Sun-Seeker MKE is a Black Trans-led abolitionist collective in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Their 6-point praxis brings together anarcho-abolition, Black and Trans liberation and defense, youth liberation and advocacy, continuous education, interdependence, and transformative justice.
Sun-Seeker MKE's mission is to, “collectively empower and sharpen the skills of Black people, trans folks, and abolitionist organizers in Milwaukee.” They want to, “reimagine the material and cultural infrastructures of safety and care without the cops, violence, or punishment.” They do this by building the capacities of organizers and working with their communities and connections to create systems of care that will provide support in moments of crisis and interpersonal violence — by teaching communities how to radically care for each other. Centered in deep relationships, their work takes them all over the city, all hours of the day, all days of the year. The collective supports mutual aid efforts, distributes harm reduction materials, and hosts educational workshops — like community defense courses and stop-the-bleed workshops — as well as social events — like sharing lamb shanks and salad at a local farm — in order build to solidarity and safety between marginalized circles.
Working in pods to cultivate trust and fellowship, organizers learn together, studying political theory and reading revolutionary literature. “We bring everything we learn back to our own communities outside Sun-Seeker,” Lucifer Adams said. “It helps us all strengthen where we come from as well as who we’re communicating with.”
Co-founder Yante Turner describes their base, saying that, “When we talk about community, we’re often talking about people outside of ourselves, but we're talking about ourselves and that feels super important to name. We represent and are the people that we are serving. The people that we’re seeing are our siblings, whether we’ve met them or not — our Black, our trans, our young people, our formerly incarcerated people. A lot of that work looks like creating conversations about what care actually is, what it means to be safe, what it means to have power or not have power, what it means to be marginalized, and furthering those conversations is the action.
It looks like developing curriculum and creating spaces for folks to have those conversations and for folks to move into something...We’re in our own neighborhoods, in the neighborhoods that raised us, in the neighborhoods that told us to go somewhere else, and we’re doing that with people that look like us and that don’t. It’s fundamentally important to give back to the people and the communities that we come from and so we’re always going back with our skills and our understanding and going back to our people with open arms and saying, ‘Use us now. How do we move forward?’”
Sun-Seeker MKE's Trans Survival Fund is their mutual aid initiative for distributing money to marginalized community members. “We move at the speed of trust,” Turner said. “If you need $400 then you’re going to ask for $400, and we aren’t going to ask you what it’s for.” They have also launched a campaign to fundraise for a rapid-response mobile crisis and care collaboration unit. What will the mobile crisis response look like? “We don’t have a finite answer,” Turner explained. “We have ideas, experiments, and dreams that are worth being listened to and are worth being worked for. That’s what this collaboration unit, this rapid response care van is hoping to do — develop and bridge those gaps. What we think an experiment like this could possibly look like in Milwaukee is that 'hyperlocal' that we talk about, but really, really getting specific by believing and dreaming and skilling up communities to have sovereignty over what their care, what their safety and security looks like.”
“We believe that the people who are marginalized and who are suffering from oppression are also going to be the ones to take the boots off our neck, to have the solutions to develop care and safety for ourselves.”
One of their latest experiments was an “Abolitionist Science Fair,” an interactive, experimental space led by their Y.E.L.L. (Youth Empowered for Leadership and Liberation) fellows that engaged community members to think about the many experiments and tactics it will take to create a Milwaukee free of punishment, incarceration, and police violence. The fellows developed an issue-based campaign on youth mass incarceration and prison alternatives, studying how youth incarceration affects the community, pinpointing stakeholders, and cultivating allies. The science fair was one example of the ways in which Sun-Seeker used the lens of experiments to develop skills that would help the young organizers in their campaigns. Stations at the fair included Pod Mapping with Yo’ People, Stop the Bleed, the 5-Ds of De-escalation, and Needs Assessment.
“The ultimate goal is always going to be bigger than ourselves,” Turner said. “Our work is a drop in the bucket. We’re part of a larger movement of people fighting for Black sovereignty and Trans sovereignty, and we have to put our worlds together if we’re working towards abolition because our people are under attack in real time." As practical as their mission and work is, Sun-Seeker MKE makes a point to create space for art, creativity, and joy. "A lot of dreaming keeps Black people safe," Turner said, "because we’ve had to re-imagine and imagine systems that have not cared for us to be different.”
Source:
Ben Slowey, “Sun-Seeker MKE Leads Community Organizing,” Shepherd Express, August 22, 2023
Carolann Grzybowski, “Sun-Seeker MKE turns dreams of Black trans safety into reality,” Radio Milwaukee, June 5, 2025.
Updated 09/29/2026