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Kersplebedeb Newsletter #396 August 4, 2021
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On July 12 Kevin “Rashid” Johnson was transferred from Wabash Valley prison in Indiana to the custody of the Ohio Department of Corrections, being brought directly to their intake center in Orient. He would remain there for less than three weeks before being sent to Lucasville prison on July 30th.
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A founding member of the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party Prison Chapter, having previously founded the New Afrikan Black Panther Party from which the RIBPP emerged following a split in 2020, Rashid is a longtime communist and prison organizer. His work over the years has garnered attention internationally, and he is the author of two books as well as an accomplished artist.
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As he himself wrote about a few months ago, as a result of his work Rashid has been subjected to a particular form of political repression for nine years now now: interstate transfers to new jurisdictions whenever his organizing or litigation gets to be too much for a particular state’s prison officials. (See “Interstate Prison Transfers as Weapons of Political Repression: My Nine Years in Domestic Exile” at https://rashidmod.com/?p=3039). Originally from Virginia, where he became politicized as a young man in prison in his 20s, he was subsequently transferred to Oregon, then Texas, then Florida, before ending up in Indiana in December 2018. In every prison system he has been held in, he has worked to expose the injustices he has encountered, from lack of adequate food and healthcare, to the violence and abuse of particular guards. His work has involved writing articles (found on his website rashidmod.com), working with other prisoners (not an easy feat, considering he is usually in some type of segregation/solitary), and litigation, both on his own behalf and also helping other prisoners to file suits.
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Rashid’s most recent transfer to Ohio is an example of this, it being an attempt to prevent him from responding in a case that he brought against the Indiana Department of Corrections regarding abuse in solitary confinement. The Department of Corrections in Indiana submitted false evidence in the case and Rashid was in the process of responding and having them sanctioned for that. They already had to pay over 150k for being found guilty of submitting false evidence in another case concerning a prisoner who later died. Rashid wrote about this case last year, in “Torment In Indiana Prisons: The Abuse, The Lawsuit, The Death Of Phillip Littler.” (https://rashidmod.com/?p=2887)
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Each transfer is disruptive. It can take a long time before Rashid received his property, which invariably includes legal materials and research materials for articles. Property he had access to in one jurisdiction is often denied or “lost” on its way to the next. There is also the disorientation and vulnerability that comes from new surrounds; little wonder that it has been shortly after such transfers that Rashid has previously been subjected to violence and charged with new bogus infractions.
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Such is what is occurring now, following his transfer to Ohio after less than three years in Indiana.
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On July 30, the day of his transfer to Lucasville, Rashid was brought up on disciplinary charges and was tried and found guilty, for allegedly threatening guards that he was going to send someone to kill them (as those of us who know him can attest, Rashid doesn’t even talk like that!). This literally happened in the span of a few hours. As a result, he has received a 30-day restriction from using the phone and commissary, essentially cutting him off from the outside world and also preventing him from purchasing any basic necessities following his transfer.
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The transfer from Indiana to Ohio, the unexpected move to Lucasville after spending only 2 weeks of what was supposed to be a 4-6 week stay at the Orient intake center, in addition to the brand new charges and 30-day restriction are all attempts to prevent Rashid from responding to the case in Indiana, either by phone or mail. The 30-day restriction means is that he will not be able to contact anyone on the outside by phone or email for 30 days. The commissary restriction is to prevent him from buying paper and pencil to write with and be able to respond to the court case.
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As a result of his work against the abuses that run rampant throughout the prison system, once again Rashid has no property, no hygiene products, no paper or pen. Not even shoes to wear. We still don’t know where his property is or the $400 that was on his trust account in Indiana. We are asking that calls be made to Virgina’s Department of Corrections (as Rashid is still legally a Virginia prisoner, despite his transfers to all over the United States) and the warden at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville and prison officials from Indiana, where he was transferred from. When communicating with prison staff in the different states, we need to refer to the prisoner i.d. # for Kevin Johnson (Rashid), which is different in each state.
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For Virginia: #1007485
For Indiana: #264847
For Ohio: #A787991
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1. An end to the bogus 30-day restriction from phone and email.
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2. An end to the bogus 30-day restriction from commissary that prevents Rashid from ordering stationary with which to write.
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3. The immediate return of ALL his property including the $400 that was on his trust account there at WVCF and his legal property which will enable him to continue with his case against the IN Department of Corrections. If they tell you that his property has already been sent then we need to know on what date it was shipped and what facility received it.
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PHONE NUMBERS AND EMAIL ADDRESSES TO CONTACT:
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Annette Chambers-Smith, Director of Ohio Depart of Rehabilitation and Corrections
please contact: Melissa Adkins (Executive Assistant)
via email: melissa.adkins@odrc.state.oh.us
614-752-1153.
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Charlene Burkett, Director DOC Ombudsman Bureau (Indiana)
(317) 234-3190
402 W. Washington St. Room W479
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Ombud@idoa.in.gov
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Richard Brown, Warden
Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, Indiana
(812) 398-5050
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[Kevin “Rashid” Johnson has been imprisoned for over 30 years. His original conviction stemmed from lumpen activity, but he became a revolutionary New Afrikan early in his time inside. He is the author of Defying the Tomb (2010) and Panther Vision (2015), and the Minister of Defense for the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party. This article was originally posted to Rashid’s website on July 21,2021.]
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Black August is a month designated to pay tribute to the true heroes, martyrs, and history of New Afrikan (Black) people in our struggle for liberation against the over 400 years of violent repression, suffering, and exploitation that we’ve endured under the systems of bondage here in the Western hemisphere. Many important events and the lives of people that occurred and contributed to our struggles fell within the month of August, and coincide with our need to know, remember, and commemorate the people and events that have fed the flames of our struggle to yet be free.
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The concept of Black August began in the California prison system in response to the assassinations of political prisoners and prisoners of war held there, such as George L. Jackson, W.L. Nolen, Jeffrey “Joka Khatari” Gaulden, and others. Joka Khatari, a torch-bearer of Comrade George Jackson, died on August 1, 1978. He died at the hands of California prison officials at San Quentin, who refused him medical care for head injuries sustained while playing football.
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It was Joka Khatari’s death that first inspired the concept of Black August among New Afrikans imprisoned in California. Initially it commemorated the lives and deaths of George L. Jackson, who was murdered by California prison guards on August 21, 1971; his brother Jonathan Jackson, and James D. McClain and William Christmas, who died during an armed action to free Comrade George and others staged at the Marin County Courthouse on August 7, 1970; and W.L. Nolen, Alvin “Fig” Miller, and Cleveland Miller who were assassinated by prison guards during a racial melee that was instigated by the pigs at Soledad Prison on January 13, 1970.
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Since its early beginnings, Black August has grown to embrace many significant events and people in our history of struggle in Amerika, especially those that have occurred during the month of August.
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Black August is now celebrated each year by our people across the Diaspora.
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Commemorating Black August is not simply a holiday observance, but a time of reflection, recognition, fortification, consciousness-building, and inspiration. The events and people it pays tribute to demonstrated the greatest sacrifices and commitment, and represent a higher awareness of and ongoing service to New Afrikans as a collective people, as a distinct nationality and community of people. But for these struggles and people and their sacrifices, we would not have survived until today. Black August cannot be looked upon lightly.
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Our economic practices during Black August embrace community socialist values of mutual aid and support, not individual profit and exploitation of others that is the very basis of the suffering we have endured for centuries, and are the values that the U.S. capitalist imperialist system works to indoctrinate us with, to make us predatory against ourselves and others in its own image.
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During the month of Black August, we practice fasting, exercise (twice daily or as our health permits), political education (educating us in New Afrikan history and the values of revolutionary theory and practice), and refrain from prison commissary purchases as much as possible, and instead rely on mutual support.
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Black August serves to instill practice and values in us that will develop our ways of thinking and being 365 days per year, and to become the people of the liberated future that we are fighting to create for ourselves, for all oppressed peoples, and especially for those that will come after us!
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Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!
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about kersplebedeb
Kersplebedeb dates back to 1998, at first as a source of buttons and t-shirts, but in recent years more and more as a publisher and distributor of radical books and pamphlets.
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Feel free to contact us at:
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Kersplebedeb
CP 63560
CCCP Van Horne
Montreal, Quebec
Canada
H3W 3H8
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