Améfrica Press moves the most vital Black and Afro-diasporic scholarship across the borders and languages of the Améfricas — so ideas don’t stay locked inside the country, or the language, they were born in.

Right now we have three books in production — by Paul Ortiz, Lester Spence, and Jeffrey McCune. Ortiz’s sweeping, movement-grounded history has been banned, pulled from shelves, and challenged by the right-wing across the country. Spence offers incisive analysis of Black life, power, and the economy. McCune’s is a tender, unflinching study of Black queer men’s lives and sexuality. Three works that change how people understand themselves and each other.

These are acclaimed books in their original language. What stands between them and readers across the Améfricas is translation into Spanish and Portuguese, and the editing that follows. We began that work — and then, partway through, the funding was frozen. The production is underway but unfinished, and this campaign is what carries it to completion.

So why did the funding freeze? The honest answer is the political environment. In a climate where books like these are increasingly under attack, the support that had been lined up for these translations was pulled. Rather than wait indefinitely and risk losing the window to publish them at all, we’re finishing the work ourselves — with the help of our community.

Every dollar goes directly to finishing the books: $45,000 for translation (three books, two languages each) and $21,000 for professional copy editing — $66,000 to carry all three across the line. We’re covering remaining production costs ourselves; anything raised beyond the goal offsets those costs and helps us build the staff capacity this moment demands.

There is also a clock. We hold the rights for a limited window, and every month we wait for frozen funding to thaw is one less month these books have to reach their readers. So we’re not waiting.

Every gift is tax-deductible through our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas. Give what you can, share it with people you know, and help us finish what was started.