Update on Neli Latson and his mom: I’m home and soon my son will be free!

Lisa Alexander, the mother of a young man with autism, Reginald “Neli” Latson, has been fighting for justice and her son’s freedom from wrongful incarceration since May 24, 2010. Lisa was convicted on Jan. 10, 2012, of a misdemeanor and jailed by the same district attorney who prosecuted Neli.

Justice makes a nation great

We are committed to contributing to meaningful and lasting change. And this is part of what keeps us amongst the sane. We understand, and always have, that the price that we will pay for this is the efforts to silence us, to isolate and destroy us!

Georgia prison strike, one year later: Activists outside the walls have failed those inside the walls

A year ago this month, Black, White and Brown inmates in a dozen Georgia prisons staged a brief strike. They put forward a set of simple and basic demands – wages for work, decent food and medical care, access to educational and self-improvement programs, fairness and more.

How easily we forget

Our struggle is one of resistance against that which has been forced upon us. The whole system conspired against New Afrikans, subjecting many of us to outright torture at the hands of those overseeing the prison industrial complex.

Sadism in the cell

Those intent on tormenting now ex-death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal have done it again, this time perhaps even exceeding their past efforts to painfully harass this man widely perceived as a political prisoner. The latest punitive slap involves Pennsylvania prison authorities throwing Abu-Jamal into “The Hole.”

Standing up for Survivors Village and housing justice

Protestors chanted: This auction is illegal and immoral. It is a way to steal homes, redistribute wealth and prevent the right to return. The sale of blighted property is the city’s attempt to remove poor homeowners who have already suffered tremendously from economic and natural disaster.s.

Why all the robo-signing?

The Wall Street Journal reported on Jan. 19 that the Obama administration was pushing heavily to get the 50 state attorneys general to agree to a settlement with five major banks in the “robo-signing” scandal. The settlement would let Wall Street bankers off the hook for crimes that would land the rest of us in jail.

Congolese say South Africa’s Congolese immigrant sweep targeted anti-Kabila refugees

Two hundred Congolese immigrants, especially activists opposed to the Kabila regime, were, they said, “hounded out of their shops and homes by scores of South African police, then summarily arrested on ludicrous, trumped up charges of ‘public violence.’”

Jailhouse snitch used against Aiyana’s dad

Mertilla Jones, grandmother of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, the 7-year-old killed by Detroit police last year in a SWAT-style assault on her home, held Aiyana’s mother Dominika Stanley tightly in her arms as both wept uncontrollably in an elevator at 36th District Court in downtown Detroit.

Cynthia McKinney: U.S. war machine pervades Africa

Does the Obama administration plan an African continent-wide Plan Colombia? Why such a militarization of U.S. relationships all over the world – and even here at home? Will chaos and wars – like what is happening in Libya today – be created all over Africa and the rest of Asia? Please circulate this message widely so that maybe we can get some more responses from the administration about its policy direction. Tell the White House that you will cast your vote for peace – to stop the drones and bring our troops home.

Upcoming Events

Revolutionary stories: The POOR Press 2012 collection

To write with laughter, heart, fire and humility – to get those words down and draw the reader in – to make the reader warm with the fire of poetry, wet with the tears of memory, full with the soup of experience – leaving the reader satisfied and inspired to change the world – that is what the writer does.

A sourcebook for the media revolution

According to Mickey Huff, the corporate media are serving up a diet of “junk-food news to avoid telling the public what is really going on at home and abroad”; for example, Ann Garrison discloses that pilotless drones are fast becoming the dominant means of delivering explosives from the air.

The 49ers are back with playoff win

“The Grab” was a moment San Francisco 49er tight end Vernon Davis will remember for the rest of his life. With his team down 32-29 to the New Orleans Saints, Davis ran up the left side of the field, cut across the middle and caught the pass quarterback Alex Smith heaved. It sailed into Davis’ hands as he crossed the end zone to give the 49ers a 36-32 lead.

Hollywood, ‘Red Tails,’ Tuskegee Airmen and MLK Jr.

I think George Lucas is a good guy in a notoriously unscrupulous business, trying to do the right thing. Hiring a Black director and writer was the right thing. However, the bottom line is we must build our own studios, networks and social media companies and bring our own money back to our communities now.

YoYo teaching hip-hop with love to inner-city youth

“I am attempting to reach Generation Y and show them not only how to become successful but also how to handle success when it becomes overwhelming, because it will. I was always good at humbling myself, and that is a quality I am trying to instill in the youth here at my school.” – YoYo