Robert ‘Seth’ Hayes is one of the longest-held political prisoners in the USA.
A former member of the Black Panther Party and the BLA, in 1973, following a shootout with police, Seth was arrested and convicted of the murder of a New York City police officer, and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.… Read the rest
Michelle Alexander is the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, an essential work exposing the white supremacist core at the heart of the u.s. drug war and its system of mass incarceration.
November 25, 2013
To the Hunger Strikers in California’s Prisons:
I know that some time has now passed since your courageous hunger strike was officially suspended, but I want you to know that the memory of what you risked and what you accomplished continues to inspire me and thousands of others in the United States and around the world.… Read the rest
Interview by Aviva Stahl, reblogged from Solitary Watch
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The following is a partial transcript of an interview with Ray Luc Levasseur, a former political prisoner who spent over fifteen years in solitary confinement, primarily at USP Marion and ADX Florence.… Read the rest
“It was over 20 years ago that the book Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member exploded on the scene and gave us all a front row seat to explore the genocidal brutality of the neo-colonial world of gangbanging. A world that exists at the expense of New Afrikan communities and New Afrikan youth in particular, through our social savage way of attempting to gain power through AK’s, bats and beat downs … it was in the belly of the beast (prison) that ‘Monster’ underwent a revolutionary transformation, dissecting and re-building himself from the inside out, slaying the colonial thug ‘Monster’ and emerging through a re-birth as ‘Sanyika Shakur,’ a New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist.” — from the Foreword by Yusef “Bunchy” Shakur
Stand Up Struggle Forward: New Afrikan Revolutionary Writings On Nation, Class and Patriarchy
This collection of writings by Sanyika Shakur, formerly known as Monster Kody Scott, includes several essays written from within the infamous Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit in the period around the historic 2011 California prisoners’ hunger strike, as well as two interviews conducted just before and after his release in Black August 2012.… Read the rest
SPARC stands for Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change; it is a revolutionary group based in Virginia, currently centering work around mass incarceration. SPARC’s primary program is a monthly van trip from Richmond to the far-flung prisons of Wise County, for the families and loved ones of those incarcerated at Wallen’s Ridge and Red Onion. … Read the rest
Outside support activists have learned of another Texas prisoner dead, due to a combination of guard brutality and medical neglect.
For three consecutive nights medical staff were summoned to the cell of Christopher Woolverton, at the Clements Unit in Amarillo, because he was lying on the floor barely responsive.… Read the rest
“We will have to earn, if not demand, respect for our rights through sacrifice and struggle just like the masses of other politically, socially and economically marginalized people on this planet. And that’s where out best chances for justice lie—in struggle, not in a civil lawsuit.” –Frank “Outlaw” Reid
Friends, Comrades and Allies,
Frank “Outlaw” Reid, a comrade imprisoned in Red Onion State Prison, and co-author of Defying the Tomb, is bringing four guards before a jury on October 28-30 in Wise County, VA for a brutal beating he suffered at their hands in 2009.… Read the rest
[Reblogged from MrZine; see the original here]
Twenty-five years ago, I, a hapless reporter on assignment, went to the DC Jail and met the woman who was to be my life’s partner. I interviewed her about her political bombing case; we fell in love; I visited her in various prisons for 11 years; she was released; we’re now spending the rest of our lives working out our relationship, which has much to do with politics and everything with what she went through in prison.… Read the rest
Been reading Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity for some time now – in fact began at the beginning of the year, stopped, and now thanks to my newfound enthusiasm for reading on a tablet, i’ve started again.… Read the rest
A year ago, Ebony magazine published a useful article about CeCe McDonald, the 23-year-old Black transgender woman who was sentenced to 41 months in prison for second-degree manslaughter despite clear evidence that she was simply defending herself from a violent racist and transphobic attack.… Read the rest