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Support Incarcerated Workers’ Strike in Alabama (Calls to Action)

by Jennifer Lin

In protest against the utterly inhumane conditions in Alabama DOC, the prisoner-led Free Alabama Movement’s 30-Day Economic Blackout has stopped work from Jan 1 to Jan 31.

On January 1, incarcerated people across Alabama’s prison system went on a work strike and 11 people in isolation went on a hunger strike. Officially called the “30 Day Economic Blackout,” the strike is being organized by the Free Alabama Movement, founded and led by imprisoned Black men fighting against mass incarceration and prison slavery. People in Alabama’s prisons live in heinous conditions in overcrowded cells and are ten time smore likely to die from homicide than in any other state. Incarcerated peoples’ loved one can no longer visit them in person; Alabama is only allowing virtual visits due to COVID-19, but the Free Alabama Movement claims this is a front to permanently end in-person visits to psychologically torture incarcerated people even more. These virtual visits are insanely profitable for tech companies that have contracts with prisons. The strike is calling on people to show solidarity by boycotting 5 corporations that profit from prisons and forced prison labor: Securus Technologies, JPay, Access Correction, Union Supply Company, and Alabama Correctional Industries.

Prisons are a tool for the mass torture and dehumanization of primarily Black and brown people and funnel huge profits to private corporations through forced labor. They are designed to prop up capitalism and further the oppression of workers. Now incarcerated people are being left to die in crowded and dirty cells without access to adequate medical care during COVID-19. These people are our friends, family, and community members. The Alabama strike is a tremendous act of resistance that we must support.

The people on hunger strike have been brutally repressed with beatings, mace, harassment, and threats. The Free Alabama Movement is asking everyone to engage in an email, phone, and twitter storm of support. Tell Dunn: “At Kilby Correctional Facility, Sgt. Williams and Officer Landrum jumped on an bead a prisoner who is participating in a hunger strike. Alabama DOC needs to intervene immediately by investigating this incident and firing both guards.” – from the the #Alabama11. Show your solidarity by joining this call!

Call, Email, Twitter the Alabama Corrections Department
Alabama DOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn:
334-353-3883
Jefferson.dunn@doc.Alabama.gov
Twitter @ADOCDunn

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The Prison Strike Is Over But The Fight Is Not

Banner reads End Prison Slavery, Support Prison Strike, Aug 21 – Sept 9

By C.T.

Prisons are one of the biggest systems in the US that cash out on hurting Black, Brown and poor white people in the US. People in prison are also forced to work for pennies a day while making corporations rich. This system of slavery is legal in the US because of the 13th amendment. The 13th amendment was written after the Civil War to lock up Black people making prisons the new plantations and prisoners the new enslaved.

From August 21 to September 9, prisoners across the US organized work and commissary boycotts, hunger strikes and other protests to demand better living conditions and the right of every prisoner to apply for parole as well as other improvements. This was a truly amazing protest because prisoners cannot just call each other on the phone, send a text, email or Facebook message whenever they want. Additionally, reporters do not want to write stories that are hard to verify. This means that many major newspapers were not interested in covering the strike because it is simply too hard to reach prisoners, especially when they are being punished inside the prison for being a part of the strike. Some newspapers even made up lies about the strike to make it seem less powerful than it was.

From what we know, prisoners were able to strike across over a dozen states; many were put in solitary confinement and even transferred to other prisons as punishment for fighting against injustice.

Yet the strike went on and people all over the US have been trying to support the strike by calling prisons, writing letters, protesting outside of prisons and showing support and bringing attention to the strike anyway they can. In New Orleans, the People’s Assembly and Workers Group held a solidarity protest in front of the Orleans Parish Prison on Aug 21st. During the last week of the strike, a banner was put up on I-10 facing the prison that demanded ‘the end of prison slavery.’ Celebrities like J. Cole used their platform to shine a light on the strike and murals supporting the strike can be found across the US.

Although the strike is over, there are still so many ways to support our brothers and sisters in prison that are fighting for a better life.

To learn more you can find information on: https://incarceratedworkers.org https://www.facebook.com/BlkJailhouselawyer/

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Solidarity with National Prison Strike

Peoples Assembly, New Orleans Workers Group Rally at OPP

By AP

On August 21 the Peoples’ Assembly and the New Orleans Workers Group called together a protest and march in solidarity with the nation-wide prison strike just a few weeks before the 41st anniversary of historic prison uprising at Attica. People gathered outside the Orleans parish criminal court to call for action against a system that only seeks to incarcerate workers in order to put them under an even more unfair system of modern day slavery: prisons. Around the corner from the courthouse is the Orleans Parish Prison where more than 1500 working class people in New Orleans are locked up.

The aim of the protest was to bring solidarity with prisoners to the public eye. Many held signs up to the streets while other passed out flyers and newspapers, ensuring that everyone who drove past or stepped out of the courthouse could see that the prisoners and their pain would never be forgotten no matter how hard the ruling class tries to drown out their cries.

As a whole procession, protestors moved down the street towards the sheriffs office and OPP, calling for the police to be jailed and the people freed. Using megaphones, calls for action were made alongside the prison so that those inside could hear the voices of support outside. Police who had followed sat and watched as demands were made on behalf of the prisoners, dealing with things like quality of food and healthcare to the treatment of prisoners by guards. It was made clear that the things that were asked for were bare essentials that every human deserves but that the prison system makes inaccessible.

The system of policing and imprisonment in New Orleans and all around the United States is not only cruel and inhumane to the humans that are shoveled into jail cells, but it is also a gross misuse of public money. While people starve and fight over the tiny crumbs they are allotted, the government uses public money to increase policing and keep the industry of prison labor going to keep their deep pockets filled. We must demand that our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters are spared from this sinister scheme! This system only benefits the wealthy and only looks to keep poor and black people down by profiting from their blood sweat and tears!

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Peoples Assembly Women’s Dinner: Black August, Solidarity With Prisoners

By Shera Phillips

I am increasingly more and more excited for each Women Dinner’s Wednesday. This past one set fire down in my soul. August is famous for solidarity with the incarcerated in the form of black august. There have been prison strikes all over the country in which the incarcerated demand to be regarded as human beings.

I learned a great deal and we had a host of dynamic speakers educate us on various topics from mass incarceration and its connection to slavery and racism, the enormous capitalistic gains of private corporations and individuals made by the prison complex, what a world could look like without prisons and a powerful testimony of how the prison industry has affected the institution of family made by Fox Rich, as well as spoken word.

The power in the room moved many to tears. We sang, we shouted and we cried. We found community, empowerment and ways to engage in this much needed work for liberation of all.

Join us in our next Women’s Dinner Wednesday where will be hosting a community sing. Singing negro spirituals fuels us, encourages us, purges us, and rejuvenates us. We are reminded of the state of being and passion of our ancestors as they endured and fought for non-negotiable progress.