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Announcement of nationally coordinated prisoner work stoppage for Sept. 9, 2016
July 3, 2016
In one voice, rising from the cells of long term solitary confinement, echoed in the dormitories and cell blocks from Virginia to Oregon, we prisoners across the United States vow to finally end slavery in 2016. On Sept. 9 of 2016, we will begin an action to shut down prisons all across this country. We will not only demand the end to prison slavery, we will end it ourselves by ceasing to be slaves.
Black Lives Matter leader Jasmine Abdullah Richards, jailed for ‘felony lynching,’ fights in the spirit of Muhammad Ali
July 2, 2016
In the wake of Muhammed Ali’s transition come the voices of praise and adulation heaped on the man for his political stance and courage for holding to his convictions in 1967, that brought him face-to-face with a racist U.S. regime. But the voices are silent in the face of Jasmine Abdullah Richards’ reality in 2016, against an identical racist regime to the one who persecuted Ali.
Wanda’s Picks for May-June 2016
May 15, 2016
Elaine Brown’s “A Taste of Power,” a memoir which chronicles her leadership of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense when co-founder Huey P. Newton is imprisoned, still resonates with me. The idea that a Black woman is nominated to the leadership position of the most powerful civic organization in the country at that time is still remarkable and speaks to what Kathleen Cleaver calls revolutionary imagination.
Today, few know how bad it was for Black and Brown people back in George and Yogi’s day
February 28, 2016
I have been in the system over 30 years and was in the system when Yogi and George Jackson and the rest were all in the Adjustment Center, and the guards and George were killed in 1971. An entire generation has come and gone since then. Very few in the system today even know who they are. Nor do they know how bad conditions were back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, especially for Black and Brown people both in the system and out in the streets.
Eva Contreraz: San Quentin Adjustment Center from my perspective
September 23, 2015
I was in the San Quentin Adjustment Center (SHU) for four years in the early to mid-1980s. We called it AC. San Quentin was all holes except one block. AC was the deepest hole in San Quentin. It is a short, three-floor, windowed building with two rows of roomy, single-bed cells on each floor, facing the windows. I was there when the first group of Death Row inmates was moved in as overflow. The AC of today is a far cry from that bygone era.
KPOO interview: Kiilu Nyasha and Terry Collins remember Hugo ‘Yogi’ Pinell
August 30, 2015
This interview was broadcast live on Aug. 18, 2015, on Terry Collins’ show, The Spirit of Joe Rudolph. Terry Collins: A lot of people around here are definitely in deep mourning for the murder of Hugo Pinell on the 12th of August, this month. From my correspondence with him over the past three or four years, I know he was a person full of love. Kiilu Nyasha: If there was one word that could describe Yogi Bear, it would be love.
Hugo ‘Yogi’ Pinell, comrade of George Jackson
August 25, 2015
On Aug. 12, Hugo “Yogi” Pinell (1944-2015) was killed in the California State Prison-Sacramento. Pinell was a comrade of George Jackson, W.L. Nolen, James Carr and other founders of the modern prison movement. He was released from solitary confinement in 2014 after 45 years, the longest any state prisoner has spent in solitary.
My safari from Pelikkkan Bay
February 27, 2015
On Jan. 29, 2015, my travels began with a wakeup call at 2:30 a.m. I was told by the first watch unit officer to be ready in 30 minutes. Myself and a total of 17 prisoners were all rounded up like chattel slaves and placed in the SHU’s C-Facility visiting room holding cells ‘til we boarded the bus at 6 a.m. In hitting the highway, my sensibilities immediately went through the whirlwind cycle of “shock and awe” via the vivid reminder of what freedom used to entail.
African American classical music: Renaissance woman P. Kujichagulia speaks
January 20, 2015
On Sunday, Feb. 1, 1-3 p.m., to kick off Black History Month, she will be giving a lecture called “Racism and All That Jazz” on African American classical music, aka Jazz, in the Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin St. “I’m honored to have the fabulous Yemanya Napue, percussionists Val Serrant and Sosu Ayansolo and visual artist Duane Deterville collaborate with me on this presentation,” she says.
Wanda’s Picks for December 2014
December 3, 2014
As we move into the next solar return, there is much to look forward to despite the stasis that seems to infect this nation with the disease of white supremacy or racial domination. OK OK, perhaps the silver lining is a bit too buried to find Osumare’s twinkle beyond any pots of gold you’ve stumbled upon recently. The knowledge that no matter how it looks, the Creator is in charge and the bad guys just look like they are always winning is what sustains us.
Abu Jihad: A living, fighting museum for prisoner movement affairs
October 26, 2014
On the final day of our May trip to Palestine we visited the Abu Jihad Museum for Prisoners Movement Affairs in the brilliant sunlight of Jerusalem. The simultaneous visit to Bethlehem of a Pope who paid respect to the Palestinian right to self-determination was nice enough. But the very thought of such an institution alone astounded me. Neither a “dead” museum nor a bourgeois one in the conventional style of Europe, the fact of its existence in Palestine exhilarated me.
Suspicious death at San Francisco County Jail: They call it suicide – would you?
October 23, 2014
On Friday, Oct. 3, Antolin Marenco was dead, found “blue” and hanging in his cell in SF County Jail, an apparent suicide. I say apparent because evidence surrounding his death is still coming in and, as someone who was in regular contact with Antolin, I can say with certainty that if he took his own life, he was driven to this extreme act by over a year of sustained torture, brutality and neglect at the hands of the SFPD and the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department.
Wanda’s Picks for September 2014
September 5, 2014
Congratulations to William Rhodes on a successful trip to South Africa, where he took a quilt created by his students at Dr. Charles Drew Elementary School in San Francisco to honor the legacy of an international hero, President Nelson Mandela, and returned with art panels from workshops conducted with youth in various townships and regions from Cape Town to Johannesburg.
The Death Penalty: Killing in the name of God is the ultimate act of blasphemy
June 27, 2014
The Death Penalty is one of many signs of a society that is morally deteriorating, especially a society that proclaims an affinity with God and the Holy Scriptures. First of all, there’s nothing in the Holy Scriptures which gives moral support and/or credence to the implementation of the Death Penalty. This is a man-made evil, and it is this spiritual contradiction that will eventually condemn us all to a spiritual and moral death.
Social consciousness, prison struggle and perseverance: a personal account
February 23, 2014
There are hundreds of prisoners who have been falsely validated as members or associates of prison gangs that can viscerally relate to my experience, from living life as an outlaw in society to being prosecuted and convicted to prison, only to be persecuted while in prison, fundamentally for educating oneself by trying to heighten one’s sense of cultural and social awareness.
Secret torture unit at San Quentin, Part 2
December 23, 2013
Once upon a time a pen full of corrupt pigs all of a sudden realized the dirt on them was being exposed to the public. Articles describing some of the asinine antics common to their clique written by an anonymous author had been posted online and circulated in print via local and national “telling it like it is” publications such as the one you’re reading now.
The deadly ‘integrated yard policy’: Commentary on ‘The Pelikkkan Bay factor: An indictable offense’
November 20, 2013
I am compelled to share with your readers the evidence I have uncovered while doing research into my own case after I was framed by corrupt guards and convicted of murder at Folsom Prison in 1984. I have uncovered the real intentions behind the implementation of the deadly “integrated yard policy” and its bloody history at Folsom Prison.
Green Party issues urgent call for Gov. Jerry Brown to negotiate with prison hunger strikers and support human rights
August 23, 2013
Green Party members are issuing an urgent call for Gov. Jerry Brown to negotiate with California prisoners. Greens are demanding that Gov. Brown and prison officials lift the wall of secrecy and let reporters in to speak to the prisoners, photograph them and record their voices.
Hunger strike rally at Corcoran Prison: The sound before the fury
July 16, 2013
It is hot enough in Corcoran, California, to melt people. That being said, it still wasn’t hot enough to keep upwards of 400 people from braving 103-degree weather to mobilize and rally at Corcoran State Prison in support of over 30,000 prisoners on hunger strike in California. The immediate goal is to stop the cruelty and torture that being held in isolation represents. The long-range objective is liberation.
Treating us like slaves: an analysis of the Security Threat Group Step Down Program
June 28, 2013
For the past two years we’ve heard the state claim it’s reforming its long term segregation policies and practices by implementing a Security Threat Group (STG) Step Down Program (SDP). Officials claim the program is a significant move towards a more behavior-based system, yet they remain extraordinarily vague about the “ultimate conclusion.” What exactly is “gang activity”?
