Tag: The Rock

In 2008, award winning filmmaker and community activist Kevin Epps wrote, directed and produced a documentary, “The Black Rock,” a film that tells the story of the African American history on Alcatraz. This month, Epps is releasing a companion book to that documentary called “Black Alcatraz,” which goes deeper into the experiences of the Black prisoner on the island while correlating those stories to today’s prison system.

Since some 30,000 California prisoners launched a hunger strike July 8 against the practice of long-term solitary confinement and other abuses, participants have faced punitive retaliation and censorship of newspapers and other media that backed their fight. Abuses continued after prisoners suspended the strike Sept. 5.

Dynamic, brilliant and an elite athlete extraordinaire, Raquel “The Rock” Miller believes that boxing is more than boxing – that it is a lifestyle. She is proving this on a daily basis. Through her disciplined work ethic and her commitment to the “sweet science,” through diligence and perseverance, The Rock won several national boxing tournaments and qualified for the world championships in Beijing. She won a silver medal there.

Prisoners at Green Hill juvenile prison in Chehalis have announced that they will go on strike on July 8. Their strike in solidarity with prisoners in California and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may take the form of a work stoppage, although a planned hunger strike was previously reported. The Green Hill prisoners have also issued their own demands; some of their demands focus on conditions inside the prison, while some seek justice for ex-prisoners on the outside.

The Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement First Amendment Campaign stands in solidarity with the Stop the Torture Campaign, as our goals and objectives are mutual. We aim to eliminate torture in all of its many forms. In 2006, the CDCR created a Communications Management Unit at PBSP that literally reinforces their totalitarian rule by dehumanizing prisoners through social deprivations.

Here in Pelikkkan Bay SHU, we undergo extreme forms of social control that include the censorship of all forms of mail. From letters and books to periodicals, everything is heavily scrutinized by our captors, who censor anything that does not fit their agenda; anything that empowers the people, speaks truth to power or challenges white supremacy is quickly denied those of us held in these torture chambers.