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Love for the people endures
by Nube Brown, Prisoner Human Rights editor
We’re highlighting a scant few of the years and years of work from our New Afrikan organizers, activists and principal thinkers inside of California’s modern-day slave plantations committed to asserting their humanity and showing their love for the people. This work should’ve secured the freedom of who are now Elder Political Prisoners, but still they languish, so don’t count yourselves out! Freeing our Elders cannot be fully realized without the principled, righteous solidarity of “free-world” activists and organizers, all of us who care about human rights.
George Jackson warned us to “claim no easy victories.” In a system that is doubling down on silencing the voices of our people inside, scheming to erase or deny our history, abusing us with acts of war and fear mongering, still We rise. All victories are earned with decades of blood, sweat and tears, and love of humanity. Can’t stop, Won’t stop.
NOTICE:
Political Prisoner Dr. Mutulu Shakur is coming home! Dr. Mutulu Shakur is a respected healer, Black Liberation Elder and Grandfather. He was finally granted compassionate parole with only six months to live. We can help make this time with his family as stress- and worry-free as possible by donating here: www.cadnational.org.
Prisoner Human Rights Movement Blue Print (Founded in 2011, originally published in 2016)
Overview by Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa
Excerpt: We are beacons of collective building, while clearly understanding that we, the beacons, must take a protracted internal and external retrospective analysis of our present-day prisons’ concrete conditions to forge our Prisoner Human Rights Movement (PHRM) onward into the next stage of development, thereby exposing California Department of Corruption and Repression (CDCr) and the United States prison system of cultural discrimination against our prisoner class.
This is why our lives must be embedded in our determined human rights laws, based on our constructive development of the continuous liberation struggle via our scientific methods and laws. Therefore, through our prisoner class, the concrete conditions in each prison shall be constructed through our Prisoner Human Rights Movement.
We understand that all prisoner activists throughout CDCr have been harassed and threatened and have had acts of overgeneralization of false intelligence directed at both women and men prisoners.
“Because the reality is that we are an empowered, mighty force that can positively change this entire corrupt system into a system that actually benefits prisoners and thereby the public as a whole.” – Excerpt from the Agreement to End Hostilities.
To learn more:
sfbayview.com/2016/05/prisoner-human-rights-movement-blue-print/
sfbayview.com/2021/07/agreement-to-end-hostilities/
sfbayview.com/2018/03/the-agreement-to-end-hostilities-use-it-or-lose-all-weve-won/
End the ‘no SHU parole’ policy and bring our Elders home!
A promotion for the Community Release Board proposal
by The Freedom and Justice Center
California state governor-appointed parole and prison officials use their “No SHU Parole” policy and practices to cash in millions of taxpayers’ monies, while blanketly denying Elder prisoners’ access to be released home to their families.
For decades, state parole and prison officials received millions of taxpayers’ hard-earned money from their paychecks while thousands of incarcerated persons in solitary confinement were denied meaningful access to fair parole consideration. The state kept these men, women and youth in solitary confinement on indeterminant SHU (Security Housing Units) status at Pelican Bay and Corcoran state prisons.
The state would schedule and pretend to conduct an actual parole hearing, while all along knowing that the state had a predetermined position not to grant parole to any incarcerated persons in solitary confinement (SHU).
The state kept these men, women and youth in solitary confinement on indeterminant SHU (Security Housing Units) status at Pelican Bay and Corcoran state prisons.
The state is still keeping these elders locked up decades later because the current governor’s – and past governors’ – CDCr and parole boards refuse to provide these Elders with the opportunity to meet the board’s suitability prerequisites. Yet, they use them to keep their prison cells filled up so the governor and his prison and parole officials can fuel the $11 billion economic scheme that fills the state’s coffers by playing on the public’s fears.
This money should be given to the proposed Community Release Board (CRB) made up of fair-minded, diverse and impartial board members, who could provide meaningful parole release grants, and immediately release those who have done years past the matrix term for the offense, as well as those grandparents, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers etc. who were youth (under the age of 26) when they were locked up and are now Elders (over the age of 50) and have served extensive years and decades of incarceration. Liberate our Elders!
For more information, contact: California Prison Focus/Minister King X at: kagekage371@gmail.com; JB (Freedom and Justice Center) at: katkool070@gmail.com.
Community Release Board proposal – an alternative to the Board of Parole Hearings
Developed by Zah and Fati
Excerpt: A community is a group of people producing, reproducing, living, loving and developing within a reasonable distance of each other who generally possess a common set of evolved beliefs. At the nuclear level, family is the atom of community. The natural extension of a community is a city, a county, a state. The graduation evolves through the coalescing of multiple communities.
We must now engage in a campaign that gives back to the communities the ultimate say in determining when prisoners will be reintegrated back into their community. We can do this by creating a Community Release Board (CRB), which can be developed through protest, proposition or legislation, spearheaded by a determined group of organizers, united for its realization. See full article at: sfbayview.com/2022/03/liberate-the-caged-voices-10/
Amend the 13th Campaign, Abolish Legal Slavery in Amerika Movement
Founded 2003 by Joka Heshima Jinsai
Excerpt: Abolition of the slavery provision of the 13th Amendment would reactualize the personhood of those who have had their very humanity stripped from them and in so doing create a vested interest in the former slave to participate in the progress of their communities. As such, the scope of “Amend the 13th” will encompass the development of autonomous institutions which will empower the communities of former slaves socially, politically and economically – which is in the interests of society as a whole. That slavery remains legal in the U.S. in [2016], though disturbing, is not as shocking as the fact the vast majority of U.S. citizens don’t know slavery remains legal.
Yet, because of the enduring love and commitment to the people over the decades through today, from our people inside, that reality is changing:
This Nov. 8, 2022, millions of voters – given the chance – told the world they no longer want slavery. Slavery was on the ballot this year in five states! Voters overwhelmingly said YES to abolishing slavery in four out of five of those states – Alabama (74.7%), Tennessee (79.5%), Vermont (88.7%) and Oregon (55.5%). Look for slavery on the ballot in dozens more states next year.
NOTICE:
Sept. 26, 2022, Alabama prisoners went on statewide general strike, lasting three weeks, and gained national and international attention.
“I believed that the people would choose freedom over slavery, if we gave them the opportunity, by taking the slavery question away from the legislators and putting it into the hands of the people. And they proved us right.” Max Parthas, Founder and co-host of Abolition Today, Co-Director of State Operations, SC, Abolish Slavery National Network (ASNN).
NOTICE:
Political Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal was denied again! On Oct. 26, a Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas judge denied Mumia’s appeal for hearing the newly revealed evidence that challenges his conviction and post conviction appeal denials. Mumia is challenging the judge’s “tentative opinion,” and on Dec. 16 the judge will issue her final decision. A support demonstration will be held Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022, at 5 p.m. in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco at Seventh and Mission Streets. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!
“Greetings to you, my brothers and sisters in the struggle. I’m Kevin Cooper and I’m sending you this message from Death Row in San Quentin Prison. I am in support of and in solidarity with my brother Mumia Abu-Jamal and all oppressed people in this world.
“As we fight to get the yoke of oppression up off our backs we must do so in solidarity and unity. There is nothing that the people cannot do, no matter how hard it is or how long it takes, because we all understand this truth: Freedom is a Constant Struggle! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and all political prisoners.”
Free Kevin Cooper!
Website: https:freekevincooper.org
FB page: Free Kevin Cooper
NOTICE:
After 49 years, on May 25, 2022, Sundiata Acoli, father, grandfather, mathematician, artist and former Black Panther, walked out of prison into the arms of his family and loved ones!
Take action! Under strategic release, a prisoner’s grant of parole, pardon or clemency is based on the positive impact he or she has had on their community and society during his or her imprisonment … Consideration for strategic release is based on a subject’s work product and proven record of service to the community and society and a formal commitment to continue to work in the service of … the people into perpetuity once released.
