This past weekend I did things I had never done before, saw and heard things that blew me away. The weekend was so intense I even started smoking again, and now I can hardly talk.

One of those moments was when my band played at CBGBs in New York. I had never seen a show there before, much less played on that old punk rock stage, home of the Ramones circa 1977.

Being non-famous, the crowd listened to us but didn’t dance. People clapped and bobbed heads but there was that physical space of we-don’t-know-who-the-fuck-you-are between us onstage and the crowd five feet away. Then, halfway through our set, I introduced a song by talking about the prison industrial complex.

I said, “There are 2 million people in prison in the United States. This is unacceptable. We want justice. Their brand of ‘criminal justice’ is no justice at all. Two million people. This is unacceptable.”

Then the crowd began yelling about cops and courts and people moved forward. I was overwhelmed. It was the equivalent of parting the Red Sea. These kids moved forward not for another power chord but for the fact that our prison system is eating people alive. They know what’s going on.

Many people choose to ignore prisoners, but once you are aware, once you know someone inside or are there yourself, once you hear the voices of those trapped behind the walls, the prison camps that dot our landscape quickly become no longer oddities in your vision, but way stations of US racism and capitalist power. A method of control as deadly as any bullet. A way of killing people slowly.

Today the US imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world. More than Communist China or post-Soviet Russia. Most of the people put in prison are poor, are African American, are Indigenous, are Latino. What is this? This is US genocide.

As Tina Williams, who was a prisoner in MCI Framingham in Massachusetts for 17 years said, “I never met a rich person in prison.”

I was in New York not only to play the show, but to attend Critical Resistance East: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex—a three day gathering of anti-prison activists from the northeast and from around the country. The goal was for ex-prisoners, students, youth, older people, activists, Anarchists, faith groups, queer groups, prisoner advocacy groups, lawyers, family members, artists, musicians, media, poets, and other concerned people to come together to discuss campaign strategies and to share information about the prison injustice system in America.

It was a full weekend in NYC.

                        Adam (friend, lover, soulmate and fellow Profit) and I jumped on a bus in Boston on Friday afternoon. An hour into the ride the predicted snow storm began to come down, and the snow flew horizontally by the windows. I couldn’t see anything through the windshield, and I wondered if the bus driver could either. I was excited as I had been looking forward to Critical Resistance East (CRE) for months. Angela Davis, one of my personal heroines, was speaking. Activists from California and New York I have met via telephone and email would be there. Enormous snow plows cleared the side lanes and we barreled down the highway. Adam and I ate cookies and slept.

Three hours later we made our way through Manhattan. We arrived at Columbia University, West 116^th and Amsterdam Avenue. On the street it was dark and cold but there was a feeling of something big going on.

The opening gathering was a performance dedicated to the Attica Prison Rebellion, held at Miller Theater. Part of the purpose of the piece was to remind us that the struggle for freedom, the fight against slavery, injustice, racism and imprisonment has been ongoing since the very beginnings of this country. The movement for true democracy is not new, and we gain strength from our collective history of revolt and resistance. Unfortunately Adam and I missed the first part of the event, as the 1,500 or so seat theater was packed to capacity. We waited outside and smoked cigarettes and acclimated to the city. It was good to see so many spikes and leopard print freaks in the crowd.

A few people left, and we were able to get in and stand in the back. A youth group from Harlem called IMPACT performed. They were amazing. About fifteen kids, mostly girls, were on stage and sang—I mean really sang—and rapped and danced and spoke poetry about growing up in a world that tries to ignore them and devalue their lives. They explained that IMPACT is a grassroots group that teaches kids to empower themselves, and gives them activist and community organizing tools. These kids kicked ass. I wished IMPACT was in every neighborhood, as these kids seemed ready to take on the world. 

After IMPACT, Emani Davis (Angela’s sister? I’m not sure.) came on stage. She said, “We have lost people since [the first] Critical Resistance [in 1998].” Emani named a few of those who had died inside, who never made it out. Emani stopped, and cried for a moment.

After a silence, she began again. She said that we don’t need to make reforms in the prison system, we need to get people OUT. All the political prisoners, all the drug war prisoners, all the mothers, all the battered women, all the innocent, we need to get them home.

Emani also celebrated a few people who have been recently released and/or pardoned by Clinton, including political prisoners Linda Sue Evans, who was sentenced to prison for conspiracy and malicious destruction in connection with eight bombings between 1983 and 1985, including one at the Capitol, and Susan L. Rosenberg, a former member of the radical group Weather Underground. Laura Whitehorn, a co-defendant of Linda Evans, was also released last year. All three women had been activists since the 60’s, and spent the last ten years doing time on trumped up charges. While in prison, the three women continued to stay connected with the activist community, and wrote for several independent publications.

The crowd cheered, hooted and yelled out when Emani mentioned Robert King Wilkerson, one of the “Angola 3." He was released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary—the dungeon known as Angola that was built on a former slave plantation—in early February after spending 29 years in solitary confinement. Robert was convicted of the murder of another prisoner in 1973 despite the fact that another man confessed, and was convicted of the murder. Robert was released after two prisoners who testified against him ­ the only evidence ever presented - admitted they had lied and were coerced by prison officials. The state offered a plea bargain.                    

Robert came up from the audience to give a few words. It was hard to imagine him living in a hellhole for almost 30 years. He seemed like a very likable guy.

Robert said he was sentenced to prison for robbery in 1961. While he was there, he began to read political books, and to open his mind to radical thought. He met Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace who were there on unrelated robbery charges. Influenced by the ‘60s prisoner rights movement, together they started the Angola chapter of the Black Panther movement inside. Because of their connections to radical activists, and their efforts and campaigns to improve conditions for prisoners at Angola, Herman and Albert were framed for the murder of a prison guard in 1972 and sent to solitary confinement.

In solitary, you are separated from the general prison population. You are kept in your cell 23 hours a day. Yet the three men did not give into the prison’s brutal method of destroying the self, of crushing a man or woman’s will by sensory deprivation, intimidation and brutality. They continued to stand up for their beliefs and to speak out through their writings and correspondence to the outside world.

Robert said that while he is elated to be free, he is not complete. He left his comrades Albert and Herman back in Angola, they are still there, trapped in their cells.

He said, “I am free of Angola, but Angola is not free of me.”

He will keep fighting. His short speech was powerful and moving, and everyone cheered from the heart. I am amazed at his strength of purpose and resolve. I cannot imagine surviving and living and functioning for so many YEARS in one room.

 The opening event ended, and we took the long train ride to Brooklyn. Adam and I met up with my old friend Priscilla and we spent the rest of the night talking about prisons in America and catching up. We drank gin and tonics and listened to her punk mix tapes in her warm apartment. Freedom is wonderful.

The next morning we journeyed north underground. The trip to Manhattan took longer than I expected, and we arrived at Columbia as the noon workshops were beginning. CRE offered over 100 workshops, panels and discussions in two days. There was so much to choose from, so much to hear and talk about. We made it to the right building and the hallways are jammed. I kept running into people I know. The air was of a hive making honey, collective work done with hope and promise.

I made it to the workshop “across the lines: working together for women prisoners” and classroom 327 was packed. Every desk was filled. I had a hard time walking to the front of the room as every inch of floor space was taken by bodies and notebooks and coffee cups. There were activist crunchy types and New Yorkers all in black. A woman in an African headdress, a man in a casual suit sitting on the floor. Hippies and punk types and dread locks and students and older women and a awesome mix of all sorts of regular people from all over the country. The room was filled with an energy and earnestness that expanded and pressed against the walls. People were standing in back. The door was jammed with people looking in, spilling out into the hallway.

Another thing I have never done: speak on a panel. I was mildly terrified.

I work at a feminist newspaper, and coordinate a project called Women Inside/Outside that publishes writings by women in prison, runs pen pal ads and publishes a resource guide for women in prison. I started it from scratch a year ago, and now get about fifty letters a month from women in prison across the country. I was surprised that I was asked to speak.

Honestly, I was too nervous to remember exactly what the other panelists said. My throat was closing in and my heart was beating overtime.

They spoke about the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP), a group run by women inside and outside prison that is working hard for prisoner’s rights. CCWP puts out a small magazine called The Fire Inside that I highly recommend everyone subscribe to. It has stories and articles by women in prison and news about the activist movement against the prison industrial complex. It’s practically free, just give a donation (see below).

The speakers also mentioned a few things you should know before you think that living in prison is easy or a “country club” :

-The large majority of women are imprisoned for non-violent crimes: drugs, prostitution, check forgery, shop lifting. Of the women who are convicted murderers, many of them killed a violent, long-time abuser in self-defense. But the courts don’t see it that way. Women are typically given twice as long prison sentences for killing a husband as men are for killing a wife.

-Health care in women’s prisons is a joke. Since January, seven women have died at Chowchilla and several of those deaths could have been prevented with adequate medical attention. One woman suffered seizures for hours while her cell mates screamed for the guards to bring help—which came too late. The woman died in her cell.

-About 80% of women in prison have young children. What happens to these kids? Especially if dad isn’t around? There are many alternatives to sending people to prison: community service, group homes, and drug treatment, that are more constructive and cheaper than building a prison.

-Men are prison guards in women’s facilities in the US, a dangerous situation that is outlawed in most of the world and condemned by the United Nations. Women are at the mercy of the guards, and if they are raped, they have little safe outlet or protection to report it.

-Many women go to prison pregnant. It is very common for a women to be SHACKLED TO HER HOSPITAL BED WHILE GIVING BIRTH, although a guard is present in the room. Is this humiliation and pain necessary?

The examples of torture could fill this entire magazine a hundred times over. Women and men are not “serving time” appropriate to the crime, they are being tortured for even minor crimes of poverty.

On the panel, I introduced myself by saying, “I have never been to prison, but I am in solidarity with women in prison. I am not fighting for them, but for me. For all of us. It could be me inside, it could be you inside.”

I said, “Prison is at the black heart of patriarchal, racist, capitalist American society. Poor women and Black women are being sent to prison—not the CEO of Dow Chemical who was responsible for the Bhopal Disaster. Prison is a means of social control.” I decided being on a panel wasn’t so bad after all.

I told folks that women are often invisible in our media, and poor women, working class women and women in prison are no where to be seen or heard. We need to listen to their stories, and to look at what is really going on. I recommended people read the ‘zines Out of Time, The Fire Inside, Prison Focus, and Sojourner: The Women’s Forum. I’ve put addresses at the end, so check them out!

This column is getting longer and longer as I try to convey CRE. I told you it was a long weekend.

Hold on, I’m almost finished. Take a break from thinking of the evils of this society for a minute and drink away at Sweet Water in Brooklyn and listen to Motorhead on the jukebox until the bar closes. Bum too many cigarettes.

At least that’s what I did on Saturday night. Adam and I met up with Hope and Martin, some of the most awesome people we know, and put down yummy pitchers of Brooklyn Lager. I ran into punks I haven’t seen for years like Tim and talked about the good ol’ Rat days, life and bands. After five or so years we had grown apart, but damn it, we both still had our spikes on. Good times.

Now that you’ve refreshed yourself, go back to Manhattan, to the Riverside Church on 121^st & Claremont to wrap up at CRE. Saturday’s CRE evening event is entitled “Women, Prison and globalization” and was created in honor of International Working Women’s Day (March 8).

There was no way I was going to miss this, and for once we were early and got seats. The church filled with people and even with its balconies and rows and rows of long wooden pews the place was filled to capacity and hundreds of people waited outside.

It was amazing. The Riverside was huge. At night, the stain glass windows were dark and the ceiling rose above the hanging lights into blackness. It gave the strange effect of being outside in an enormous stone tent. Behind the pulpit was a large photo of Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at this very church, inspiring and moving folks to action during the ‘60s. There is a strong history here.

In turn, Angela Davis spoke with passion; a group of women called Asé played African drums and sang; Chrystos and Suheir Hammad read poetry that struck the bone about the imprisonment of indigenous women, about losing your life behind bars. Two women danced to the drums, and another woman painted an 8’x4’canvass over the course of the event. The woman in the painting changed over the hour from behind bars to outside, from being alone to being held by a sister standing behind her. At the end, these two women were encircled by the protective arms of an all-encompassing mother.

While the event was uplifting, I suppose the best part about it was just seeing all those people who were working for justice in one room together. It felt like an army.

One thing that really struck me was an audio tape of Assata Shakur, a member of the Black Panther Party who was sentenced to life in prison in 1973 but escaped to Cuba. I had never heard her speak before, and she moved me to believe revolution was truly possible, that in the face of such inequality, of such exploitation and devastation, we have no other choice. Freedom is worth everything.

 

Check out:

The Fire Inside (Newsletter of CCWP): 100 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102.

Out of Control (Out of Time Lesbian Committee to Support Women Political Prisoners): 3543 18^th Street, Box 30, San Francisco, CA 94110. outoftime@igc.org

Prison Focus (California Prison Focus): 2489 Mission St. #28, San Francisco, CA 94110.

Sojourner: The Women’s Forum: 42 Seaverns Ave., Boston, MA 02130.

Critical Resistance: http://www.criticalresistance.org/creast

Prison Activist Resource Center (so much good info here): http://prisonactivist.org

You can write me: Erika Ransom, theprofits@punkrock.net. Liberty for all- I’ll drink to that!