from Twitter
At a #Juneteenth noise demo for incarcerated people at the Federal Detention Center in Center City, #Philly, prisoners inside were banging on their windows to indicate they could hear the demo.
[Video Here]
from Dreaming Freedom Practicing Abolition
“I told the guys how the students were successful in their demands and how that win positively impacts us. They thought what the students did was great and were surprised that young college folk in New York even cared. I told them how there is a whole movement out there that is fighting against the PIC and that all of us need to be involved”
Earlier today, I took a shower. The showers are four adjacent stalls. Three other prisoners were taking showers too. As usual, we struck up a conversation. This one was about how much prison has changed and is getting worse. One prisoner, who has been incarcerated twenty years, commented on the psychological and mental harm prison enacts upon us. He mentioned how it may not be as physically dangerous as it used to be, due to prisoners not harming each other as much as before, but it has become much more of a mind battle today.
He talked about the food and how the quality and quantity have gotten worse. He mentioned Aramark and how it has exploited the prison food service industry. Aramark gets the food service contract and reduces the meal portions. Then, it bids for the commissary contract. They feed us less and force us to buy commissary from them. Talk about creating a demand!
At this point, I saw a way to open a conversation about abolition. I told the guys about how last year I was contacted by a group of students at New York University who had taken over the main library and were protesting NYU’s dining services contract with Aramark. The students wanted NYU to cancel business with Aramark which profits off prisons. The students were able to connect what was happening to us, prisoners, to what was happening out there. I used this example to show how often the companies and interests groups that profit off the PIC and who exploit our schools and neighborhoods are one and the same. Only through joint efforts to confront these forces can we win.
I told the guys how the students were successful in their demands and how that win positively impacts us. They thought what the students did was great and were surprised that young college folk in New York even cared. I told them how there is a whole movement out there that is fighting against the PIC and that all of us need to be involved. This conversation became an opening to introduce abolition to people who had never heard of penal abolition. I look for times like this to introduce this work to people whom I feel should be not only concerned with it, but providing direction to it. Sometimes, all it takes is being aware of what is happening around us. These moments happen daily. We just have to be open to them.
Always,
Stevie
from Twitter
Phone blitz for Hoagie! Call Lee Estock at 724.465.9630 Jerome Coffey (AS1558) was put in the hole at SCI Pine Grove on Tuesday 6/18. The demands are 1. his release and 2. the video footage be given to his lawyer #FreeHoagie #SCIPineGrove #FreeThemAll
from Philly ABC
Join us for our monthly letter-writing to political prisoners that we hold on the 4th Monday each month. To observe social distancing, we will hold this event online once again on the secure video platform, Jitsi. We will post the link on social media the day of, or message us beforehand for the link.
When: Monday, June 22nd, 6:30-8:30pm
Where: Online, join from anywhere!
In the midst of this uprising, we recognize our comrades behind bars who would be out here on the streets with us struggling for freedom and self-determination. As a soldier in the Black Liberation struggle, Joe-Joe Bowen is one of those people.
Hailing from Philadelphia, Joe-Joe was a young member of the “30th and Norris Street” gang, before his incarceration politicized him. Released in 1971, his outside activism was cut short a week following his release when Joe-Joe was confronted by an officer of the notoriously brutal Philadelphia police department. The police officer was killed in the confrontation, and Bowen fled. After his capture and incarceration, Bowen became a Black Liberation Army combatant. He is now serving two life sentences for the assassination of a prison warden and deputy warden, as well as an attempted prison break which resulted in a five-day standoff in response to racist and oppressive prison conditions. During his time in prison, he has raised the consciousness of thousands of Pennsylvania prisoners through his powerful history and political/military education classes.
If you are unable to join us online, drop Joe-Joe a line at:
Smart Communications/PADOC – Joseph Bowen #AM-4272
SCI Fayette
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
from Instagram
The revolutionary #delbertafrica, our good friend and comrade, passed away yesterday (6/15).⠀ ⠀ From the first time we visited you in prison, we said we’d #nevergiveup until you were out here with us. They wanted you to die in a cage, but we were determined to get you out so that wouldn’t happen. Despite every attempt they made to keep you locked up, they lost. We won.⠀ ⠀ There are not enough words to describe the impact you had on our lives with all the wisdom and inspiration you gifted us, and we’ll never forget the day you were released and reunited with family. That day we hugged you for the first time outside of a prison visiting room.⠀ ⠀ We love and miss you Del, and we’re truly fortunate for the memories we have. Thank you for being in our lives. #restinpower comrade.
Submission
On June 11, international day of solidarity with anarchist prisoners, as a small act against policing and imprisonment we cut the wires of nine security cameras in a concentrated area. We want to remind prisoners that they are with us in the struggle against white supremacy and police.
Let’s keep things conflictual, forever fuck cops, towards a world with no prisons!
(A)
from Instagram 
Yesterday Morning @occupypha and @workers_rev_collective set up an encampment at 22nd and the Parkway. Help out and be on the lookout for supply needs! Reminder that should you go that you are a guest- these are peoples lives. To donate: $wrevolutionary CashApp or http://www.wrc.life/donate/ list of demands will be written out in the comments .
from Twitter
from It’s Going Down
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire articles follow the above links.]
For an introduction on how to write to prisoners and some things to do and not to do, go here. If you have the time, please also check IWOC’s listing of prisoners facing retaliation for prison strike-related organizing.
June also sees the International Day of Solidarity with Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners on the 11th, and the Day of Solidarity with Eric King on the 28th, so you may want to do something to mark those dates.
Happy birthday to former Wikileaks/Anonymous-related prisoner Matthew DeHart, who’ll be celebrating in freedom this year, RIP to Tom Manning, whose birthday would have been this month, and congratulations to Spanish anarchist prisoner Amadeu Casellas, who was provisionally freed in May.
Much as I hate to see even more of our lives and communications being enclosed by tech companies, it seems inescapable at the moment, so for anyone who doesn’t want to leave their house to buy stamps/cards/envelopes or to send mail, a reminder that many prisoners can be contacted electronically, via Jpay or similar services.
Vaughn Uprising prisoner, one of the only two prisoners from the Vaughn 17 to be convicted. As one write-up put it, “Jarreau Ayers and Dwayne Staats, already incarcerated under the hopeless sentence of life without parole, took it upon themselves to admit to involvement to prevent the rest of their comrades being found unjustifiably guilty, which led to success – not guilty verdicts or their charges being dropped.” You can learn more about Jarreau in his own words here and here.
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 him as a contact by searching his name or “NS9994”.
Birthday: June 15
Address:
Smart Communications / PA DOC
Jarreau Ayers – NS9994
SCI Huntington
PO Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL, 33733
from Philly ABC
Our letter writing event for this month will be for Marius Mason, who has unfortunately been recently diagnosed with COVID-19 and will be fighting the virus from behind bars. Marius was chosen both because of his diagnosis and also because of the fast-approaching June 11th International Day of Solidarity with Marius and all long-term Anarchist prisoners.
The event will be held on May 25th at 6:30 PM. Due to COVID-19, this event will be held online using the secure open source video conferencing platform, Jitsi. Privacy is encouraged – no one is expected to share their camera. The meeting details will be posted here a day before the event.
Background: Marius Mason is a transgender, environmental and animal rights activist. In 1999, in the name of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) he set fire to a lab at the University of Michigan that was conducting research on genetically modified organisms (GMO). After Marius’ husband turned states-evidence, Marius was threatened with a life sentence for the arson and other acts of sabotage. With little financial stability and fear of dragging his family into a costly legal battle, Marius pled guilty and was given an extreme sentence of nearly 22 years. No one was ever harmed in any of his actions.
Marius lived and worked in the Detroit area for most of his life. Like the late Earth First! (EF!) organizer, Judi Bari, he was part of a generation of radicals who worked to link the environmental and labor movements, and was jointly active in both EF! and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It was this alliance which led to the initial success of the anti-globalization movement such as at the 1999 anti-WTO demonstration in Seattle. Mason was an editor of the Industrial Worker, the IWW newspaper, and a musician who recorded a neo-folk album, Not For Profit, with fellow EF!er Darryl Cherney in 1999. He also worked with numerous political as well as traditional charity groups.
If you are unable to join us on Jitsi, please send Marius a letter anyways:
Marie (Marius) Mason #04672-061
FCI Danbury
Route 37
Danbury, CT 06811
United States
Submission
In a time where COVID-19 is sweeping it’s way through workplaces, shelters, and prisons.. wholefoods, amazon, and other large corporations are silencing their workers and trying to think of ways they can capitalize off of this pandemic. Houseless folks are being evicted from encampments regardless of the logical recommendations of the CDC. Prisons are death camps and our friends in cages are making masks in crowded conditions without the privilege to even wear one.
As a gesture of solidarity and an expression of our rage, we drop this banner for those on the inside fighting to get out, for the workers under the boot of the corporate masters at amazon and elsewhere, and the importance of practicing mutual aid. Not just now, but always.
Open squats!
Loot the Wholefoods!
Free the prisoners!
#Mutualaid
Submission
Figured we should mention some contributions we made toward our bingo card:
Money and letters were sent to some friends that are locked up, ran off with a couple of american flags, a couple more ring cameras were disposed of, helped a friend begin living inside a newly established squat, and a cart full of groceries was expropriated from the amazon overlords. I know that last one isn’t necessarily looting, but I’ve heard that another crew counted something to that effect. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
From Twitter
image description: banner over 95 reads
“No More Death By Incarceration
Free Bomani
FREE THEM ALL”
#bomanishakur #freethemall #freeourpeople #philadelphia #philly #abolitionist #deathbyincarceration #deathrow #freedomfighter #lucasvilleuprising #fttp
Submission
…fighting for their lives. Not just the ‘innocent’ or ‘vulnerable’. Until all prisons are empty and destroyed!
from Philly ABC
Support for political prisoners doesn’t stop during a pandemic; in fact it only intensifies as prisoners are in extremely dangerous conditions without the ability to socially distance or access to protective supplies. On top of that, staff members have been deliberately defying CDC guidelines endangering prisoners by coughing without covering their mouth, etc. Please join us this Monday April 27th for our monthly letter-writing event at 6:30pm. Due to COVID-19, this event will be held online using the secure open source video conferencing platform, Jitsi. Privacy is encouraged – no one is expected to share their camera. We’ll update this post with the meet link, and announce it on social media the day of the event.
This month we are writing to Joy Powell. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Joy has contracted COVID-19 inside Bedford Hills Prison. She is in quarantine, fighting the virus, but we are concerned because she has the underlying conditions of both asthma and diabetes. Prior to testing positive for the virus, she wrote a letter to Governor Cuomo asking him for clemency due to her age and preexisting conditions making her more vulnerable to complications.
Background:
As a pastor and a consistent activist against police brutality, violence and oppression in her community, Rev. Joy Powell was warned by the Rochester Police department that she was a target because of her speaking out against corruption. On many occasions Rev. Joy had held rallies and spoke out against the police brutality and “police justifications” in Rochester NY through her organization ‘Equality and Justice for All.’ Later, Rev. Joy was accused and convicted of 1st Degree Burglary and Assault and subjected to an unfair trial.
An all white jury tried her; the state provided no evidence and no eyewitnesses. Rev. Joy was not allowed to discuss her activism or say that she was a pastor. The person that testified for her was not allowed to tell the court that he knew Rev. Joy through their activist work and through the church. Furthermore, judge Francis Affronti promised he was going to give her a harsh sentence because he did not like her. She was sentenced to 16 years and seven years concurrent. After this conviction, herself and others were charged with a cold murder case. After her codefendent was acquitted, Joy was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. She maintains her innocence and has appealed the conviction because evidence has been withheld from her defense team to this day.
If you are unable to join us on Jitsi, please send Joy a letter anyways:
Rev. Joy Powell #07-g-0632
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 1000
Bedford Hills, NY 10507-2499
