Monday, March 18, 2024
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Tag: abolitionist

Liberate the Caged Voices

In the wake of deep pain inflicted, this collection of excerpts from prisoners gives testimony to compassion, love, support, integrity, intelligence, faith, heart, depth and humanity from those too often dehumanized.

Janet and Janine Africa are home after 40 years!

Janet Holloway Africa and Janine Phillips Africa have been released from state custody after 40 years of incarceration. The sisters have been battling for their freedom after being consistently denied parole despite their stellar record and community service endeavors while behind bars.

One last hug: Tell Texas prison officials to show compassion to...

By now some of you may have heard that my comrades and I have been attempting to convince the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (sic!) to approve a contact visit between Miguel Flores, an imprisoned artist housed here in Ad-Seg with me at the McConnell Unit and his mom, Paulina Gracia, who has an aggressive form of leukemia. Miguel’s mom has cancer, and the prognosis is not good. Normally, prisoners in segregation are not allowed contact visits. This is going to take a massive collective response. I believe in all of you, and I think that y’all believe in me, so let’s join together and make this happen!

Few prisoners strike at San Quentin

Few prisoners, if any, at San Quentin State Prison participated in what was reported to be the largest prisoner-led strike in United States history. There are many reasons for these prisoners’ lack of involvement. Most of the men imprisoned at San Quentin were unaware of the strike and the groups involved with it like Jailhouse Lawyers Speak and the Bay Area National Prison Strike Solidarity Committee.

‘Nat Turner: Following Faith’ playwright Paula Neiman speaks

From looking at the info that I have on the play, such as the voice of another great freedom fighter from the chattel period, Gabriel Prosser, being acknowledged and featured in the drama, it heightened my interest. “Nat Turner: Following Faith” will be playing at the Rogue Machine Theater, 5041 W. Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles. It closes this Sunday, Dec. 6, 2015. Check out playwright Paula Neiman in her own words ...

After Baltimore, mothers of police murder victims issue a call to...

It’s now a century after the founding of Mother’s Day, and our sons are still being taken from us. Society has not disarmed, but instead has militarized to the teeth. Mothers’ sons everywhere are still killing and being killed. Police militarization has ripped apart the fabric of our communities. Armed with military-grade vehicles and weapons, warrior cops cultivate an atmosphere of tension and fear, exacerbating conflicts instead of resolving them. We all know we’re going to die one day, but it certainly shouldn’t be at the hands of a public servant who’s supposed to serve and protect us. Mothers are powerful; if we come together, we can be unstoppable.

Daguerreotypist Augustus Washington and John Brown’s body

The daguerreotype was an early type of photograph. Augustus Washington was an Afrikan daguerreotypist, abolitionist and educator, as well as “one of the most talented and successful photographers in mid-1800s Connecticut.” One of his most famous photos was a quarter plate daguerreotype, thought to be the first ever of abolitionist John Brown, who had from childhood sworn “an eternal war with slavery.”

Mary Ellen Pleasant, California’s Mother of Civil Rights, and her partner...

It has been over 100 years since the story of Mary Ellen Pleasant, the Mother of Civil Rights in the state of California and the first African American woman millionaire, has been told on the location where she made most of her wealth. Mary Ellen Pleasant became a famous name in the city of San Francisco, described as “a Rosa Parks, a Martin Luther King and a Malcolm X all rolled into one.”

Attorney Anne Butterfield Weills: ‘Obscenity’ regs show ‘CDCR views many of...

The fact that these rules were noticed as “Obscene Materials” indicates an intention of CDCR to attempt to fly below the radar so as to not draw attention to the fact that much of the material under these proposed regulations could be so broad as to cover newspaper articles and a multitude of other written materials that do nothing to promote prison safety and security and do everything to violate and infringe on the First Amendment rights of California’s prisoners.

‘12 Years a Slave’

“12 Years a Slave” affected me differently than Quentin Tarantino’s “Django,” which in its caricature style held me spellbound or suspended in a place of imaginative wonder – the Black man was going to win and get the girl too in the end. “Twelve Years” moved slowly and by the time Northup’s ordeal ends we are thankful yet exhausted. I saw the film alone. I think it’s the kind of journey one should invite a companion on.

Build a movement to close solitary confinement

You may think that you know something about solitary, but you don’t. You may have a loved one in prison who has experienced it and told you about it. But still I say, you don’t know it. For, as you know the word torture, you don’t know how it feels. For solitary is torture. State torture. Official torture. Government sanctioned torture.