Mississippi Protesters: “Prisoners’ Lives Matter!”

Families and human rights defenders gather at the Mississippi Capitol to protest conditions inside Mississippi jails and prisons. Five prisoners have died in MDOC custody between Dec. 29 and Jan. 3.

On January 7, protesters gathered at the Mississippi State Capitol building to speak out against the deplorable conditions that prisoners have endured in Mississippi jails and prisons.

Since Dec. 29, 2019, at least five prisoners have died because of the violent conditions in Mississippi prisons. Recently, the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) has moved inmates to a notoriously decrepit maximum security unit at Parchman, the state penitentiary. This unit had previously been forced to close due to inhumane conditions. Prisoners have documented a lack of plumbing and electricity, flooded quarters, rampant black mold, and more.

Mississippi governor Phil Bryant justified this inhumane treatment of prisoners as retaliation for “gang violence.”

Sharon Brown, who has family on the inside, responded: “It is not a gang war. It is a systemic war. The biggest gang sits right there in that tower,” Brown said, pointing to the Capitol building.

Protesters are demanding an immediate reform to these inhumane conditions, the end of corporal and group punishment, educational and vocational-technical programs, the decriminalization of marijuana, restoration of regular family visitation and more.

Workers Voice Socialist Movement

We are workers, employed and unemployed, youth, students, and seniors. We are multi-racial and multi-national and organize for the unity of the working class. We are funded by and for workers, for the liberation of all workers and oppressed people.

We organize for jobs and higher wages, against racism, women’s, and LGBTQ oppression, and for solidarity with immigrants. We organize for community schools, lower rents, and food on our tables. We organize for workers’ power so that everything will one day be removed from the capitalists’ private ownership.

We oppose the Pentagon, which is looting our tax dollars and handing them over to war-profiteering private companies, while social programs are gutted. We oppose war for empire which is pursued only to lower our wages and plunder the world’s resources while destroying the environment. We reject the monopoly media who feed us lie after lie.

The labor of workers produces enormous wealth here in Louisiana, the U.S. and the world– so much wealth that everyone could have housing, meaningful jobs, education, healthcare, and genuine equality. But this wealth is stolen and privately owned by the capitalist class for their greed and profit. We believe that we, the workers of the world, can unite in revolution to overcome capitalism and build a better world.

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