I like to remind the young people who I work with that oppressed people have ALWAYS resisted their oppression. I think that this cannot be stressed enough because it helps to counteract cynicism and hopelessness.

The following is an appeal from the National Afro-American Council to set aside a day of fasting as a protest against lynching. It was published in the New York Tribune, May 4, 1899.

The National Afro-American Council of the United States has issued a proclamation calling upon the colored people of this country to set apart Frihttps://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?post=9955&action=editday, June 2, as a day of fasting and prayer, and has called upon all colored ministers to devote the sunrise hour of that following Sunday, June 4, to special exercises in order that “God, the Father of Mercies, may take our deplorable case in His own hands, and that if vengeance is to be meted out let God himself repay.” It sets forth the “indescribable barbarous treatment” of the Negro — refers to role in wars, denounces lynchings “in the most strenuous language.” It says, in part:

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On Tuesday, the state of Texas executed Marvin Wilson, a man who still sucked his thumb at 54 years old. The state did this in all of our names…

I bought a set of negatives at a flea market about 10 years ago. They were photographs of anti-death penalty protestors at San Quentin Prison on May 13, 1960. Looking at these images actually gives me hope because they remind me that people have always been organizing against the death penalty. It means that some of us aren’t blind to the barbarity and brutality of state-sanctioned murder.

Anti-Death Penalty Protestors at San Quentin Prison (5/13/60) – Prison Culture collection

Anti-Death Penalty Protestors at San Quentin Prison (5/13/60) — Prison Culture Collection

Anti-Death Penalty Protestors at San Quentin Prison (5/13/60) – Prison Culture Collection

I sporadically write about prison food on this blog because food is integral to the culture of correctional institutions. For people who are confined, the day is structured around breakfast, lunch, and dinner times. It helps break the monotony. Unfortunately, many prisoners complain that their food is S.O.S. (the same old shit). Potatoes and bread seem to be regular staples of prisoner meals. The food is usually bland to accommodate the various dietary restrictions that prisoners may have.

One of the innovations in jail/prison food is called “Spread.” I heard about this years ago when I began corresponding with prisoners. Recently, I read a fascinating article detailing the various aspects of making and sharing Spread inside a particular county jail in California. Sandra Cate (2008) writing in Gastronimica: the Journal of Food and Culture explains the purpose and process of making Spread:

Finding their jailhouse diet bland, monotonous, and insubstantial, inmates in the California penal system invent alternative meals. “Spread,” the generic term for these creations, describes the inmate-created foods most often built around a single ingredient, instant ramen noodles. Beginning with this noodle base, the inmates concoct variations that approximate their favorite foods on the outside, often those with distinctive flavorings and textures.

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Prison
By Mila D. Aguilar

Prison is
a double wall
one of adobe
the other
so many layers
of barbed wire
both formidable.
The outer wall
is guarded
from watchtowers.
The other
is the prison
within,
where they will
hammer you
into the image
of their own likeness,
whoever they are.

I received an e-mail a couple of weeks ago from a young woman who I will call Carrie. Carrie introduced herself to me as a 17 year old high school student who is about to start her senior year. She lives in Baltimore and told me that she found the blog this Spring while doing research about mass incarceration for a class project. Apparently, she has been a regular reader ever since. I am grateful for that.

She was writing to ask me for a list of Revolutionary African American women besides Assata Shakur and Angela Davis. She wanted to do some reading about their lives. Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mae Mallory came right to mind for me of course. But I also thought of Lucy Parsons who is still mostly unknown. I’ve written briefly about her on the blog here.

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Created by: Criminology.com

It had been about 20 years since I first read Soledad Brother before I picked it up again recently. I am spending part of my summer re-reading and then discussing certain books with a 15 year old young man who befriended me last year. The first book that we discussed last November was “A Time to Die” by Tom Wicker. Our latest book is “Soledad Brother” by George Jackson. We met on Sunday to discuss it.

By now, you might be wondering about the choice of books. There is of course a story there. I met this young man last September when he visited a photo exhibition that I organized about the 40th Anniversary of the Attica Prison Uprising. After I had spoken with him and his peers, he stayed behind for a bit and shyly asked me if I could recommend any books that addressed Attica in greater depth. Well, as you can imagine I was thrilled to offer him several suggestions and then to lend him some of my books. If he were only a couple of years older, I might have considered marrying him 🙂 In the time since then, we have struck up a friendship that revolves around meeting on a monthly basis to discuss the various books that he is reading per my suggestions.

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Anaheim, Everywhere
by nancy a heitzeg

In the aftermath of Anaheim — that anti-thesis of Disneyland – we will add the names of Manuel Diaz and Joel Acevedo to that endless list of those struck down by “extra-judicial killings by police, security guards or self-appointed law enforcers.”

Diaz is just the latest in a long line of police shootings of unarmed people of color. His name has come to symbolize the ongoing struggle against police violence in poor black and brown communities, for which authorities are almost never held to account. In Anaheim, where tension between police and the Latino community has been building for years, Diaz is the match that lit the fire which has spread throughout the city.

His shooting sparked an immediate protest by area residents who demanded answers from police. When some in the crowd allegedly hurled bottles and rocks at officers, police responded by shooting rubber bullets and pepper spray and releasing (apparently by accident) a K-9 attack dog into the crowd of mostly parents and small children. The chaos was captured on video by a KCAL news crew showing screaming mothers and fathers shielding their children in horror.
The following day a second Latino man, 21-year-old Joel Acevedo, was shot and killed by Anaheim police, who said Acevedo was shot after firing at police during a foot chase.

We say the names to honor the dead and the living — but their individual stories whatever their power, tell a collective tale as well. That is the story of unchecked — no routinized, normalized. even glorified – systemic structural violence targeting communities of color.
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This needs no additional commentary…

I am excited to share one of my prized possessions. I was able to purchase an original FBI wanted poster of Assata Shakur a couple of months ago. It will be exhibited as part of the Black/Inside exhibition that I am co-curating this Fall.