First up, you’ll hear from Elizabeth Simpson of Emancipate NC, one of the signatories to a public letter to this state’s department of corrections calling for the release of hundreds of prisoners in North Carolina. This comes in response to over-crowding and understaffing of prisons following the emergency transfer of 2,000 prisoners from prisons in the western part of the state effected by Hurricane Helene. [00:01:15 – 00:18:50]
Then, Mona Evans of Benevolence Farm, a post-release residence and re-entry program in North Carolina for people coming out of the women’s prisons talks about their programs, re-entry and some of the realities faced inside womens prisons in this state. [00:20:04 – 01:04:40]
DownhomeNC engages in a number of progressive causes in this state, including the bail fund that Benevolence Farms is currently running. You can find our 2020 interview with them here.
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Featured Track:
Women on the Inside by Sistas In The Pit from The We That Sets Us Free: Building A World Without Prisons
Jail and Housing Conditions, Recovery in Post-Helene Asheville
This week on The Final Straw Radio, you’ll hear three interviews interviews relating to community needs and recovering concerning Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina.
If you’re a non-Pacifica radio station airing the show, here’s a link for the 58 minute radio edition while Archive.Org continues to be down due to hacker attacks.
First up, you’ll hear Jen Hampton of the WNC Tenants Network about the re-opening of eviction courts in Buncombe County and conditions of housing in an already difficulty place to live.
Then, Bruce and G talk from the Asheville Community Bail Fund speak about conditions in the local jail during and after this unnatural disaster.
Finally, Yousef of the Palestinian and Arab-led Sumud Collective speaks about his experience of the storm and recovery work in the region in an interview recorded a couple of weeks ago.
This week on the show we’re featuring two inteviews. First up, you’ll hear from Freeway, a houseless activist in Oakland, CA, about the recent series of sweeps of homeless being promoted by Governor Gavin Newsom. Freeway has been a member of Wood Street Commons and is now a member of Oakland Homeless Union (IG or donate).
Then, Janet of Rural Organizing and Resilience (IG or donate) in Madison County, speaks about post-Hurricane Helene organizing and disaster preparedness in the mountains of Western North Carolina. More and links to be added soon.
Members of the Asheville Community Bail Fund have announced a phone zap concerning conditions in the Buncombe County Detention Facility where reports are coming out of a lack of clean water, irregular bathroom breaks and other lack of access are leading to calls for those in the jail to be released or transferred to a facility with more humane conditions.
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Featured Track:
I Wanna Know If It’s Good To You by Funkadellic from Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow
This week, we’re sharing a recent interview with Chloe Moore, a steward, farmer and educator at the Southside Community Farm, in the historically Black neighborhood of Southside in Asheville, NC. The farm has been serving the neighborhood and the region with free and inexpensive, fresh produce for a decade, providing educational opportunities, grocery deliveries, an herb garden and a BIPOC farmers market. The farm sits on land owned by the public Housing Authority of the City of Asheville (HACA) and there is currently a threat that HACA will destroy the farm. For the hour we talk about the work of the farm, the legacy of a community farm in the wake of government policies that destroy Black communities, and ways that community members can support the SCF and help it thrive.
First up, Ian chats with Tasha of Project Mayday, a harm reduction project operating in so-called West Virginia. They discuss harm reduction strategies and the political framework of their approach to mutual aid. The conversation also touches upon co-existing in the public health and non-profit space without compromising their radical values and some of the many ways that drug policy and pharmaceutical marketing affect people who use drugs. Listeners can contact Project Mayday at the links below and should watch those spaces for news about the benefit show coming up on April 28th.
Then, I spoke with Toby from Appalachians Against Pipelines and Madeline Ffitch, an activist recently arrested for locking down to a drill threatening to move the Mountain Valley Pipeline through Peters Mountain at Jefferson National Forest. We talked about the recent days of solidarity, direct actions against the MVP, repression of activists and related topics.
This week, you’ll hear an interview we conducted with researcher and journalist Jessica Pishko about the upcoming, September 9th Constitutional Sheriff & Peace Officers Association gathering in Cherokee, North Carolina. For the hour, Jessica talks about the office of Sheriff in the US, the CSPOA and Constitutional Sheriff movement, their ties to militia or other far-right wing and white nationalist formations and related topics. You can find Jessica’s blog at Sheriffs.SubStack.Com.
This week, we’re sharing a conversation with Rose and Crystal, two comrades involved in the struggle against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 304 mile, 41 inch in diameter liquified so-called natural gas pipeline with a possible 75 mile extension crossing many delicate waterways, slopes and communities across Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina.
This project has been off and on under construction since 2018 and was recently forced through at a Federal level as part of the debt ceiling deal by the Biden administration and Democrats. For the hour we talk about the project, the land and water it threatens, the history of resistance and how to get involved in stopping this mess.
Just a headsup, there are some audio quality issues throughout the conversation with both guests, so if you have trouble hearing consider checking out the upcoming transcript or meanwhile watching on youtube with the subtitles on.
You can find more from the folks resisting the MVP by searching Appalachians Against Pipelines on various social media platforms or check the links in our show notes, where you can also find links to our various interviews with folks from this initiative from the last 5 years.
The channel called Political Prisoners on youtube, linked in our show notes, has begun a series of short documentaries about Sean, the first of which you can find entitled “Part One: A Visitation Dispute”. Check it out!
Disability Pride Art Show
The Disability Pride Art Show aims to celebrate the rights of disabled individuals through the power of art. This one-day event will take place on July 30 at the vibrant venue, Different Wrld, located in 801 Haywood Rd. The show embraces the core values of acceptance and inclusivity, emphasizing the inherent worth and talents of disabled individuals. Presented by DIYabled, a local nonprofit organization, and with This Body is Worthy.
Featuring a diverse lineup of 25 talented artists, writers, video artists, and dancers, the Disability Pride Art Show promises to captivate audiences with a rich variety of artistic expressions. Attendees will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the thought-provoking documentary “Disability on the Spectrum,” created by local artist Priya Ray. The film sheds light on the experiences and perspectives of disabled individuals, fostering greater understanding and empathy within our community.
Rashid’s Continued Denial of Cancer Treatment
Check our show notes for Rashid’s message, but as noted last week, incarcerated revolutionary of the Intercommunal Black Panther Party, Kevin Rashid Johnson, is continuing to be denied his rounds of cancert treatment for prostate cancer and has been shoved in a solitary confinement cell without working lights. In the show notes and at our website you’ll also find contacts for prison officials in Virginia who need pressure applied to get Rashid the medical treatment he needs, outside of the dungeon they’ve stuck him in.
Comrades:
This is Rashid. I need all possible SUSTAINED and immediate support.
Here is a statement of my situation.
OFFICIALS DEVISE TO STOP MY CANCER TREATMENT AND BLOCK MY COURT ACCESS
(2023)
By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson
I have been going out daily since early April 2023 for radiation
treatment at the Medical College of Virginia – a total of 40 treatments – which is ongoing. On 6-29-23 upon returning to the prison from the hospital I was thrown in solitary confinement without explanation, where I remain, without any property including all my legal property.
I was put in cells without working lights, where I remain.
After constant complaints all I’m being told is I am under
investigation, but not by prison investigators. I spoke with a prison
investigator, a Lieutenant Spencer, on July 1 when she delivered me
legal mail, asking about my status and access to my legal property. She informed me, while her body camera was recording, that I am under investigation by other state prison investigators and the prison was not withholding my legal property. She said any supervisor could get my property for me which was in the property department.
Despite this everyone refuses to deliver my belongings and I have been kept in an empty cell ever since. This despite that the VDOC is under court orders to not interfere with my access to and use of my legal property and I have numerous court deadlines and a pending federal civil trial in one of my lawsuits.
On 6-30-23 officials refused to allow me to attend my cancer treatment.
My numerous written emergency complaints about this went unanswered and unprocessed.
On 7-3-23 after days in an empty cell without my things I declined to go for my treatment that one day to try and call the courts to explain and seek intervention. Officials including the warden and assistant warden refused me a legal call and are now refusing all my future cancer treatments.
The entire claim to have me under investigation is facially invalid and illegal. As any legal authority recognizes, law enforcement officials must perform investigations consistent with the search and seizure provisions of the 4th Amendment. And any “unlawful search or seizures” renders any evidence gathered therefrom illegal. Both the seizures and searches of me and my property have been unlawful from the outset. My belongings, my legal property in particular was taken and searched outside my presence, which is illegal. Prison officials may only open our legal mail and search our legal property in our presence. That is constitutional law. Here in Virginia we may only be removed from General population and put in solitary if written notice is given within 24 hours. I received no such notice.
People to contact:
CLARKE, HAROLD W(804) 887-8080 HAROLD.CLARKE@VADOC.VIRGINIA.GOV
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION (DOC/CA, 701)
ROBINSON, DAVID N (276) 524-3685 DAVID.N.ROBINSON@VADOC.VIRGINIA.GOV
WALLENS RIDGE STATE PRISON (WRSP, 735)
This week we’re re-airing our 2012 interview with Dr. George Katsiaficas, author and contributor to over a dozen books on Peoples Movements and the elucidator of the Eros Effect. For over a decade, Dr. Katsiaficas has been studying the culture and history of South Korea and it’s culture and has published the a two volume set, the first of which is entitled Asia’s Unknown Uprisings: South Korean Social Movements in the 20th Century from PM Press.
For more of Dr. Katsiaficas’ writing, check out his website at www.eroseffect.com
Shine White
[ 00: 56.41 – 01:19:33 ]
Supporters of Joseph “Shine White” Stewart conducted an interview with him about conditions in the NC prisons, violence and his views on organizing. Shine White is an anti-racist, white, maoist prisoner.
You can find our 2021 interview with Shine White here.
You can write to Shine White at:
Joseph Stewart #0802041
Granville Correctional
PO Box 247
Phoenix, Maryland 21131
This week on the show, you’ll hear from Doug, Onion and Papi, three folks involved in the Aston Park Build, a daily event to hold space in Aston Park in downtown Asheville, creating art, sharing food and music and a wider part of organizing here to demand safer space & redistribution of wealth to care for houseless folks and relieve the incredible strains on housing affordability in Asheville. We talk about the park actions, the housing crisis and service industry wage woes, local government coddling of business owners and police repression of folks on the margins.
Leigh Lassiter from prison books collective in Durham, North Carolina, a nonprofit project that sends zines and books to prisoners in Alabama in North Carolina prisons and jails comes on this week to tell us about recent changes by the NCDPS to use the private company TextBehind to scan all incoming and outgoing mail track, their contents surveil the outside users and mailers, and to make a profit on an already indigent population. We also talk about the work of sending literature, to incarcerated folks privatization and digitization of other services, and what literature gets rejected. More about the press books collective at PrisonBooks.Info or check out their linktr.ee
You can also check out local books to prisoners projects in your area that you could get involved with by visiting PrisonBooks.Org/PrisonBooksNetwork. There’re also a couple of really good articles from The Intercept about this and related surveillance services topics within you as prisons and jails.
This week on The Final Straw Radio, you’ll hear three interviews interviews relating to community needs and recovering concerning Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina.
