Philadelphia Healing Justice Space–Fundraiser for Ferguson Bail and Support Fund

  • December 17, 2014 7:52 pm

from Facebook

[Saturday December 20th 3-6pm
Central Plexus 51st & Kingsessing]

Each day it becomes more clear that in america, Black life only has value to Black people. In light of this reality, it becomes more important for healers to tend to our fragile community, and create the internal change that sustains movement building.

Five Black healers offering their services in support the Ferguson Bail and Support Fund as part of a coordinated effort taking place across North America. More info below.

https://www.facebook.com/events/728881563862374/

This event is open to people of all races.

Peace Park Fireside Series: Revolutionary Bonfire and Conversation

  • December 8, 2014 1:24 am

From Peace Park Fireside Series: Revolutionary Bonfire and Conversation

This is the first event in a conversation and networking series the North Philly Peace Park will be hosting over the coming months.

Sunday, December 14th — Noon to 5 PM

This event is a Potluck so please bring something to share.

In light of all that has been happening in the world, and continues to happen, from Ferguson to the exploding wealth gap to Climate Change to the 43 dead students in Mexico (and so much more), we at the North Philly Peace Park wish to bring together concerned human beings of all stripes for a day (the first in a series) of discussion, networking, and building that is focused on revolution. Is a revolution against the dominant paradigm necessary? How might it look? Or are we a part of one that is already underway? Can we control our own destiny? What do we want our society to look like? How can we achieve this?

Let’s come together and talk about what is really going on in this world. The North Philly Peace Park is not just a community garden that has a badass Earthship, it’s a space for ideas, free thinking, and imagination.

This event will be facilitated.

What to bring:
-Food or drink to share with all
-Your own bowls/plates/utensils/cups so we can limit waste (bring extra if you can!)
-Notebook/pen and business cards to exchange contact information with people you meet
-Water
-Dress warm

The fate of the planet hangs in the balance. Come join us.

[The North Philly Peace Park is located at 2400 Bolton Street]

Locked Down, Locked Out with author Maya Schenwar

  • December 1, 2014 12:01 pm

From Decarcerate PA

Decarcerate PA and Wooden Shoe Books presents…

Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn’t Work and How We Can Do Better looks at how prison tears families and communities apart, creating a rippling effect that touches every corner of our society. Through the stories of prisoners and their families, as well as her own family’s experience of her sister’s incarceration, Schenwar shows how the institution that locks up 2.3 million Americans—and decimates poor communities of color—is shredding the ties that, if nurtured, could foster real collective safety.

The destruction does not end upon exiting the prison walls: the 95 percent of prisoners who are released emerge with even fewer economic opportunities and fewer human connections on the outside than before. Locked Down, Locked Out shows how incarceration takes away the very things that might enable people to build better lives.

Looking toward a future beyond imprisonment, Schenwar profiles community-based initiatives that foster antiracist, anticlassist, prohumanity approaches to justice. These programs successfully deal with problems—both individual harm and larger social wrongs—through connection rather than isolation, moving toward a safer, freer future for all of us.

“This book has the power to transform hearts and minds, opening us to new ways of imagining what justice can mean for individuals, families, communities and our nation as a whole.” -Michelle Alexander, Author of The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

—

Maya Schenwar is Editor-in-Chief of Truthout, an independent social justice news website. She has written about the prison-industrial complex for Truthout, The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Jersey Star-Ledger, Ms. Magazine, Prison Legal News, and others. She is the recipient of a Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Chi Award and a Lannan Residency Fellowship, both for her writing on prisons. Previous to her work at Truthout, Maya was Contributing Editor at Punk Planet magazine and served as media coordinator for Voices for Creative Nonviolence.

Sunday December 7th
7pm
Wooden Shoe Books
704 South St

Poster

Beehive Design Collective presentation: Mesoamerica Resiste

  • November 18, 2014 1:03 pm

from Beehive Design Collective presentation: Mesoamerica Resiste

Please join us Saturday, November 22nd at 7pm for a special arts and storytelling performance. Free and open to all ages. [At Wooden Shoe Books 704 South St]

Members of the Beehive Collective (based in Maine) will present their latest graphic work, entitled Mesoamérica Resiste. It is the third and final image in the Beehive’s trilogy about globalization in the Americas, focusing on resistance to mega-infrastructure projects that are literally paving the way for free trade agreements that devastate local economies and communities. After nine years in the making, the Bees are now touring and distributing posters of the graphic as tools for storytelling, popular education and movement building.

The Beehive Design Collective is an arts and activism organization. This dizzyingly detailed, hand-drawn, 300-square foot mural comes alive through storytelling, illuminating how single issues are interconnected and part of bigger systems. With a cast of characters that includes over 400 species of insects, animals, and plants, the Bees share stories of collective action and inspiration.

For more information, visit http://www.beehivecollective.org/

Holiday Cards to Prisoners!! People’s Paper Co-op and Decarcerate PA

  • November 17, 2014 3:32 pm

from Holiday Cards to Prisoners!! People’s Paper Co-op and Decarcerate PA

[November 18th 6pm-8pm

Temple Contemporary 2001 N 13th St, Philly]

Please join the People’s Paper Co-op and Expungement Project Decarcerate PA and Temple Contemporary for a rare night of paper making, letter writing, and reflections from former prisoners and criminal justice reform activists.

Hear amazing speakers, make paper, and send holiday cards for prisoners to mail to their families and friends!

The People’s Paper Co-op has been working with Temple students and community members to create hundreds of handmade blank paper cards. During the event we will be packaging these cards and sending them to prisoners across Pennsylvania. These cards can be used by prisoners to send something special, something that took many hands and a transformative process to make, to their friends or family members. This will create points of exchange across the state while acting as a vehicle for bringing students, former prisoners, and community activists together to discuss these issues.

Poster

Beyond Passions & Survival: 2 presentations by Matt Dineen

  • November 12, 2014 1:00 pm

from Beyond Passions & Survival

2 presentations!

Wednesday Nov. 12th at 7:00 pm
Wooden Shoe Books and Records

Thursday Nov. 13th at 7:00 pm
A-Space Anarchist Community Center

A presentation on the dilemma of artists and activists in (and beyond) capitalist society by Wooden Shoe staffer Matt Dineen. It will be based on his recent masters thesis through Goddard College on the prospects for meaningful work, livelihood, and radical social transformation in the cracks of capitalism.

West Philly Interests Meeting/Soldarity Network Strategy Session

  • October 23, 2014 12:09 pm

reposted from West Philly Interests Meeting/Solidarity Network Strategy Session

The West Philly branch of Philly Socialists will meet this Friday, 6pm at A-Space to introduce the group to interested newcomers and to relaunch our solidarity network.

We’ve got two promising fights on our hands. In the first, we’d be fighting with an active supporter to help him recover $800 of his security deposit wrongfully denied him. In the second, we’d be fighting with a senior citizen who has been without adequate heat for several years, has a deteriorating ceiling, and has been discriminated against for their gender identity, all while living in subsidized housing.

We can win both these fights so long as we can build a core group of committed volunteers. This meeting will help determine our capacity to do it.

Come on out and help make these campaigns the capstone of a year of great work on the part of our branch.

October 22nd: Stop Silencing of Mumia and all Prisoners

  • October 20, 2014 10:47 am

from OCT 22: Stop Silencing of Mumia and all Prisoners:

From Ferguson to Philly: Speak Out Against Police Terror and police brutality

Oct. 22 in Philadelphia

• 12pm (noon)
Press conference opposing the bill and announcing preventive actions to be taken. Exact location TBA.

• 4-5pm
Oct.22 is also a national day against police brutality and mass incarceration. Join in a Honk on these issues at City Hall (15th & Market).

• 5:30-7:30pm
In the evening there will be a Town Hall gathering to discuss the potential impact of the RRA, its connection to youth struggles against police brutality, incarceration and for education rights, and actions we can take. Location: Rm 24, Gladfelter Hall, 11th & Berks, Philadelphia.
————————————————————————–
Last week the Pennsylvania Legislature fast-tracked
the “Revictimization Relief Act” to give virtually
unlimited discretion to District Attorneys and the
PA Attorney General to silence prisoner speech by
claiming such speech causes victims’ families
“mental anguish.” The RRA targets both prisoners’
speech and supporters who distribute the speech.

PA Sen. Daylin Leach (D., Montgomery) called this law “the most extreme violation of the First Amendment imaginable.” In seeking to silence the legally protected speech of prisoners the state also damages the public’s right and freedom to know at a time when more attention is being focused on mass incarceration and police
brutality. It is an attack on a freedom that must be guarded — especially when and if officials do not agree with the content of speech they hear.

This legislation emerged as a politically-charged response, on the part of the Fraternal Order of Police and its political allies, when they were unable to stop PA prisoner and radio journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal from delivering his October 5 commencement address at Goddard College in Vermont, where Abu-Jamal earned his BA in 1996 while on death row. Students at Goddard collectively chose Abu-Jamal as their commencement speaker and the college administration supported the invitation. In this case, this law would deny the school the right to hear from its alumnus, Abu-Jamal.

With the growing number of executions by the police and vigilantes across the U.S. and the passage of flagrantly unconstitutional laws as seen in Pennsylvania, we the people have to organize collectively in our neighborhoods and in the streets to oppose the increasingly ominous display of rogue state power in Pennsylvania.

For the full statement issued in response to this law and to sign on as endorsers to the call visit: http://www.emajonline.com/2014/10/call-to-action-against-pa-laws-to-silence-prisoners/
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For more information
In Philly: 215-724-1618; phillyIAC@gmail.com
In NY: 917-930-0804 bringMumiahome.com

Happy House Brainstorming Session

  • October 15, 2014 12:43 pm

Happy House is hosting a brainstorming session Friday October 17th 8:30p at 4103 Chestnut.
Come discuss agitprop and street guerrilla theatre over potluck dinner at the Happy House this Friday. Bring a dish to share.