When you’re an adult, finding real community shouldn’t feel like climbing a mountain. But between the grind, the rising cost of living, and the endless isolation of online life, it often does. That’s where the Detroit Resistance Book Club (DRBC) comes in — a space where connection, conversation, and collective liberation come first.
It started with a simple question: how do you make real friendships without draining your wallet? As Ali, the club’s founder, explains,
“When you’re out of school, it’s harder and harder to make real-life friends.”
And hanging out usually means spending money — which not everyone can afford right now. She’d already been thinking about low-cost, meaningful ways to bring people together when she came across an article called “I Want You! To Start an Anti-Fascist Book Club” by Kristofer Goldsmith. And it clicked — immediately.
As a hairstylist, politics came up naturally during client conversations. A lot of them shared the same concerns, the same anger, the same ache for something more. So Ali put the idea out on social media. The response? Immediate. A group chat formed. Then a meeting. A spark of a larger movement? Time will tell.
Detroit isn’t just a backdrop for the DRBC — it’s the heartbeat. A city shaped by labor struggles, civil rights, union organizing, and survival. As the saying goes, “Detroit vs Everybody.”
In a moment where authoritarianism is rising fast and genocide is being livestreamed to our phones, the club knew its work had to be rooted in resistance and liberation.
“Any education is a radical political act under fascism,” says Ali. “Knowledge is freedom.”
The more we learn the stronger and safer our resistance becomes.
The DRBC focuses primarily on anti-fascist nonfiction — but they’re not opposed to mixing in fiction that hits with real-world weight. Their reading list digs into how authoritarian systems are built and sustained — and, more importantly, how everyday people have resisted and overcome them. These aren’t academic case studies. They’re survival guides.
The books explore what a post-capitalist future might look like, how modern-day fascists are leveraging technology in ways past dictators never dreamed of, and how movements grounded in care — not just reaction — can become powerful engines of change. Every title is chosen with the same goal in mind: to sharpen our understanding and fuel the fight for collective liberation.
The Detroit Resistance Book Club is for anyone who feels shut out, ignored, or isolated by today’s political system. It’s for people who are done buying into the fallacy that is rugged individualism — that red-pill nonsense — and are ready to come back to something real: community.
“We’re here for anyone who feels like they aren’t being represented equally in our government,” says Ali. “We’re here for anyone who is tired of the individualistic society we’ve been sold and wants to learn how to come back to community,” and are ready to learn what it really means to care for each other again.
How It Works
Meetings are informal but structured. A facilitator keeps things moving with discussion prompts and questions, but conversation flows wherever it needs to. Nobody’s grading you. You don’t have to finish the book—or even start it. Just show up. Messy, honest, present.
Reading isn’t the end point of the club either — it’s the launchpad. After reading Let This Radicalize You by Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes, DRBC members started publishing their own zines. After Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, they began planting a community garden in a friend’s backyard, with plans for a free produce stand.
Each book opens a new door. Each discussion moves someone to act.
But the book club doesn’t exist in a vacuum. DRBC is tapped into a broader movement across Detroit and beyond — partnering with organizations like First Aid First for basic medical trainings, showing up at actions with General Strike US – Detroit Downriver (GeneralStrikeMI.com), and constantly sharing mutual aid efforts, volunteer opportunities, and event info through their Discord server.
This isn’t about just talking change. It’s about living it.
And in a world drowning in AI bots, doomscrolling, digital burnout, political unrest, sitting in a room with other humans — exchanging real ideas, face to face — feels almost revolutionary.
“Humans are social mammals when we break down our biology to an animalistic level,” says Ali. “We have been raised in this non social society that values the individual, but we all struggle to truly thrive because we are missing a core part of our humanity: community.”
It doesn’t just take a village to raise kids. It takes a village to keep all of us alive.
Don’t Have Time? The DRBC Has You Covered
Getting adults together isn’t easy. People have lives, jobs, kids, burnout, fascism to fight. DRBC meets that reality with flexibility. Meetings are offered remotely over Discord. Schedules rotate. Pressure doesn’t exist here. Whether you join every session, read every page, or just lurk the chat — you belong.
The group is also branching out into regular (ish) craft nights — lovingly dubbed “bitchin’ and stitchin’” — to create space for mental health, creativity, and connection. There’s talk of new chapters sprouting up across Michigan as members bring the model back to their own communities.
Their Linktree has everything: Discord access, how to start your own antifascist book club (because yes — everyone should be antifascist), event listings, and more. You can find it here.
The Detroit Resistance Book Club is a reminder to all of us that change doesn’t begin at the ballot box — it begins with people. People sitting in a room, sharing stories and ideas, dreaming out loud. And then stepping forward into the world — together.
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