Tag Archives: West Coast

Merced County Jail & John Latorraca Jail Hunger Strike 9/9/2016

img_5170
Immediate asks:
First and foremost we would like to advise you, that we as individuals on our own accord
have decided to invoke our First Amendment Right to assemble and have a peaceful
protest to address our grievances that go unanswered. We are in solidarity with the Nation &
World Wide Prison/Jail Strikes on the 45th anniversary of the Uprising of Attica Prison
and also want to expose our own local issues. For this we expect there not be any
repercussions or reprisals or any form of disciplinary actions taken during or after this
peaceful protest, which will be a hunger strike and refusal of all movements. Continue reading

Humbolt Grassroots Endorsement

Humboldt Grassroots folks are answering the call for solidarity and fully endorse the Nationally Coordinated Prisoner Work Stoppage on September 9th, 2016, organized by the Free Alabama Movement, Free Virginia Movement, and other revolutionary prisoner worker organizations and individuals.
The purpose of this strike is to escalate the struggle to abolish slavery in America once and for all by the end of the year. The strike organizers spell out in the Call to Action that all prison labor is slavery.
(https://iwoc.noblogs.org/post/2016/04/01/announcement-of-nationally-coordinated-prisoner-workstoppage-for-sept-9-2016/)
“Prisoners are forced to work for little or no pay. That is slavery. The 13th amendment to the US constitution maintains a legal exception for continued slavery in US prisons. It states ‘neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.’ Overseers watch over our every move, and if we do not perform our appointed tasks to their liking, we are punished.”
We pledge to demonstrate on September 9th and to help expose the corporations that are profiting from the slave labor of prisoners. We will continue to work in solidarity with this struggle in the days afterward. Humboldt Grassroots stands against  oppression with everyone in the struggle for freedom and justice for all. We couldn’t agree more with the IWW General Executive Board that  it is the duty of working class organizations like the IWW (and really anyone and everyone who  wants freedom and social justice) to support the struggle of prisoner workers. We echo the IWW call for other revolutionary organizations to offer their support and solidarity to this important cause.
Here is the Pamphlet(http://insurgenttheatre.org/sprdocs/strikepamphlet_notlocal.pdf) to share and print out to let people know what’s going down — National Prisoner Work Stoppage on September 9th.
————————————————-
We are having a solidarity demonstration on the 9th
here is the event page https://www.facebook.com/events/1240936135938243/

Find Sept. 9th Events in Your Area

Originally published to It’s Going Down
Add Your Event: info[at]itsgoingdown[dot]org

People are organizing across the United States and the world in order to stand in the streets in solidarity with those locked behind bars who will strike on September 9th against prison slavery. Already, a wide range of actions have taken place in the run up to the strike. This includes large scale flyering and street propaganda campaigns, banner drops, noise demonstrations outside of jails and detention facilities, and informational events. All of this activity helps to build the capacity of the strike to bring in more people who can take an active role, as well as spread information about the struggle being waged by prisoners on the inside. These actions also bring many organizations, crews, and individuals together that before have previously never worked side by side and helps expose white supremacy as both a system of social control and racial apartheid and an apparatus of management that facilitates the creation of billions of dollars of profits.

Continue reading

Spreading the Strike: Solidarity Actions Across North America for September 9th

From It’s Going Down

Add Your Event: info[at]itsgoingdown[dot]org

People are organizing across the United States and the world in order to stand in the streets in solidarity with those locked behind bars who will strike on September 9th against prison slavery. Already, a wide range of actions have taken place in the run up to the strike. This includes large scale flyering and street propaganda campaigns, banner drops, noise demonstrations outside of jails and detention facilities, and informational events. All of this activity helps to build the capacity of the strike to bring in more people who can take an active role, as well as spread information about the struggle being waged by prisoners on the inside. These actions also bring many organizations, crews, and individuals together that before have previously never worked side by side and helps expose white supremacy as both a system of social control and racial apartheid and an apparatus of management that facilitates the creation of billions of dollars of profits.

In order to better prepare for the strike, here we are going to create a regularly updated page that includes a diary of actions and a list of events and mobilizations leading up to and around the 9th. We know that many events are still in the works, so when you are ready, either submit an event here or email us at: info[at]itsgoingdown[dot]org. In this way, we hope to build a large, multi-faceted, and extremely diverse resistance movement that can support and expand the strike against prison slavery that will continue to take shape on September 9th and beyond. Continue reading

FBI Attacks Bay View, and Black Media Appreciation Night is Less Than a Month Away

[This is a letter from Bay View, the San Fransisco National Black Newspaper.]

FBI attack – First, I want to apologize for agreeing to the KGO-ABC7 interview last week on an FBI Black August bulletin. I agreed in a phone call that came when I had just sent the August paper to the printer after pulling an all-nighter. My judgment was lousy and the interview was appalling. A white woman – a cackling witch, as one fan described me – should not be the face of a Black paper. Here’s the report for those with the stomach to watch.

The threat to the Bay View is, however, very real. While the FBI has sent out all points bulletins warning of danger to police and prison guards in previous Black Augusts – last year’s predicting trouble in Baltimore – this year’s bulletin criminalizes Black August. It reminded me of J. Edgar Hoover’s 1968 FBI bulletin naming the Black Panthers as the greatest threat to U.S. security.

Black August, observed both inside prison and out, is a month of fasting, studying and deep thought in commemoration of fallen freedom fighters, initially Jonathan Jackson, 17, who died in the Marin Courthouse Slave Rebellion on Aug. 7, 1970, trying to rescue his big brother, George Jackson, who was assassinated on the San Quentin yard on Aug. 21, 1971. Continue reading

Oakland: Mobilize In Solidarity With Prison Rebels September 9th and 10th!

From It’s Going Down

On Saturday, September 10th, people across the Bay Area and Northern California will converge in Downtown Oakland in solidarity with the US wide prison work strike against prison slavery and white supremacy. Our goal is a mass showing of support with the growing prison rebellion in the US and to also march on the corporations in the Downtown area that make massive profits off of prisoner enslavement.

The strike that will begin on September 9th is not a symbolic one. It is a mass collective refusal to keep the machine of confinement running. It is the continuation of resistance to racialized slavery that began before the creation of the United States and will ultimately end in the revolutionary overthrow of this system of domination and apartheid. It is up to us on the outside to show our solidarity and to act in kind. The bay area has a rich history of both prison rebellion and support for those rebels. We hope to aid in this strike and prepare ourselves to support it not only in the early days of September, but in the weeks that proceed it as repression and lock-downs are sure to follow.

The expanding radical prison labor movement also shows us how connected our struggles truly are, as prison labor generates literally billions for various industries destroying the planet, attacking workers, and occupying entire countries. This includes corporate food giants, the US military, the banking system, and the fossil fuel industry. From fast food workers fighting back against poverty wages to the battles raging in indigenous territory against oil pipelines – regardless of what struggles we are in, we all need to stand with our comrades on the inside who courageously are going on strike. Continue reading