About Philly Anti-Cap

Posts by Philly Anti-Cap

Philly’s forgotten history as a hub of anarchism with a thriving radical Yiddish press

from The Conversation

On a late summer day in 1906, a small group of newly arrived Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia took a streetcar across town to Fairmount Park. Several miles from the cramped row houses and oppressive sweatshops of the immigrant quarter of South Philly, the neighborhood now known as Queen Village, they enjoyed a sunny picnic.

They weren’t there to make small talk, though.

Instead, they wanted to write “revolutionary articles” that would spark the “struggle against all that degrades and oppresses humanity,” as one of the leaders of the group, Joseph Cohen, later wrote in his 1945 memoir.

More specifically, the picnicgoers wanted to start a newspaper. It would be titled Broyt un Frayheyt – Yiddish for Bread and Freedom – the anarchist reminder that to live the good life, one needs both.

I’m a professor of media and politics at Temple University in Philadelphia. For the past year I’ve been tracking the life and times of my great-grandfather Max, a radical Yiddish journalist in the early years of the 20th century.

To my surprise, I found he had lived here in Philadelphia, and his story is part of a largely forgotten moment in U.S. history: when Philly was an epicenter of the national anarchist movement, heartily supported by the city’s burgeoning Jewish immigrant community.

Beyond the Russian pale

By 1906, thousands of people like Max had made their way to Philadelphia from the Russian “pale” – the only part of the Russian Empire where they could legally reside. They fled economic isolation and state-sanctioned persecution in search of a more stable life.

South Philly was better than where they had come from, but immigrant life then, as now, was by no means easy. They had escaped a legal regime of oppression and the perpetual threat of antisemitic mob violence. But in turn they found a world of dark alleys and dead ends. Their labor was exploited, their living conditions meager.

For some, the American promise of freedom and prosperity seemed to ring hollow.

They did, however, find one freedom they had not experienced before. They were able to speak, write and publish their ideas no matter how outlandish or against the grain.

And they could do so in Yiddish, the vernacular of daily life but a language of exile – one that in the old world had often been outlawed in print.

The Yiddish press in the United States was experiencing extraordinary growth at the time. In New York, Philadelphia and other cities, newspapers quickly emerged – and often disappeared – month over month.

Two girls stand among group of people. One on left has sign in Yiddish. One on right has sign that says: Abolish slavery
A young protester holds a sign in Yiddish at a May Day protest against child labor in New York in 1909. George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons

Jewish anarchists in America

Max moved to Philadelphia in 1906 to work with another immigrant named Joseph Cohen. Cohen had arrived in Philadelphia three years earlier. He earned a scant living making cigars, but his real work was advocating anarchism.

At the dawn of the 20th century, anarchism was not the nihilistic chaos the term may bring to mind today. It was a heartfelt dream of a free and egalitarian society.

The anarchists believed that man-made hierarchies – political, economic and religious – were illegitimate and limited the full expression of humanity. They rejected the authority of the state. That particularly appealed to many Jewish immigrants, for whom laws in the old country had long served as vehicles of oppression.

Cohen had studied this philosophy of local autonomy and communal life with the Philadelphia activist Voltairine de Cleyre.

History may remember Emma Goldman, a Lithuanian-born New Yorker and perhaps the leading voice of American anarchism from that era. But de Cleyre was the heart and soul of Philadelphia’s anarchist scene.

Goldman once described de Cleyre as a “poet-rebel,” a “liberty-loving artist” and “the greatest woman anarchist of America.”

Black and white potrait of woman shown in profile
Voltairine de Cleyre in Philadelphia circa 1901. Wikimedia Commons

A tireless critic of the inequities of the industrial age, de Cleyre had taught herself Yiddish to better serve as “the apostle of anarchism” in the Jewish ghetto.

While de Cleyre could often be found speaking in front of city hall, Max, Cohen and their colleagues were more likely to gather at the corner of Fifth and South streets, the hub of Philadelphia’s Yiddish press and its culture of rambunctious street debate.

By 1906, Cohen had co-founded the anarchist Radical Library in the upstairs rooms at 229 Pine St. This provided the Philadelphia anarchists a meeting space and reading room.

But “the Jewish newspaper men, the radicals and the tireless talkers,” as the Philadelphia historian Harry Boonin wrote, still congregated in the ramshackle cafes lining the 600 block of South Fifth, where they would argue over anarchism and atheism deep into the night.

Competition with NYC comrades

Cohen’s goal was to publish a nationally influential anarchist paper that would give voice to the “comrades from Philadelphia.”

That meant direct competition with the New York Yiddish press and the influential weekly newspaper Freie Arbeiter Stimme, or The Free Voice of Labor. Edited by Saul Yanovksy on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, FAS was the center of the Jewish anarchist movement and of the Yiddish intelligentsia more broadly.

“To be able to say ‘I have written for Yanovsky,’” wrote the sociologist Robert Park in 1922, “is a literary passport for a Yiddish writer.”

Front page of newspaper titled Freie Arbeiter Stimme and dated Feb. 21, 1903
Freie Arbeiter Stimme (The Free Voice of Labor) was the intellectual center of the Jewish anarchist movement at the turn of the 20th century. From the collection of the National Library of Israel, courtesy of Freie Arbeiter Stimme (The Free Voice of Labor)

Although the FAS masthead said the paper was located in New York and Philadelphia, Yanovksy controlled the operation from New York, much to Cohen’s dismay.

The Philadelphia anarchists were also routinely disappointed in Yanovsky’s politics. He was too moderate for their tastes. Yanovsky favored organizing labor and voting in elections, while the Bread and Freedom group, according to Cohen, wanted to cultivate “the militancy and fighting spirit which our young comrades brought with them from cold Russia.” They advocated for more aggressive measures to counter “the submissive indifference of the bourgeoisie and the slavish patience of the workers.”

Cohen had partnered with Yanovsky earlier in 1906 to publish a daily anarchist newspaper. He maintained a small office in the back of Finkler’s cigar store at Fifth and Bainbridge streets. But the paper was printed in New York and delivered back to Philadelphia each morning by courier train.

Cohen wrote in his memoir that he suspected Yanovsky intentionally sabotaged the effort by insisting that he personally write the daily editorial, but then turning in his copy too late for the paper to make the train. After two months the partnership, and the paper, fell apart.

For Cohen, the lesson was that to be the genuine voice of the anarchist movement, he had to print the paper locally in Philadelphia.

A digest of anarchist argument

Crop of newspaper that lists publishing company and address of the Bread and Freedom newspaper
Editions of the Bread and Freedom anarchist weekly list the Radical Library at 229 Pine St. as its headquarters. From the collection of the National Library of Israel, courtesy of Bread and Freedom

Bread and Freedom published its first issue on Nov. 11, 1906. The date was symbolic. It was the anniversary of the execution of the “Chicago martyrs” – the four men wrongly sentenced to death for the 1886 bombing at a labor rally at Chicago’s Haymarket Square. The Haymarket affair galvanized the anarchist movement among immigrants, even as it accelerated the wider fear of foreign-born radicalism.

Over the next three months, the newspaper offered a weekly digest of anarchist arguments. It translated into Yiddish Voltairine de Cleyre’s critique of capitalism and what she called its “moral bankruptcy” – its hunger for wealth, power and material possessions. It attacked what de Cleyre called the “dominant idea” of the times – “the shameless, merciless” exploitation of the worker, “only to produce heaps and heaps of things – things ugly, things harmful, things useless, and at the best largely unnecessary.”

In the strongest of terms – “bombastic,” in the words of one local historian – the paper echoed de Cleyre’s call for the “restless, active, rebel souls” of immigrant Philadelphia to rise up to oppose the “great and lamentable error” of industrial capitalism.

Almost as soon as it began, however, Bread and Freedom ran out of money. Its rhetoric was exciting but ineffective. The paper offered no real solutions beyond an impossible demand to dismantle the capitalist state.

Although two members of the group were briefly detained by the police in Baltimore for selling a radical newspaper, their fiery propaganda lit no revolutionary spark.

Instead, it disappeared quietly, folding in January 1907.

Shifting tactics

Even then, a different kind of immigrant was arriving in the U.S. from Russia. Their radical politics were coupled with organizational acumen.

Many of the older anarchists would join forces with these newcomers, and the effort morphed into something more pragmatic. They helped build the foundations of the 20th-century labor movement, which successfully fought for once-radical ideals such as the eight-hour workday and paid sick leave.

Cohen moved to New York and took over as editor of FAS in 1923. That was a tense period for the Jewish left, following the Russian revolution of 1917 and the Communist rise to power. In response, the U.S. government suppressed domestic radicalism, arresting and at times deporting foreign-born leftists, and anarchism fell out of favor.

A few years earlier, though, the streets of South Philly had been home to a vibrant space of free speech and boundless political imagination. It would not last long, but it is a moment I believe is worth remembering.

InterRebellium 1: The Estallido Social Screening

from O.R.C.A.

In October 2019, protests against a transit fare hike in Santiago erupted into a nation-wide insurrection against the Chilean state. For six months, the streets were transformed into vibrant laboratories of self-organization, creativity and resistance, before ultimately being cleared by the promise of a new constitution and the spread of a global pandemic.

In the opening installment of Interrebellium, subMedia traces the history of the Estallido Social through the first-hand experiences of its participants, as they share battle-tested street tactics, and hard-won lessons about the lengths that the state will go to repress and recuperate challenges to its rule.

Trailer

Anti-SEPTA and Insurrectionary Flyers

Submission

[Questio[Anti-SEPTA Flyer]ns Flyer]
[Questions Flyer Printing]
[Anti-SEPTA Flyer]
[Anti-SEPTA Flyer Printing]

Secrets for Signal Success

from Instagram

7pm Friday May 2 “Secrets for Signal Success”

Come hear conversation about the ways that Signal may and may not be useful for your digital safety from surveillance by various entities. Hat will be passed to help activists in Michigan who have been facing increased legal attacks.
7pm Friday May 2 “Secrets for Signal Success”

Come hear conversation about the ways that Signal may and may not be useful for your digital safety from surveillance by various entities. Hat will be passed to help activists in Michigan who have been facing increased legal attacks.
[At Wooden Shoe]

May Day and the Struggle Ahead!

from Philly Metro Area WSA

Online Gathering: Thursday, May First, 8:30 pm EDT

You are warmly invited to our Fourth Annual May Day Online Event, This Thursday, May First, 8: 30 pm EDT

Hosted by Greater Chicago WSA (Workers Solidarity Alliance, Anarchist-Syndicalist, friends with IWA)

This Jitsi link will get you into the meeting –

(Contact us if you have trouble getting in)

https://meet.jit.si/WSAMayDay2024

 

A short program :

Opening Song By Martin Traphagan

Annual One Minute May Day Speech, by Piper

Tariffs Divide Us, The Struggle Unites !

Relaxed Report backs from May Day, and our current crisis

See you there !

Support Letters For Khalif Miller

from Instagram

Great News! Join us for writing support letters, which can have a huge impact when seeing the parole board. We’ll have sample letters and comrades there to help you draft your own letter in support of Khalif!
Great News! Join us for writing support letters, which can have a huge impact when seeing the parole board. We’ll have sample letters and comrades there to help you draft your own letter in support of Khalif!
[May 3rd
1:00 – 3:00pm
LAVA
4134 Lancaster Ave]

“Go Back To Africa!” Judge’s Son Harasses Rally Participants in Pennsylvania With Racist Slur

from Idavox

John Francis McCarthy IV

It will never surprise us how much conservatives short circuit the minute they see Black people.

Over the weekend, the anti-Trump “Hands Off” rallies that have been held across the country over the past few months continued (the next big protest date is planned for May 1). Most were peaceful with few arrests, primarily from conflicts with neo-fascists like the Proud Boys who counter the protests. Participants of a small rally just outside Philadelphia, which happened a few days before the big weekend rallies, were also confronted by the racist son of a New Jersey judge who is also Trump volunteer with open criminal cases in Pennsylvania, Florida and Texas.

On April 15, Chester County Indivisible had posted that they were going on an overpass in Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania with banners in support of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last month, and who the Trump Administration is not returning to his home in Maryland. At least ten persons stood on the overpass spanning Rt. 206. Kadida Kenner of the New Pennsylvania Project, an organization that advocates for voting rights and works to expand the voter rolls in Pennsylvania, joined the protest after it was going on for a few hours. “I saw a pop-up pop up on my timeline, and I said, I’m going to go because I want to be out there with this group. I want to support this group that is doing this,” she said.

There were no incidents until John McCarthy approached just minutes after Kenner arrived. He claimed he was a reporter for “First Right Media,” and immediately the group felt he was a bit off. “When he came, he just looked completely out of place,” Kenner recalled. “I mean, he was dressed in a suit, he has his own personal phone out and he’s cosplaying as and saying out loud that he’s an independent journalist and made-up a publication of some kind.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Idavox (@idavox)

Kenner advised the group to ignore McCarthy and not engage with him, which prompted him to become more irate, repeatedly suggesting that not wanting to speak to him is why they lost the last election. “He wasn’t getting the attention that he was looking for. He wasn’t getting the soundbites he was looking for,” she said, noting that this was when McCarthy focused his attention on her, the only Black woman in the group.  “He came towards me and said, ‘I want to get your sign. I want to get a picture of your sign.’ And as he came towards me to do that, I kept turning away from him because I didn’t want to be on his camera. I didn’t want my sign to be on his camera. And that is what was the final draw for him, the final straw for him, was me completely ignoring him.”

That last straw prompted him to fling even more invectives as he left the overpass, and as he walked away, he directed his last missive to Kenner; “Go back to Africa!”

As McCarthy was a bit away from Kenner and started a quicker walk to his car it wasn’t until someone replayed the video of the racist comment that Kenner first heard it. “I didn’t hear him say that to me and I’m glad I didn’t,” she said. “And I believe the ancestors protected me. (I) believe the ancestors protected me from hearing that!”

Kenner was not surprised by that response from McCarthy, as there seems to be a heightened hostility toward Blacks from the right, particularly when they are advocating for human rights. “Whenever black folks are out and about trying to defend democracy trying to protect the rights of everybody, we solicit such racist responses,” she said. “What’s interesting to me is I wasn’t treating him any differently than anybody else was but he left, he only pointed to me on his way out. He only pointed to me, only me, to go back to Africa. I was the only black person there. There a Latina woman there as well, but I was the only one that he had to have a comment for.”

John Francis McCarthy VI is the estranged son of a municipal judge in Princeton, NJ. Online records note that he trademarked “First Right Media” in September and the only other instance that could be found of that name being used is associated with McCarthy’s Twitter handle on an account where he mostly retweets other tweets. During the presidential campaign, he was interviewed by reporters while he was outside an appearance of then Vice-President candidate Tim Walz, where he expressed his support for Donald Trump. Also,  his criminal record dating back five years shows that he has violence associated with his political leanings.

He was arrested in January 2022 in Tallahassee, Florida on a battery charge stemming from when he allegedly accosted television reporter Madison Glaser in an effort to get on live television to satisfy a “bounty” put out by Infowars’ Alex Jones, according to the police report, where he produced a video calling for his followers to, “Get on get on national live, or international live TV, legally and lawfully, to a COVID wake-up slogan of your choice,” while promoting his website. McCarthy followed Glaser into a police headquarters lobby but eventually was arrested the following days later after Glaser filed a police report. The case is ongoing with an active warrant for McCarthy who acknowledged the warrant in emails to local news outlets last month that is a misdemeanor battery charge. He also admitted to having a Texas warrant for unlawful restraint, which he claims was the result of a “double parking” dispute outside a laundromat. Records show that the incident occurred on February, 17 2022 in Texas Bastrop, TX with charges filed on May 20, 2022.

The emails were in relation to one of McCarthy’s more recent arrests two months ago in which he was charged with impersonating a public servant and harassment for identifying himself as law enforcement multiple times to people in Quarryville, PA. According to news reports,  he approached two officers on patrol, identified himself as a “volunteer with the United States Attorney’s Office” and was investigating a drug case in the area and asked to assist him, saying that he worked with  Lancaster, Pennsylvania police as well. He only had a Texas driver’s license and Uber driver business card as identification, and did not have the necessary security clearance. Lancaster city police said they never worked with McCarthy. McCarthy became agitated and drove away, according to police.

A few days later, a local Turkey Hill convenience store employee told police McCarthy two weeks earlier he told her he was an “undercover drug buster,” and inquired about certain employees, calling the store multiple times on Feb. 16. He was told they were there not at the time and became angry when he was told they were off, saying he would be investigating all of them and he hoped the woman’s unborn baby would be stillborn. In the emails he sent to news outlets, McCarthy denied the charges and said he is a concerned Uber driver who has “legally and lawfully” volunteered information to law enforcement.

In March, McCarthy was arrested when it was learned that he had been at Morr Range in Lampeter, PA firing a weapon despite having the outstanding warrants as well as a restraining order against him in New Jersey. He was released on $50,000 bail but the charge was dropped. Records show that he is supposed to have a court appearance on Tuesday in Lancaster County Court on harassment charges stemming from the Quarryville arrest.

While the Hands Off rallies have been successful, there has been an equally successful effort by Black people to sit them out with the contention that it is ultimately not a fight Black and Brown people need to wage, at least not this way. Kenner will participate in the rallies as she is the CEO of an organization that fights for voting rights but her presence should not be taken by granted. “We’ve been saying for many, many years now what’s going to happen if we don’t get ourselves together, do the right things,” she said. “And we should be out here defending all of our rights and our freedoms and not just when it’s convenient or when it’s starting to affect certain people.”

PHL Free Monthly Zine Fest

from Instagram

Thousands at Philly ‘Hands Off’ March and Rally: ‘No Kings in America’

from Unicorn Riot

Philadelphia, PA — After a brutal stock market correction and new anti-trade tariff policies, more than 120,000 layoffs of federal workers, dozens of executive orders, and hundreds of immigrant arrests led by ICE, many Americans are reeling from political and financial upheaval caused by the Trump administration. Around 150 liberal groups, including unions, climate and advocacy groups like MoveOn, called for a wide set of #HandsOff rallies around the country on Saturday, April 5. The Philadelphia rally, one of several in the region, gathered at City Hall in Center City and marched down Market Street to the lawn near the National Constitution Center and Independence Hall for a series of speeches from politicians and people who’ve worked at institutions under threat like the Environmental Protection Agency and US Postal Service.

Supporters tallied turnout from at least 1200 rallies and estimated attendance at more than 3 million, or nearly 1% of the entire US population. (An interactive map with media from 1150 locations is available.) Many protests were in out-of-the-way, conservative-leaning locales like Bolivia, North Carolina, Nanuet, New York, and Tehachapi, California (all in counties that went 55% to 60% for Trump in November 2024).

While the crowds in many locations leaned towards an older demographic, it was a strikingly large mobilization and the largest one since Donald Trump was inaugurated in January; it’s the clearest indicator yet that the Baby Boomer generation hasn’t checked out of political activity in retirement, especially as the systems of the Social Security Administration threaten to unravel. The turnout at the Philly event was both older and more white than the city’s demographics.

Zine: Freeing Assata

Submission

[PDF for reading]
[PDF for printing]

Making this zine started for me as a vague desire to know how Assata Shakur escaped from prison. I had enjoyed reading her autobiography “Assata” and I was left wanting to know more. One chapter ends with her declaring that she was done with being locked up, and the next begins with her living in Cuba if I remember correctly. I mostly moved on, focusing on other things. More recently a friend mentioned that they had heard of a book about the Shakur family that went into the details of the liberation. The book in question was An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs And The Nation They Created by Santi Elijah Holley. I sought out the book and found a text that not only went into the details of Assata’s liberation but provided context about who all took part, the social movements and underground networks they were a part of and a whole set of histories that intrigued me.

I decided to only reprint the parts that explicitly deal with the liberation of Assata Shakur from prison and her transit to Havana, Cuba. The rest is worth reading in my opinion, as well as Assata’s own autobiography which gives context to Assata’s life path and freedom struggle, and Russel Maroon Shoatz’s I Am Maroon which also documents prison escapes, life on the run, and life underground from a Black liberation perspective. The idea that prisons are impenetrable, inescapable is demonstrably false and these histories are proof of that (as are the escapes that continue to take place today)! This bootleg reprint is only a snippet of a larger history of experimentation in collective and individual liberation that I feel Black anarchists and other revolutionaries could benefit from familiarizing ourselves with and learning from.

In the wake of the genocide taking place in Palestine at the hands of the zionist entity numerous calls have gone out for escalation and also — though less well circulated — for (re)building the underground in today’s movements for decolonization and liberation. Today’s undergrounds will look different from those of the 1970s and 1980s, yet there is still much we can learn from them. We are already seeing waves of political repression attempting to capture, pacify, eject, and domesticate rebels from the George Floyd revolts, the struggles to stop the construction of cop city in Atlanta, and the struggles in solidarity with Palestinians fighting for liberation. Unfortunately we are already seeing a new generation of political prisoners and exiles. Of course it is inevitable that some will be locked up as long as liberation struggles haven’t destroyed the cages. By learning from the struggles that came before us we can be better equipped to make the state’s work as hard as possible. Some of my goals for reprinting and circulating this account of Assata Shakur’s liberation from prison are to exercise our collective imagination of what is possible and contribute to dialogues about escalation, building undergrounds, and facing state repression.

Another goal of spreading this story is a fear that many stories of this kind, especially the illegal ones, will be lost. Either buried with the aging revolutionaries who made them happen, locked behind tight lips to ensure the safety and anonymity of the guilty, or neatly entombed in academic or historical literature that few will have the patience and position to read. To me these histories are not meant to be left in the dirt or hidden away in sleepy archives accessible with a student ID, they are part of our struggles today, weapons to be used to free ourselves, and by freeing ourselves free the dead who wrote these histories with their own sweat and blood. We can remember and tell these stories as part of our own race toward liberation and freedom now.

More selfishly, I am exciting to be adding a little something to a growing tendency of Black anarchist struggles. Anecdotally it seems there are more Black anarchists than before and that more approaches to Black liberation are imagining freedom through an anti-authoritarian lens. The former Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army soldiers who advocated anarchic visions of freedom and struggle, during and after the decline of the Black Panther Party have paved the way for Black radicals to understand anarchy as a vision of freedom we can hold as our own. Russel ‘Maroon’ Shoatz, Kuwasi Balagoon, Ashanti Alston, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, and Martin Sostre are coming up more in the anarchist space, as well as the dialogues of Black revolutionaries. The last decade has seen a number of anarchically oriented Black liberation groups and projects that explore the synchronicity between Black freedom and anarchy. Salish Sea Black Autonomists, Afro-Futurist Abolitionists of the Americas, various zines, a handful of small gatherings, dialogues across geographies, increased interest in anarchists in Africa generally.

The text below is part of a longer book that goes into the history of the Shakur family. While I do not agree with the author’s position that the Shakurs aimed to improve amerika I have found the information useful nonetheless. I have added a few of my own notes to the text and added complete names in brackets to give context to readers who may not be familiar with the history of the Black Liberation Army, Assata Shakur, or other aspects of the struggles taking place at the time of Assata’s escape from prison. Again I encourage readers to dig deeper, to learn about the Black liberation struggles, guerrilla groups, and social movements that the people involved in Assata’s liberation were part of.

Crowd Control: What police tactics teach us about the state

from O.R.C.A.

If you were bummed to miss a talk on police tactics, there’s another chance! Join us again for a brief lecture and a collective discussion about how police relate to and suppress protest movements. By looking at police tactics to street action and civil disorder, how can we better develop our own priorities and anticipate police response to movements for liberation?

Our aim will be to understand the logics behind how cops roll up on protests. Using authorities’ own playbooks as a starting point, we will build a top level picture of how states operate, and we will look at how that manifests to police tactics on the ground. Expect some discussion of state violence and police brutality.

Monday April 21st: Letter-writing for Peppy Dipippa

from Philly ABC

peppy-dipippa-letter-writing.jpg

Peppy DiPippa is a Pittsburgh community activist currently serving a 60-month sentence for events revolving around a demonstration against an April 18th 2023 event at the University of Pittsburgh. The invitation of noted transphobes Michael Knowles and Brad Palumbo to the University to debate the question “Should Transgenderism be Regulated by Law?” sparked protests outside, during which one firework and two homemade smoke bombs were discharged. One month later, heavily armed federal agents raided Peppy’s home. He and his wife Crystal were federally indicted, and on June 30th, they surrendered to court. Krystal was charged with conspiracy and obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder, and sentenced to 3 years of supervised release and 80 hours of community service. Peppy was charged with conspiracy, obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder, and use of use of explosive to commit a federal felony. He has been incarcerated since his capture. The couple were jointly sentenced to pay $50,225.03 in restitution.

While the demonstration at the University of Pittsburgh forms the context in which Peppy and his wife Krystal were charged, it is crucial to note that the FBI began stalking the couple well before April 18th, and that their charges intersect with national trends in state repression . In their affidavit for a search warrant, the FBI describe following the DiPippas a week before the demonstration. While searching the couple’s trash, federal agents found a pamphlet from the movement to Stop Copy City , which they described as a “zine… discussing anarchist ideology.” During their trial, the prosecution focused on Peppy’s “strongly held belief system that embraces anarchism” and “sense of community among anarchists.” The judge cited Peppy’s “sentiments supporting anarchism” in his decision to hold Peppy in pre-trial detention with no possibility of bail. This attempt to criminalize the ideas and beliefs of what the state calls “AGAAVE” (anti-government and anti-authority violent extremists) aligns closely with repression of the Stop Cop City movement, in which defendants were charged with racketeering simply for sympathizing with anarchism .

At their sentencing, Peppy and Krystal issued this joint statement :

We hold in our gravity a deep reverence for love beyond the limited words we have. We know the devoted embrace of solidarity – people leaning in to one another against involuntary servitude and for a world of mutual aid. If we are convicted, it is of love for each other, and for our community, to which all brave hearts beat devotion to the impossible task of liberation. We are grateful for those who care take, for without you, freedom would be even more distant.

If you are unable to join us at Wooden Shoe for this event, you can still write to Peppy:

Brian DiPippa -510
FCI Elkton
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O Box 10
Lisbon, OH 44432

When I read your letters, my soul escapes this place to walk alongside you, to commune; and with a big inhale I share our smiles with others experiencing incarceration. Thank you for reaching through these windowless walls. Respect and solidarity to all the bravehearts!

– Peppy

Anarchist Letter Writing

from O.R.C.A.

Let’s support our incarcerated comrades and fighters! Our movement is only as strong as our support for the rebels behind the walls. We’ll be writing to the three following prisoners Hybachi Lemar, Mujera Benjamin Lunga’ho and Luigi Mangione. Bring food and homies. We’ll provide stamps, envelopes, pens, stamps and paper. Please wear a mask!
5pm
April 19th
ORCA
Information on who we will be writing to:
Hybachi Lemar (Incarcerated Black Anarchist Revolutionary)
Hybachi LeMar
c/o Midwest Books to Prisoners
1321 N Milwaukee Avenue PMB 460
Chicago, IL 60622
Mujera Benjamin Lunga’ho (Prisoner from the 2020 Uprising)
You can send money to support Mujera Benjamin Lunga’ho on CashApp at: https://cash.app/$JohnLungaho
Mujera Benjamin Lunga’ho
08572-509
FCI Forrest City Medium
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 3000
Forrest City, AR 72336
Luigi Mangione (Alleged Claims Adjuster)
Luigi Mangione (52503-511)
MDC Brooklyn
METROPOLITAN DETENTION CENTER
P.O. BOX 329002
BROOKLYN, NY 11232

In Contempt #51: Thousands Hit the Streets Against Deportations and Authoritarian Crackdown, ‘Imaginary Crimes’ Tour Kicks Off

from It’s Going Down

[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]
In this column, we present our monthly roundup of political prisoner, prison rebel, and repression news, happenings, announcements, action and analysis. Packed in as always are updates, fundraisers, and birthdays.

There’s a lot happening, so let’s dive right in!

Political Prisoner News

Mumia Abu-Jamal was recently interviewed by Turkish outlet Evrensel.

George Floyd Uprising Defendants, Stop Cop City and Other Ongoing Cases


Cara and Celeste, who are facing charges connected to an alleged mink liberation action, have a court date scheduled for April 21st in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, where the defense will present a motion arguing for their charges to be dismissed. Donations to their legal funds can be made via Philly ABC here.

The Final Straw Radio also recently broadcast an interview with one of the RICO defendants alongside one of the organizers of the upcoming Stop Cop City: Imaginary Crimes tour, which will be visiting over 60 cities.

Pennsylvania uprising defendant Khalif Miller has now completed his federal sentence and been moved to a state prison to serve a state sentence for violating parole. His new address is:

Khalif Miller

Camp Hill
PO Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733

Uprising Defendants

See Uprising Support for more info, and check out the Antirepression PDX site for updates from Portland cases. You can also check With Whatever Weapons for regularly-updated zines listing current prisoners. To the best of our knowledge they currently include:

David Elmakayes 77782-066
FCI McKean
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 8000
Bradford, PA 16701

Khalif Miller #QQ9287
Camp Hill
PO Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733

Upcoming Birthdays

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia is an award winning journalist and was one of the founders of the Black Panther Party chapter in Philadelphia, PA. He has struggled for justice and human rights for people of color since he was at least 14 years old; the age when he joined the Party. In December of 1982, Mumia, who moonlighted by driving a taxi, happened upon police who were beating his brother. During the melee, a police officer was shot and killed. Despite the fact that many people saw someone else shoot and then run away from the scene, Mumia, in what could only be called a kangaroo court, was convicted and sentenced to death. During the summer of 1995, a death warrant was signed by Governor Tom Ridge, which sparked one of the most effective organizing efforts in defense of a political prisoner ever. Since that time, Mumia has had his death sentence overturned, but still has a life sentence with no opportunity for parole.

Pennsylvania uses Connect Network/GTL, so you can contact him online by going to connectnetwork.com, selecting “Add a facility”, choosing “State: Pennsylvania, Facility: Pennsylvania Department of Corrections”, going into the “messaging” service, and then adding Mumia as a contact by searching his name or “AM8335.”

Birthday: April 24

Address:

Smart Communications/PA DOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal
SCI Mahanoy
Post Office Box 33028
St Petersburg, Florida 33733

Janiis Mathis

A former Vaughn 17 defendant.

Delaware uses Pigeonly for digital mail services.

Birthday: April 24

Address:

Janiis Mathis
SBI# 00492275
Delaware DOC – 1101
PO Box 96777
Las Vegas, NV 89193

Flyer/handbill: REMEMBER 2020, 1968, 1878, 1791

Submission

Download PDF to print (front/back), cut in half, hand out: https://tinyurl.com/recuerdan

For distribution at protests, festivals, sporting events, waiting rooms, cookouts, libraries, dining halls, courtrooms, traffic jams, emergency rooms, corner stores, public transportation, sideshows, recreation yards, or anywhere else you may encounter others who’ve had enough.

(Blackened/improved from a previous document shared early 2025.)

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ FRONT & BACK TEXT BELOW \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

REMEMBER 2020, 1968, 1878, 1791 — WE CAN WIN

Thousands of years of kings, queens, emperors, presidents, & ministers demanding obedience. 500 years of crackers enslaving & colonizing this planet. 250 years of anglo/yankee domination.

Trump this, Musk that. Democrats, Republicans, Zionists, Confederates, Fascists, Conservatives, Liberals, Progressives. So many flavors of the same expired bullshit.

2020: Cops executed George Floyd. A police station was burnt down. For a brief moment, the world opened up.

1968: White power executed MLK. Black communities erupted into rebellion. For a brief moment, the world opened up.

1878: Indigenous peoples in the South Pacific rose up in arms against european colonizers attempting to exterminate their communities & hijack their homelands. For a moment, the world opened up.

1791: Enslaved Africans & their descendants began an uprising in the Caribbean, destroying property, profit, & slavery. For a long moment, the world opened up.

Whether a handful of friends or a massive crowd, we know that the footsoldiers of every regime can be defeated. The secret is to begin.

« In Memory Of Our Fallen; Let us turn their cities into funeral pyres.
In Memory Of Our Fighters; Let us honor your names with fire and gunpowder.
Peace By Piece
(A) »

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!
¡QUEREMOS UN MUNDO DONDE QUEPAN MUCHOS MUNDOS!

Look for those pushing and help them push harder.

Move together. Be water.

They can control a march of 10,000 — they can’t control 10 marches of 1000.

De-arrest. Don’t let people get grabbed.
If they do, don’t let their cars or busses leave.

They only care about money, so causing monetary losses is your only vote.

On the inside, the demonstration is an organism of care and support.

On the outside, it is ferocious and uncontrollable.

Without their toys they are powerless.

No one is coming to save us.
Everything is at stake.

www.notrace.how

[PDF Here]