in, navigate, and traverse the political realm in pursuit of better futures? In other words, I aim to understand how they seek to bring about better conditions through political action.

In exploring this question, I offer what I have called “liberation prescience”, which I posit is an ontological and epistemological praxis of freedom that can be described as the practice of acting in the present based upon the (better) future that you yearn for. In other words, I seek to understand the process of taking advantage of a political past and present in order to leverage a future in which one can experience true freedom.

I conduct 25 interviews and 2 focus groups (of 10 participants each). I chose these methods as I believe that both individual and collective insights are quintessential for understanding projects of liberation. I find that amongst this group, liberation prescience manifests in three main elements, embodiment and practice, community and collectivity, and self-actualization.