Here’s our second lecture we’re excited to share in the Burning Books Lecture Series. We’re slowly continuing to release audios recorded at Burning Books in Buffalo, NY, to share inspiring ideas and experiences this bookstore has hosted over the last 7 or so years. This pandemic period should be one where we take account of the situation we find ourselves, hone our skills, learn from our elders and consider how to engage as the disease ravages our communities and the forces of capital and repression make their moves.
Kazi Toure spoke on March 25, 2015 on his political development, activity, engagement as a Marxist guerrilla in the USA, his time as a political prisoner, his ideas and organizing. From his bio:
Former political prisoner and United Freedom Front member Kazi Toure was imprisoned for his role in twenty bombings combating Apartheid in South Africa & US Imperialism in Central America.
The United Freedom Front has been considered “undoubtedly the most successful of the leftist [guerrilla groups] of the 1970s & 80s,” & struck powerful blows to South African Airways, Mobile, IBM, Union Carbide, & various courthouses & US military targets.
If you enjoyed this lecture, keep an ear out for more. And check out our first release of this series, Dr Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz speaking on “An Indigenous Peoples History Of The United States“. And remember, community spaces are so important, places we can engage new ideas, speakers with this wisdom, future and current comrades and co-conspirators. One way to do this, if you have the dough, is to buy books from spaces like Burning Books or Firestorm Books Coop. If you are looking to read statements by Kazi and his comrades, Leslie from Burning Books suggests checking out Hauling Up The Morning: Writings and Art by Political Prisoners of War in the U.S. which you can find at burningbooks.com . Another title mentioned, available via Burning Books or Firestorm at firestorm.coop is Let Freedom Ring: A Collection of Documents from the Movements to Free U.S. Political Prisoners.
A couple of notes about some of the prisoners and projects that Kazi mentions in this 2015 presentation.
Oscar López Rivera was googlereleased in 2017 by Obama.
The surviving members of the MOVE 9 were released in the last 2 years. On A Move!
Herman Bell was released in 2018 and lives in New York state.
4StruggleMag is no longer producing print editions. The latest post on it’s site announces the death from incarceration of Tom Manning, one of Kazi’s comrades from the UFF. Posted messages come from the Certain Days Collective, political prisoners Kojo Bomani Sababu, Bill Dunne, Oso Blanco, incarcerated comrade from the UFF Jaan Laaman and former political prisoner from the UFF Ray Luc Levasseur.
This week, we hear from Deja, the fiance of incarcerated cop watcher Ramsey Orta. Ramsey has been in prison since 2016 and during his short time inside has he’s been transferred around a lot and spent over a year in isolation. Ramsey’s name may be familiar as the police accountability activist who recorded the killing by police of the unarmed community member and grandfather, Eric Garner, in New York in 2014. Ramsey Orta’s video went viral and drew NYPD harassment and attention to him and his family and since his incarceration led to many threats by cop-sympathizing CO’s. Orta is currently about 90 days from his release date for his non-violent conviction and falls within the categories of prisoners that NY is considering releasing before the pandemic is in full swing. If you can help lean on the powerful in NY to get Ramsey Orta released, you can email officialramseyorta@gmail.com or wecopwatch@gmail.com. You can learn more about Ramsey’s case at RamseyOrta.com, or the SupportRamseyOrta fedbook page, as well as WeCopWatch.org or that groups fedbook page.
News just came out that Midstate Correctional, where Ramsey is currently being held, has shown its first infections of covid-19, so this issue of securing Ramsey Orta’s release is dire. He is being denied showers, soap, tissue, enough food. Ramsey is also not being giving cleaning supplies for his cell. A source of his mistreatment is Sgt Mayo at Midstate. Supporters suggest phones contact the following officials and share freedom for Ramsey. Ramsey’s prison number is 16A4200.
Then we hear from two activists from Unemployed Humans Organzing Help, or UHOH Asheville, talking about tenant organizing for a rent freeze and pushing the government and hoteliers to open up those empty rooms to houseless folks in Asheville. More at their fedbook page, or by emailing uhohavl@riseup.net. Apologies for the sound in this second portion.
On this podcast special, we’re sharing two segments.
First, Comrade Malik (s/n Keith Washington) of the IWW and Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee speaks about his experience at the Federal prison USP Pollock in Grant Parish, Louisiana, changes in policies in relation to the pandemic and the dangers posed by guards going in and out of the facility. Comrade Malik was paroled from the Texas prison system some months ago and is now serving the remains of a nine month Federal sentence before release to CA where he plans to work on the SF Bay View National Black Newspaper. More of Malik’s wriitngs can be found at ComradeMalik.Com.
He also requests listeners to press the Bureau of Prisons release Malik to the address in San Francisco that he has now on file with the BOP. Comrade Malik is in his 51 years old and has a history of medical issues, thanks to maltreatment in the Texas prison system. You can contact the USP Pollock via email at POL/ExecAssistant@bop.gov or by phone at +13185615300. You can also call the head office of the BOP at +12023073198 to register a similar request.
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Then, we hear from author and anarchist, Peter Gelderloos about responses by the Spanish government and in civil society to the pandemic, challenges to internationalize rent refusal and to treat people better in our communities. More of his writings can be found at TheAnarchistLibrary.Org.
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Stay tuned for Sunday’s release with housing organizers in Asheville from UHOH about the work they’re doing here and suggestions about organizing as well as a chat with a volunteer doing harm reduction on the actions of local police and politicians against houseless folks and drug users and the shut down of life saving programs during the pandemic.
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Just a quick announcement of some phone zaps beginning today about prisoners and the covid-19 virus, Find the numbers and demands compiled from prisoners in our show notes.:
Prison Phone Zaps
Two deaths of prisoners at Lee State Prison in Georgia
There is a phone zap starting April 9th for Lee State Prison in GA where two deaths have occurred from covid-19. Atlanta IWOC suggests dialing *67 to block your number before making calls and a few other ways to keep yourself safer while dialing into prisons.
North Carolina Prison Outbreaks of Corona
Federal Correctional Complex at Butner, operated by the BOP, was reported to have 59 cases of covid-19 a few days ago. Outbreaks have been reported at Caledonia CI, Greene CI and Johnston CI, operated by North Carolina Department of Public Safety. There is an ongoing phone zap up at BRABC.Blackblogs.Org
North Lake Immigrant Detention Hunger Strike
About ten inmates at the North Lake Correctional Facility, a federal immigrant prison in Baldwin, MI, are moving into day five of a hunger strike, demanding adequate nutrition and basic healthcare services currently being denied, as well as religious freedom for followers of the Hebrew Israelite faith. A call script and the numbers are up at itsgoingdown.org
Frederick, MD Activists Demand Release of ICE Detainees and Prisoners
Spire City Medics is blasting a zap to press Sheriff Chuck Jenkins in Frederick County, MD to release prisoners and ICE detainees in light of the pandemic and lack of preparation for the safety of those housed in the jail there. More info at SpireCityMedics.Org
First, Matt from Rural Organizing And Resilience, or ROAR, in Madison County talks about efforts in the country to shift mutual aid efforts to address difficulties associated with the covid-19 pandemic. More on their project at ruralorganizing.wordpress.com.
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And we also got to sit down with David Forbes, who is an independent journalist here in Asheville, about her work, some updates from here in the mountains, ways to think about journalism, and the online platform The Asheville Blade which she founded and helps maintain. To see more you can visit ashevilleblade.com, follow her on twitter @davidforbes, and donate to the Blade at patreon.com/avlblade!
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Announcements
Sean Swain Is Ill
Sean is currently suffering from a bacterial lung infection and not being offered adequate healthcare (nothing new for prison). If you are concerned for his health as the novel corona virus swells, consider visiting his support site to read more. Anyone reading this should feel free to contact Buckingham at (434) 983-4400 . Either Warden John Woodson or Assistant Warden Jeffrey Snoddy are there each day during normal business hours. Ask for one, and he’s not there, ask for the other. Feel free to fax this update to them, (434) 983-4017.
Final Straw 10th Anniversary
Still coming up, plague bedamned. We’ve been running the show for coming on 10 years and would love to hear your thoughts, memories, suggestions. This is an opportunity to share with us and share your ideas directly with other audience members. You can leave us or a signal voice-memo or a voicemail at +18285710161, or email a link to mp3 audio via wetransfer.com or another service, or you can share it with the googledrive for thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net or thefinalstrawradio@protonmail.com!
The latest concern that folks are expressing during this zombie apocalypse is their inability to cope with isolation and quarantine. We’re just a few weeks into this thing and already folks are going a little bonkers. This is strange to me, given that I’ve spent years at a time in total and complete isolation. It’s almost hard for me to fathom that someone wouldn’t know how to cope in such an environment. So, this week is going to be something of an instructional video – only, without the video, and maybe not very instructive.
OK, first things first. You gotta stay mentally organized, and staying mentally organized means living in a way that’s organized. You need a routine. Routine is key to longterm segregation. You want to get up in the morning at the same time. Set an alarm. Get up, get out of bed, make the bed. It doesn’t matter that you have nowhere to go. It doesn’t matter that you’re not leaving that living space. You get up at the same time and you make the bed, because the sleeping period is over. Create for yourself set times for eating your meals, or a small range of times for those meals to happen in. Set a time for showering or bathing and personal grooming. It doesn’t matter that you’re not going anywhere.
Laying in bed all day in the same sweater and underwear from last Tuesday is not mental organization. It’s surrender. Yes, I’m talking to you. No, you, there. Yes, the one in the sweater and the underwear. Right.
Break up your day into chunks. Fill those chunks with activity. Maybe you like to read. Designate a period of your day for reading. Designate another part of your day for writing, another part for skyping and twitter and social interaction. Doing this gives you routine, but it also gives you benchmarks as you travel through your day. You can say to yourself “I’ve gotten this done, at such-and-such a time, it’s time to do X.” You are now doing your time, your time is not doing you.
Your time will move faster, you’ll get more accomplished.
Which brings me to my next point: accomplishing. Each day will bring you multiple opportunities to fulfill goals. Get something written. Get something read. Go a certain time on your stationary bike. Dispose of the body of that annoying next-door neighbor… former neighbor. Just kidding. Don’t kill your neighbor. There are security cameras everywhere. I digress.
The thing is: each day you meet some small goal, then another, then another. You take in calories, you move from activity to activity. Most importantly: you survive. Each day you end still breathing is a mission accomplished. You’re not just writing emails or riding your stationary bike, you’re fighting for your very survival, albeit in a mundane kind of way.
Physical exercise. The human body is a machine made for motion. So move. My captivity workout, I do sets of push-ups, crunches and squats, one set after another. It works major muscle groups, gets my heart pumping, gets me sucking oxygen, and helps me to think more clearly. It allows me to release tension. Now more than ever, that’s important, not just for your survival, but for the survival of your annoying neighbor. So get exercise and whenever possible, in a way that’s safe, try to get an hour of direct sunlight outdoors. Go outside and breathe deeply and feel sunlight on your face. It matters.
Now, if you’re all alone, you can organize your day any way that you want. You can modify your routine at will until it works for you. But if you’re not alone, you have to synthesize your routine with the lives of those around you. Urge them to adopt a routine. Socially, it helps keep the peace. You know what other people are doing at given chunks of the day, and they know what you’re doing. You want periods of solitude and periods of social interaction, time set aside for your own projects and time for collective and communal activities.
Through the course of this, you’re going to experience heightened anxiety. It’s easy to dwell on your own situation and let the worry spiral out of control. It’s easy. We all do it. So what you do, to get out of that spiral, you focus on the struggle of someone else. Get out of your own head. Contribute to someone else’s plight. This isn’t just some Mother Theresa kumbaya crap. It’s not just some virtuous selflessness. It’s a selfish act. It’s motivated by your desire to further your own survival. If you get out of your own head and help someone, you’re exiting that spiral of anxiety.
Some other tips: While it’s good to do some planning for the future, force yourself to stay grounded in the now. Daydreaming about when this is over just makes the now suck worse. A little of that can go a long way. Also, be realistic about how long this is. Don’t wake up every day thinking that we’re all going to pour out into the streets like some flashmob dance routine. It ain’t happening, probably for months. So get yourself into a comfortable routine, for months. This is your reality. It is what it is.
Also, when that reality feels overwhelming, remind yourself that this is just temporary. It will pass. Even if it takes months, it doesn’t take forever. Nothing is forever.
Don’t forget, however bad you’ve got it, others less capable than you have gotten through longer chunks of time in far worse conditions. I did a year with virtually nothing, on starvation rations, with very little soap, locked in a space the size of a bathroom with another poor bastard. We were both idiots, and yet we both survived. You will too.
Resolve to survive this. Walk around your living space. Tell the walls: “You won’t defeat me.” Tell your couch: “You won’t defeat me.” Tell all your furnishings: “You won’t defeat me.” Then look in the mirror and tell yourself: “This won’t defeat me.” And mean it.
You have two choices, flat-out. You can survive this, or you can sit down on the curb, and sooner or later the dogs and the birds will eat you. It’s your choice. I’ve made my choice. Hope I see you on the other side of this shit.
This is anarchist prisoner Sean Swain in exile from Ohio at Buckingham Correctional in Dillwyn, Virginia. If you’re surviving, you are the resistance.
In this podcast special, a comrade spoke with Kijana Tashiri Askari, an imprisoned community organizer, prison abolitionist, and New Afrikan Black Revolutionary who helped to found the W.L. Nolen Mentorship Program. At one point in time the mentorship program had about 50 prisoners nationwide on its mailing list. The W.L. Nolen Mentorship Program, named after a central leader in the formation of the California Prisoner Liberation Movement, alongside George Jackson, during the 1960s and 70s. Kijana Tashiri spent over two decades in the Pelican Bay SHU and was instrumental in the development of the networks that sprung forth the first waves of California Prisoner Hunger Strikes. You can reach WLNMP at w.l.nolen13@gmail.com or by mail through True Leap Press at
True Leap PressPO Box 408197 Chicago IL, 60640
You can also write to Kijana at:
Kijana Tashiri Askari s/n Marcus Harrison #H-54077CMF Vacaville – Wing #342P.O. Box 2000, Vacaville, CA 95696
Currently Kijana is facing dire conditions at Vacaville Medical Facility, a smaller prison across the road from CSP-Solano. Two weeks ago he was diagnosed with a heart blockage that requires immediate surgery, however because of the COVID-19 crisis, he was turned away from the hospital and sent back to the prison, where he remains. At the facility where he is imprisoned, there is relatively zero movement of prisoners happening, as everyone is being held in isolation. However, prisoners are not being allowed access to cleaning supplies, and it is a mixed bag in terms of guards taking the crisis serious, and those who are not. He, along with countless people locked up at this facility, are at severe risk if the virus spreads through the prison.
Freeworld and incarcerated supporters of Kijana’s have organized a phone zap, demanding the following things:
That the surgery be performed and necessary medical protocols are followed. Kijana needs a splint in his heart. This is a serious condition.
That the proper precautions for his physical safety are made during Kijana’s procedure. We demand that surgery is done in a sanitized and controlled area, to prevent contamination of this coronavirus.
That Kijana be given adequate medication in light of this blockage revelation, he is currently only taking Tylenol.
We demand his immediate release as his time locked up has been served 3-fold!
(This is key to his survival and a realistic demand, given that he is up for parole this year)
If you choose to call, email (1, 2), or write the governor’s office, we urge you to connect this to the broader struggle of releasing elders, immune-compromised, and those most vulnerable to the virus inside; thus:
That the governor of California grant mass clemency and systematic release of all elders, immune-compromised, and those most vulnerable to COVID-19.
Keep an eye out for posts with scripts and images for a phone zap for Kijana on our Twitter and Instagram, but even more so on the Twitter and Facebook for True Leap Press.
This week I am very excited to present an interview done with Aishah Shahidah Simmons, who is a writer, community organizer, prison abolitionist, and cultural worker who has done just an immense amount of work over the years to help disrupt and end the patterns of sexual abuse and assault within marginalized communities. In this interview we talk about a lot of things, her background and how she came to be doing the work she’s doing right now, how better to think about concepts like ‘accountability’, what doing this work has been like for her as an out lesbian woman, and about her book “Love WITH Accountability, Digging Up the Roots of Childhood Sexual Abuse” which was published in 2019 from AK Press.
This interview feels very important for me right now, because we are in a time of overturn, tumult, stress, and uncertainty, and I think that in order for us to really be able to knuckle down and go in this for the long haul it’ll be imperative for our radical communities to take solid care of ourselves and of each other. I hope you get as much out of hearing Aishah’s words as I did conducting and editing this interview.
Before we get started, as a content notice: we will be talking about some difficult topics in this interview. I will do my best to repeat this notice at regular intervals, but please do take care and treat yourself kindly (however that looks).
If you are interested in seeing more work from Aishah, visit our blogpost or scroll down to the show notes! We will post all the links in those places.
If you are interested in reading her book, Love WITH Accountability, AK Press is doing a limited time sale on all their books on their website. Visit akpress.org for more info.
To help support community bookstores at this time of greater economic precarity for such places, consider visiting our affiliates Firestorm Books, who are currently doing online sales from their brick and mortar location. More about how to order at firestorm.coop!
To keep up with Aishah, for updates on future projects and more:
This week we feature two portions to this podcast bonus, two abolitionists in North Carolina talk about detention issues during and after Covid-19. Then Grant Gallo of Sudo Mesh talks about community mesh data networks and alternative infrastructure for autonomy.
For a radio edition of this prison conversation for broadcast, reach out to us at our email. Our main broadcasting segment for this week is an interview William did with Aishah Shahidah Simmons, the editor of love WITH accountability: Digging up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse (AK Press, 2019) which will be available soon for download by participating stations and in our podcast stream.
Incarceration in NC
First we’ll hear from two prison activists based in the Durham and Asheville, North Carolina about critical situations around incarceration in this state including but not limited to the Covid-19 outbreak. Jules is a member of Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross, a local abolitionist group that works around popular education around incarceration and anti-repression for movement work. Katie is an anarchist legal and anti-prison activist.
After that, you’ll hear Grant Gallow from Sudo Mesh talk about Peoples Open Network and Disaster Radio. We’ll hear about collaborative, community mesh network projects as peer-to-peer internet in general and about the idea behind Disaster Radio, a minimalist digital messaging system in case the cellphone, landline or power grid goes down in a dire circumstances. You can find out more at the website, disaster.radio
Various Other Prison Phone Zaps By Region of so-called US
The following is an incomplete list. Stay tuned to ItsGoingDown.org for a more up-to-date and comprehensive listing of ongoing phone zaps and campaigns
Join us for a film screening and discussion of the short documentary film “Condemned,” which tells the story of Bomani Shakur (or Keith Lamar) who is on death row for five murders he did not commit or play any part in during the 1993 Lucasville Prison uprising.
Bomani was recently scheduled for execution in November, 2023. His many advocates and loved ones called for a month of action in April to publicize the biased legal process that led to Bomani’s conviction, involving gross prosecutorial misconduct including failure to provide exculpatory evidence during discovery as required by law.
** A link will be posted in the facebook event on the day of the screening that people can click to join at the event start time! **
After the film we’ll hold a discussion including how people can support Bomani in continuing to fight for his life.
Welcome to a podcast special from The Final Straw. While William is was busy producing an episode featuring voices of medical professionals and activists inside and out of prison to talk about the impacts of covid-19 on incarcerated people for broadcast, I had a couple of conversations about work folks are doing on the outside that I’d like to share.
Sean Swain [00:08:06-00:15:12]
Hacking To Fight Covid-19
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First, I spoke with Bill Slavin of Indie Lab, space in Virginia that is in the process of shifting it’s purpose since the epidemic became apparent from an broader scientific and educational maker space to work on the manufacturing and distribution of covid-19 related items in need such as testing kits, medical grade oxygen, ventilators and 3d printed n95 quality masks for medical professionals to fill public health needs. Bill talks generally about the ways that community and scientists can come together through mutual aid to deal with this crisis left by the inaction of the government on so many levels. They are also crowd-sourcing fundraising for scaling up their production and facilities and there’s a link in our show notes on that. The platform that Bill talks about in the chat is known as Just One Giant Lab, or JOGL. Consider this an invitation for makers to get involved.
Organizing With Your Neighbors For Homes and Dignity
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Then, I talked to Julian of Tenants United of Hyde Park and Woodlawn in Chicago. What with all of the talk about rent strikes in the face of such huge leaps in unemployment during the spread of covid-19 and accompanying economic collapse, I thought it’d be helpful to have this chat to help spur on these conversations of how we seize power back into our hands while we’re being strangled by quarantine and hopefully afterwards. You can learn more about the group Julian works with at TenantsUnitedHPWL.Org. Philadelphia Tenants Union and Los Angeles Tenants Union were both mentioned and will be linked in the show notes, alongside a reminder that the national Autonomous Tenants Union Network (ATUN) is being organized and folks can reach out to Philly TU or LA TU via email to get onto their organizing zoom calls. Finally, if you’re in the Chicago area and need a lawyer for housing, check out Lawyers Committee For Better Housing online at lcbh.org. Julian also mentioned squatting of homes in southern CA owned by the state, here’s a link to an article.
Announcements
WNC Mutual Aid Projects
Linked in our show notes is also a googledoc that Cindy Milstein and others are helping to keep updated that lists many mutual aid projects that have sprung up all over concerning the exacerbation of capitalism by the covid-19 crisis, as well as a similar page up from ItsGoingDown.Org
If you’re in so-called Western NC and want to get involved, the project Asheville Survival Project has a presence on fedbook and is soliciting donations of food and sanitary goods for distribution to indigent, bipoc, elder and immune compromised folks in the community. We’ll link some social media posts on the subject that list our donation sites around Asheville in the show notes and you can venmo donations to @AVLsurvival.
If you care to contribute to efforts in Boone, NC, you can follow the instagram presence for @boonecommunityrelief or join the fedbook group by the same name, reach them via email at boonecommunityrelief@protonmail.com find donation sites and venmo donations can happen up at via venmo at @Bkeeves.
NC Prisons Covid-19 Phone Zap
And check our show notes for an invitation to call the NC Department of Public Safety and Governor’s offices to demand the release of NC prisoners susceptible to infection and possible death of Corona Virus in the NC system due to improper care. Wherever you are listening, consider getting together with others and calling jails, prison agencies and the executive branches to demand similarly the release of AT THE VERY LEAST the aged, infirm, folks in pre-trial detention, upcoming release or who are held because they can’t pay bail.
North Carolina Corrections Department-Prison Division
My name is ________, and I am a North Carolina resident deeply concerned about the safety of the states’s incarcerated people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Incarcerated people have a unique vulnerability to disease due to their crowded, unsanitary living conditions and lack of access to adequate medical care. For humanitarian reasons as well as reasons of public health, we call for the immediate release of all people in the North Carolina prison system. We also urge that you stop the intake of new prisoners during the pandemic. The cost of failing to take these steps will be paid for in human lives, and we refuse to abandon our neighbors and loved ones to die in lockup.
Even while the world burns, our 10th anniversary still approaches and we’re still soliciting messages from you, our listenership. Not sure what to say, likely you have a LOT of time on your hands, so go back through our archives and dive in. If you want a deep dive, visit our website where you can find hundreds of hours of interviews and music. If you want to drop us a line, check out the link in the show notes, or you can leave a voicemail or signal voice memo at +18285710161, you can share an audio file with the google drive associated with the email thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net or send a link to a cloud stored audio filed to that email address. Tell us and listeners what you’ve appreciated and or where you’d like us to go with this project.
Spreading TFS
If you appreciate the work that we do here at TFS, you can also help us out by making a donation if you have extra cash rustling around. The link on our site called Donate/Merch will show you tons of ways. If, like most of us, money is super tight at the moment, no prob, we struggle together. You can share our show with other folks to get these voices out there and more folks in the conversation. And if you REALLY like us and have a community radio station nearby who you’d be excited to have us air on for free, get in touch with us and we’ll help. The page on our site entitled Radio Broadcasting has lots of info for radio stations and how to let them know you want us on the airwaves. Thanks!
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Featured music:
From Monument To Masses – Sharpshooter – The Impossible Leap In One Hundred Simple Steps
Today we have a show about COVID-19, specifically how the pandemic is being handled in prisons and detention. This show includes a lot of voices, and we structured it that way in order to both include as many perspectives as we could and also to take some of the expectation that interviewees speak to us for an extended period; everyone who is working on this is very busy and we wanted to respect that.
In this show you’ll hear from:
– Rebekah Entralgo who works with the non profit Freedom for Immigrants,
– Finn, a healthcare worker and member of Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADR) working in an outbreak epicenter here in North Carolina,
– Elijah Prioleau who is incarcerated at Waupun Correctional in Wisconsin, where there is a COVID-19 outbreak and they are currently on lockdown,
– and JM and Nikkita of (among other groups) COVID-19 Mutual Aid in Seattle, which is at the outbreak epicenter in the Pacific Northwest.
Because I couldn’t include everything that each person said in full, and frankly that was the hardest part about editing, I’m making a page on our collection at archive.org which will include each interview in full. Just give me until tomorrow to get that up, cause my eyes are starting to cross from all the radio related screen time!
Many thanks go out to everyone who was interviewed, and a special thanks to Ben Turk and the folks at Forum for Understanding Prisons who passed along his phone call with Elijah. More about them, their updates, and lists of demands can be seen at prisonforum.org
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To write to Elijah at Waupun Correctional, address letters to:
Leon Elijah Prioleau 420053
Waupun Correctional Institution
PO Box 531
Waupun, WI 53963-0351
To get plugged into mutual aid efforts in Asheville, you can follow the Asheville Survival Project on Facebook, and if you are interested in donating to these efforts in our town the venmo is @AVLsurvival.
List of people and projects that I’m aware of who are boosting prisoner’s voices right now:
Kite Line Radio, which has a Coronavirus call in line for people who are both impacted by incarceration and by Coronavirus, that is 765-343-6236
As corona virus spreads, the failures of capitalist states becomes even clearer and many people are forced to take some breaks from participating in the economy in the way they did before, we’d like to offer some audio we’ve been sitting on. The good folks at the radical bookstore and community space, Burning Books in Buffalo, New York, has given us a small trove of audios from presentations by authors, activists, visionaries and revolutionaries they’ve hosted over the last 7 years or so. We hope that you’ll take away some good perspectives from these luminaries, on struggle, on change, on shifting terrain and on the revolutionary solidarity impulse that they communicate. These are scary times we are living in, but we want to remind you that sometimes in scary times people bring out their best to the fore because we are stronger together.
Get involved in local efforts to organize in your area by visiting this IGD post and searching down the page for the regional mutual aid groups you can plug into.
In this podcast special series, we’re sharing a presentation by the author, historian and activist, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on September 17th, 2015, speaking about her book ‘An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States’. From the website, reddirtsite.com:
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, the daughter of a tenant farmers. She has been active in the international indigenous movement for more than four decades, and she is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. After receiving her Ph.D. in history at the University of California at Los Angeles, she taught in the newly established Native American Studies Program at California State University, Hayward, and helped found the Departments of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies.
The audio cuts off rather suddenly after just about an hour due to recording device, sadly, so we lose Dr. Dunbar-Ortiz part way through a sentence. We’ll have more information at the end of this about where you can find more of her writings.
If you are thinking of purchasing any of her titles, we suggest that you check out getting them from a local bookstore rather than Amazon. And while quarantine is ongoing, if you prefer to order online from Burning Books, they are offering free shipping in the US on orders more than $25 (as of this recording on March 18th, 2020) from their website, burningbooks.com. Feel free, also, to support our local venue and regular supporter of our site, as well, Firestorm.Coop, which sells titles online as well.
