Episode Transcript:

a Maria: Welcome to Rustbelt Abolition Radio, I’m a Maria. In today’s episode, Reports from the Prisoner Resistance Movement, released on the anniversary of the 1971 Attica prison rebellion, we reflect on the intensifying prisoner resistance movement in Amerika (that’s America with a “k”, as George Jackson would write it). We focus on two extraordinary flashpoints of the prisoner resistance movement: the nationwide September 9, 2016, prisoner strike, and the August 19, 2017, Millions for Prisoners march.

We speak with Ben Turk of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and Firehawk of Unstoppable about strategies developing within the contemporary prisoner resistance movement. We also speak with Krystal Rountree of the iamWe Prison Advocacy Network about the organizing efforts inside and outside that made the August 19 Millions for Prisoners March possible. We close the episode with D, an incarcerated organizer with Jailhouse Lawyers Speak who tells us about what went down inside in the wake of August 19 and what’s next. But first, here’s Kaif Syed with some news you may have missed.

Kaif Syed: On August 25th, President Trump pardoned former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio was being held in criminal contempt for disobeying a judge’s orders to cease racial profiling. Arpaio and his officers have been known to profile, harass, beat, and detain immigrants in Arizona, as well as a litany of other assaults on the most marginalized of our society, including the overseeing of multiple murders of inmates by his guards, medical and nutritional neglect of inmates, and the formation of inmate chain gangs. He went so far as to refer to the open air jail, “Tent City,” as his own “concentration camp.” Due to these actions and his targeting of the undocumented Sheriff Joe Arpaio has become an icon within the white supremacist imagination of Amerikkka.

The pardon of Arpaio is yet another illustration of the ways in which the carceral state not only relies upon white supremacist law, but also upon the inalienable right of police power to enforce that law only when and where it sees fit, and, further, to deploy violence which exceeds the constraints of legality, supposedly in defense of the law itself.

By pardoning Arpaio, Trump is signaling his allegiance to white supremacy, and to the white supremacist populism his presidency both depends upon and extends. The enduring fantasy of white supremacy is that every act of racial violence is an act of self-defense, the defense of the right to indigenous land and racial domination.

THE FIRE INSIDE: FIREHAWK & BEN TURK

a Maria: I’m here with Alejo Stark and you’re listening to Rustbelt Abolition Radio, an abolitionist media and movement-building project based in Detroit, Michigan.

a Maria: Alejo and I caught up with Ben Turk and Firehawk during “The Fire Inside” zine tour, to discuss the September 9 National Prison Strike, the largest prison rebellion in U.S. history, to date. The zine goes in-depth with organizing strategy and tactics, identifies successes and shortcomings and aims to establish a throughline between this peak of prisoner resistance and future efforts that will surely exceed it.

Ben Turk: My name is Ben Turk, I’ve been involved in prison abolition projects for 7 or 8 years, something like that. Started in Ohio with Redburn Prison Abolition and Lucasville Amnesty, supporting the guys who were thrown on death row or long sentences after the Lucasville uprising in 1993. Now I’m working closely with IWOC, based out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. IWOC is the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee of the IWW, which is the Industrial Workers of the World. And we’re organizing and coordinating support for prisoner strikes and actions on the inside.

Firehawk: I’m Firehawk, and I’ve been doing anti-prison stuff for the past several years, and am involved in political education work in women’s prisons primarily. But I also help edit a publication known as Unstoppable, which is a newsletter by and for women, trans and non-binary folks who are incarcerated.

Ben Turk: And right now, we’re working together on a regional tour with a zine we put together called The Fire Inside. We’ve coauthored a few couple papers about prison abolition and stuff like that, and for this we compiled and gathered report backs from inside and outside about what happened last fall with the prison strikes.

Alejo Stark: Can you very briefly describe the scope of what happened last September?

Ben Turk: There were over 50,000 prisoners who were affected by all facilities we were able to track who went on lockdown. There were also prisoners who trashed their cell blocks, and did hunger strikes and various other types of actions that were participating in the protest. And there were a hell of a lot of outside solidarity actions that happened outside as well, which we should remember cuz they were an important part of it.

a Maria: And why was September 9 picked as the date for these actions?

Firehawk: September 9 is the 45th anniversary of the Attica uprising in New York state at Attica prison. And those prisoners were forming multiracial alliances to push back against the racist regime, and also the prison conditions. In commemoration of that day, prisoners chose September 9th.

Alejo Stark: So Ben, you mentioned IWOC as one of the organizations that played a role in the events leading up to the September 9 strike, can you tell us what other organizations were also involved in part of coordinating this historic event?

Ben Turk: Prisoners are engaged in resistance every day. Everyday of every year, there are prisoners somewhere who are fighting back, and we want to recognize and hold that up. The call for a coordinated strike came from Free Alabama movement, Free Ohio movement, and prisoners from various different places. And as soon as they heard that folks were talking about a national coordinated work stoppage, people everywhere were like “hell yeah, we’ve been talking about that forever! We’re excited to get on board, let’s do this.”.

Alejo Stark: In one of the zines you all wrote, called Freedom First, which we will link to on our website, you all talk about the three main ways in which organizers inside are thinking about and characterizing the prison regime today. Can you tell us what those are?

Ben Turk: So the three things we focus on in a zine are the economic, the political, and just the existential bodily experiences of slavery. The way in which their labor is exploited, and they’re used to make money for the prison authorities in the state, and private contractors of all different kinds.

Firehawk: And so by withholding labor, they can challenge slavery in terms of the forced labor component. The second way in which they challenge slavery is by asserting political agency and making spaces for themselves, in which they contest the conditions in which they’re confined, and also can test the prison as a whole. And then third way in which they resist slavery is by asserting physical independence again.

a Maria: What are some of the surprises that came up for inside and outside organizers in the wake of September 9?

Ben Turk: I mean, everyone was caught off guard by what happened in March, in Holman. We’d just gotten text messages from contacts we have inside with pictures of people running around and fires and stuff like that. And we’re like, what the heck is going on? And so that definitely caught people off guard. And that incident was a case in which, as Michael Kimble describes in The Fire Inside zine and his own website(which is anarchylive.org), it started with two prisoners who had beef. Got in a fight with each other, and when the COs and the warden came in to intervene in that fight, they were really excessively aggressive and the prisoners responded by attacking the staff. Both the CO and the warden, and then they took over the whole cell block. And went around unlocking doors, and trying to get into the cubicles where they could then unlock all the doors.Took over the prison, and then the SERT team came in, which is the Security Emergency Response Team. Came in, restored order, and then less than a day later it happened again. So people in Holman going really hard was a really unexpected part of this that happened in spring. And it was before we even went public with the call for the September 9th strike that that occurred, and then prisoners in Texas called for a work stoppage, and then pulled off a stoppage in early April. And so that’s when we were like, we need to go public with this call, we need to make this happen.

By the time September 9th was coming around, prisoners in Alabama, the lockdown situation was much more severe and they lost a lot of their communication. And so they did do strikes and work stoppages but it was shorter, and then in other places it was much larger than expected. Here in Michigan up in the UP, at Kinross, I don’t think anybody expected the 200 people to go on strike there. In northern Florida, there were a series of actions that were really large there. And prisoners, in report backs we heard there, just heard about the strike just a day before and then organized something and pulled it off. So that I think was unexpected and really exciting, but also really challenging because we don’t have support there. A lot of the places where we do have support, there wasn’t direct local solidarity that was ready for something. So I’m excited to see what happens in the future going forward, as we generalize the idea of supporting prison strikes. Then wherever it is they happen, there’ll be people on the outside who are ready and have already some experience doing it who can step up.

a Maria: Can you tell us about this call to organize, and how the events of September 9 relate to the events of August 19?

Ben Turk: August 19th is, it’s a call from prisoners from Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, which is one of the inside organizations that held things down the longest when the work stoppage in South Carolina and elsewhere, back starting on September 9th. And they also didn’t know about the 9th until further late in the game, but they had already built networks and they had been organizing for this kind of stuff. With September 9th, our priority and the focus of the promotion we did for it was on a call for action on the inside and then calls for solidarity to go with that. They’re sort of reversing that. They’re calling for a march on Washington on August 19th for demonstrations all across the country on that day, showing that outside support first and prioritizing outside support. And then looking for prisoners to take action after that. We need to build and demonstrate outside support in order to really unlock the potential.

There’s a feedback loop that happens when prisoners go on strike or take action inspiring to us on the outside, and then when we step up to have solidarity and to have their back, that shows them that they aren’t alone in those struggles. And that emboldens them to take more action, and if we can keep that feedback loop going, then we can really shake the foundation of this thing that’s strangling all of us really.

One of the challenges that we face as organizers, and we’re both white, especially white organizers and anarchists in this country is the racial divides that exist. So September 9th was called for by Siddique Abdul Hassan, who’s a black man in Ohio. The Free Alabama for black men in Alabama. But it was really amplified and picked up in It’s Going Down and Mask magazine, and these kind of white anarchist organizations where the ones that really built the outside solidarity and support around that. August 19th the outside support is primarily from by I Am We Ubuntu, the Coalition for Prisoner Human Rights, and George Jackson University, which are all black led and they’re mostly led by black women. We need to get these two tendencies to work together better and more closely, and we need to build trust to cross that racial divide that actually defines all of our lives in this society and this country that we live in. That’s just one important aspect of this. And a reason that we as white anarchists, even though a March on Washington maybe doesn’t sound like our thing generally, is something that we need to come together with and cooperate and build a coalition to find coordination across these different distinctions.

Alejo Stark: Are there any final things you’d like to highlight?

Firehawk: One of the things that I’m really working on in collaboration with other people, is thinking about how we can generalize the strike and this series of resistance efforts, to femme rebels and to detention centers. These places, they’re already rising up, they’re are instances. And I think that they need a mouthpiece on the outside to really help lift that up, and also to send more materials into. And with support efforts, we’re seeing them grow, and I think that they’re all amazing and very inspiring to me. And I would hope that collectives also ask the question, what detention centers are in the area? What facilities that house women are in the area? Are there any trans women in the men’s facilities? And just sort of thinking about how, resistance or political materials need to perhaps be framed differently, to the lives of the people that you’re sending them into?

Ben Turk: The Fire Inside, the zine that we put together, includes voices of many many prisoners and lots of different strategic questions. We included things that were critical of outside support and critical of organizations that were affiliated, specifically IWOC, because we want to improve. We want to work on how to make these things better, we really want to generalize the strategic knowledge that is coming from inside the prisons. As far as how we can do support on the outside better, so fireinside.noblogs.org is where you can get a pdf of the zine, and really incorporate it into the way that you do outside organizing. And also send it in to folks on the inside to help them incorporate into strategies that they employ.

Firehawk: And with a quote from Jason Renard Walker, who is incarcerated at the Clements unit in Texas. He says that “The motivation and driving force to our resistance is this, knowing that the politics of polarization and containment in Amerikkka is racialization and incarceration. It keeps us divided, at odds with each other, and exploited and repressed by the penal system at the same time. This reality is how we got to the conclusion that if we don’t come together and let the crops rot in the field, we’ll continue to be exploited, divided, and promoted to be the masters of our own slavery. And eventually the masters of our own destruction. Dare to struggle, dare to win, all power to the people!” – Jason Renard Walker.

KRYSTAL ROUNTREE

Alejo Stark: I spoke with Krystal Rountree, the founder of the iamWE prisoner advocacy network and national organizer of the August 19 Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March in Washington, D.C.

Krystal Rountree: My name is Krystal Rountree, I am the co-founder of the iamWE prisoner advocacy network based out of Raleigh, North Carolina. I am also a core organizer for the Millions for Prisoner’s Human Rights March on Washington. iamWE is a human rights organization focused on working with prisoners behind the walls.

Not only do we work directly with prisoners in terms of advocating on their behalf, we also provide support for family and friends affected by their loved one’s imprisonment. We do have several community based initiatives going on in my local area. Currently one of our main issues are the felony housing disenfranchisement laws that we are tackling, and we’ve been so caught up over the last few years in terms of planning and organizing for the march, that are main focus things as far as iamWE are concerned have been placed on a temporary hold. But one of the main things that the iamWE advocacy family will continue to work on and challenge is of course the 13th amendment of the US Constitution. We aim to illegalize slavery, so that will be an ongoing mission of iamWE prisoner advocacy network, as well as the Millions for Prisoner’s Rights Coalition.

Alejo Stark: So you mentioned it’s been two years in the planning, this August 19th Millions for Prisoners March. Can you tell us a little bit what that process is like for you all, why you decided to take on that endeavour?

Krystal Rountree: Sure. So there is a coalition called Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, this is a collective of prisoners throughout the nation who are jailhouse lawyers. The idea for the march itself actually came from Jailhouse Lawyers Speak coalition, and iamWE took up their call, and worked hard to realize their vision of turning this Millions for Prisoner’s Human Rights event into a national day of mass awareness, mass education, of the plights of our entire criminal justice system as we like to call it, the prison industrial enslavement complex. But just over the course of the two years, legalized slavery, the 13th amendment, those are sometimes challenging concepts for your average person to even grasp and understand. It used to be conversations that only the prisoners, and revolutionaries, and people who were affected by the issue, were attacking and addressing. And we hope to connect that inside movement that was already going on from the prisoners, with the people on the outside, and jointly recognize the situation for what they actually are. And to work collectively to challenge those issues.

Over the course of the two years it’s been a lot of convincing, a lot of education going on, we are truly grassroots. We even up to the day of the march, we were still fundraising, we were not backed by any large sponsors of donors. And it was really the people coming out dedicating their time, their resources, their energy. Perhaps someone knew someone who had some equipment or something that we could use. $5 dollars, $10 dollars, $20 dollar donations, those are the types of things that we really had to pull together to make this march a success. It’s truly been a historic thing that we have been able to do on behalf of the prisoners. Now we certainly plan to keep that momentum going now that we’re past August the 19th.

Alejo Stark: So can you tell us a little bit, for folks who weren’t in DC on the 19th, can you tell us what went down there? As well as how you all connected with other actions nationwide?

Krystal Rountree: So on August the 19th, our main event was there in Washington DC. In addition to the event in DC, we did have 16 other cities throughout the country that hosted solidarity events nationwide. But there in DC, we did have a march that preceded the rally. People gathered there at Freedom Plaza, that morning there was an opportunity for people to get on the microphone and say where they were from, and why they came out, and why they’re supporting this movement. We had media out there, a lot of our guest speakers and educators were there on Freedom Plaza as well, they did come together. We had a march that took place on the end of Freedom Plaza to Lafayette Park, and I’m not sure if you or the listeners have had an opportunity to see some of the footage or the videos from that demonstration, but we were loud. And we were out there, people were representing not only Millions for Prisoner’s Human Rights march but they were representing organizations that they had come from, ideas that they had. And so some of the banners, and flags, and posters, and signs certainly reflected the energy that was out there that day. So it was wonderful, we had lots of people marching from Freedom Plaza down to Lafayette Park, where our rally took place. We had a rally of about maybe 28 speakers.

The beautiful thing I think about what we were able to accomplish there at our rally, is we had representation from so many diverse aspects of the prison resistance movement. I mean we had revolutionaries there, people who had been in the struggle a long time. We had a lot of ex prisoners there, we had a lot of political prisoners there, we had socialists there, we had prison abolitionists there, we had slavery abolitionists. We had families, friends, there were children there. It turned out to be a peaceful demonstration there. Lots of opportunities for networking. And I think that our voices were certainly heard, that we are definitely strengthened by the connections we made there on August the 19th.

So very excited about what took place, but I’m even more excited that people are looking forward to the after game plan, to what’s next. So we’re excited that we’re in the process of gathering those things. Together a coalition is being formed that will comprise of various organizations as well as individuals, and we are continuing the same work. We’re working with lawmakers and others who are able to change the laws. That’s one of the things that we truly seek, is a Constitutional amendment. This was not just a one day event on August the 19th. And so we’re very excited, we realize that we have got to keep up direct action, we’ve gotta stay connected with the people, we’ve gotta stay connected with what’s going on in the streets. As well as go back into our tables, to our round table discussions, and put these things down on paper and get these signatures. We hope to take this issue before the UN. And so this is a well thought out coalition, a well thought out game plan going forward. And so hopefully in the next 30 days or so, that is something that we’re going to be sharing with the public, as well as continuing to engage people and recruit people to be a part of that coalition.

Alejo Stark: Yeah, that sounds like a really exciting rally. I know that Mumia Abu-Jamal called in too, Alfred Woodfox from the Black Panthers and the Angola 3. Krystal, I want to ask you, so what do you say to folks that say changing laws simply isn’t gonna just change society as a whole. What do you say to those folks?

Krystal Rountree: I say that this is not an end all, be all solution. This is just one piece of a larger puzzle. We’re talking about dismantling this entire system, dismantling the prison industrial complex. Well there’s gotta be a process to that, there’s gotta be a strategy to that. And this is a part of that strategy. We don’t want people to be mistaken that we’re reformist, because we’re not. We want to dismantle this entire operation that’s going on, and a good start to that is if you remove some of these financial incentives, associated with keeping a mass amount of people in prisons. The 13th Amendment certainly incentivises keeping people locked up. And having that exception clause removed from our Constitution, is one of the first steps that we should take collectively in restoring the dignity of prisoners. And talking about rehabilitation and cobilitation, and programs that are so much needed behind those walls as well as when people return into to our community. So I would say to people who are against changing the laws or they may not see any benefits to doing so, I think if that’s all you’re planning on doing, then yes. That would probably be a fail. But I think this is just one step into the larger, broader aspects of all the things that we hope to accomplish.

Alejo Stark: For sure. Thank you so much Krystal, for your organizing and speaking with us today.

Krystal Rountree: I appreciate it, thank you so much for having me be a part of the program! I hope the listeners will continue to follow what we’ve got going on and certainly link up with us.

JAILHOUSE LAWYERS SPEAK!

Alejo Stark: We close the episode with D, an incarcerated organizer with Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, about what went down inside in the wake of August 19, and the future of the prisoner resistance movement.

D: I’m D, I’m with Prison Lawyers Speak. We fight for the human rights of prisoners inside this country, we’re also one of the main organizers in relation to the Prison Resistance Movement. We help to organize strikes and to educate prisoners into the basic fundamentals of the law so that way they can fight back, cuz sometimes we have to use the legal tools that’s given to us to fight back. So we try to make sure we train prisoners in that as well. My biggest thing is also trying to help organize the outside to bring awareness to what’s going on on the inside. Right now one of our biggest projects is trying to connect the inside with the outside.

Alejo Stark: Can you tell us real quick how you all lived through August 19th and what went down?

D: Yeah, so August 19th, wow. That was, haha, what can I say. Well where I’m located at, and in the Florida area as well and in particular the panhandle, as y’all already may know we were aware that already over 100,000 prisoners was locked down around this particular time period. What they basically did, they did a lot of preemptive strikes. Instead of waiting for August 19th to come around, they ended up locking down a lot of prisoners throughout the country. In particular, I know Florida was locked down, I know South Carolina was locked down, I know Utah and a lot of UPS was locked down. And I’m sure sporadically throughout the country there was lockdowns that have not actually been reported yet, because prisoners don’t necessarily have the communication to get the word out what happened to them proceeding August 19th. As well as up to this current period, we haven’t got all the reports as of yet. A lot of times what they did, they came through, they searched, locked us down, searched, tore our cells up. Served us bag lunches, bag lunches consist of bologna sandwiches, using green bologna, two slices of bread, hard cheese. And then in the morning time, two boiled eggs, a little small cup of cereal.

These tactics are usually used around the time there’s an ongoing rebellion in the prison, and this case right here, this was a preemptive strike. As if we had already had a rebellion. So we kinda understood what they was doing and what was going on. And then in particular they didn’t let us up on the 21st, the 21st of August which would have been Monday, and my understanding was they had definitely gotten word that there were gonna be some more activities over the weekend and into the following work week. So what they did was they decided take a move against the over 400,000 prisoners in this country. I think there’s been some retaliatory transfers, there’s disciplinary infractions that have been written up, people have had their custody level busted, I think it’s a whole host of things. You got to understand something, these people, they can charge you for literally anything. And sometimes they’ll charge you to make an example out of you. So it may not be out yet exactly what occurred, but we are absolutely sure that a lot of things occurred. Like for instance on my end, where I’m located at, we’ve had at least 6 comrades that have been shipped around the state to other facilities. Early Monday morning while we were still locked down, they came in and packed them up, transferred them out, and then basically called them instigators. But they did not write them up, they didn’t give them any infractions, they just relocated them to other prisons. And a lot of times when they relocate you to other prisons, they try to do it hoping that once you get to this new prison, you don’t necessarily have the same sway over the prisoners at that prison that you did at the other prison. Sometimes they run out of space for that, so they just move you on out of state like they did Rashid to Florida. You know what I’m saying, it’s just how they do sometimes. These are the tactics they use to disrupt our rebellion, to disrupt the prison resistance movement.

Alejo Stark: Can you tell us what’s next? What’s next after August 19th, what’s next for the prisoner’s resistance movement for prison abolition?

D: As far as we’re concerned, we’re planning on having more resistance on the inside definitely. We’re gonna be setting a few dates in the near future, and we’re gonna see where that’s gonna go at. Because as quickly as the system builds up resistance against our resistance, it’s as quickly we have to build up offense, more offensive tactics. So at the end of the day, we’re planning on having more resistance on the inside. It’s just a matter of us corresponding with other prisons and other states, and locking in those networks. And a lot of times a lot of people don’t know we usually work with the outside channels, and hopefully through families and friends and through other networks that they get the word out to the prisoners in the prisons. And also on the outside we’re hoping there’ll be more aggressive actions, I think we had a prisoner’s human rights march throughout the nation. It was an example, even though I considered it was completely whitewashed as some people like to call it, where it was not even televised on the media or anything like that. But at the end of the day we intend to have more activity on the outside ground.

What I’m finding, what myself and some other comrades was talking about, what we found was that one of the things that we have to figure out how to do is how to actually find our activities. Meaning because of a lot of good meaning people that would like to participate, can’t get to the locations that we need them to get to because of transportation. A lot of times what happens is a lot of prisoners come from poverty stricken backgrounds, so that means we have very little resources in anyway as is. So when you’re asking your family members to travel out for direct action, somewhere way out to a prison location, or a jail location, or in front of a police station, or even Washington DC, it’s actually very difficult on these families, because of the poverty level. And we have to remember, the state itself and the government itself particularly, attacks impoverished people in this country. It’s the rich versus the poor, period, you can’t get around that. Nonetheless, we do intend on having more actions on the outside. We intend on trying to, if we can produce, some simultaneous actions even if it means a prisoner’s human rights march. Which now as a coalition, they intend on being fully involved, continuing to be an engine for some of us prisoners back here as well. Some things gonna be coming out in the next couple of weeks, I think we gonna give a couple of our lead organizers on the outside a break. And then we have to give these guys back here to allow them to regroup, because there’s a lot of damage going on back here too from August 19th.

Alejo Stark: For sure. Thank you so much comrade, for your words and for your courage. We’ll definitely keep folks updated. Any last words you want to tell folks?

D: Well the last word is, let’s have tear these prisons down! Thank you.

CREDITS

Kaif Syed: For more reporting on the prisoner resistance movement, check out “Michigan’s Kinross Prison Strike: Reflections from Inside”, an exclusive audio archive we’ve created with the help of correspondents behind bars and MAPS: Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity. You can find it online at michiganabolition-dot-o-r-g.

Thanks for tuning in. You can listen to past episodes on our website, at w-w-w-dot-rustbeltradio-dot-o-r-g. This show was co-produced by the Rustbelt Abolition Radio crew: Andres, A. Maria, David Langstaff, Kaif Syed, and Alejo Stark. Original music by Bad Infinity.