Federal Prisons

Cowards will hit you when you’re in chains.
Anger fits you, coursing through your veins.
Inflicting violence when you can’t fight back.
Demanding silence or the charges will stack.
Stop resisting, I’ve got mace!
Was sleeping, now on your face.
Throwing grenades when you are unarmed and compliant.
Snitches, puppets and police can’t take down a giant.
Most are grimy, with much snake in their blood.
The rest, evil flowers beginning to bud.
Giving us bad water and rotten food.
What the hell put them in such a bad mood?
Don’t think they can get the cuffs any tighter.
Of course they will have to chain up a fighter.
Excuse me, I’ve done nothing wrong, sir.
Under his saddle must be a burr.
Getting sprayed after being cuffed.
Wearing a badge must make them tough.
Everyone should apply a little resistance.
Make the pigs call “Officer in need of assistance.”
Like a martye against ten, maybe more or less.
Just give as much as you take, simply do your best.

Sister China
1949
Chairman Mao caught her eye
Imperialism reigns
But soon will fall
Socialism will rise
And prevail
Hammer in hand
The vanguard will swing
The capitalist pig will be nailed
The lumpen will grow its wings
We stand and fight
Instead of flight
Until the proletariat is finally free

The name of this organization is the AMBI Foundation. The purpose of this foundation is to bring prisoners to full awareness internally. Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has a way of making prisoners believe that they have no rights, but, if brought to full awareness, real eyes will realize real lies. The AMBI Foundation is under the guidance of MIM(Prisons). We recognize, understand, as well as apply the five United Front for Peace in Prisons principles. Our foundation is based on them.

Those are all important as it is the forefront of our organization.

The last few weeks at Riverbend Detention Center have been more trying than usual. Despite the usual complaints about prisons (bad food, dishonest guards, lack of protocol for inmates, etc). This facility is one of several dozen privately run prisons in this state over which there are very few governing statutes all of which are unreasonably vague. We have no protection legally from our captors. We are fed like second graders, cheated at commissary, and denied visitation. Riverbend is owned and operated by the local sheriff in a backwoods parish of a notoriously backwoods state. Money is a determining illusion in the voters decisions because there is no revenue at all. As part of his campaign, Sheriff Wydet made it his point to exploit the unused space in his jail to house DOC inmates. Like most of the poorer parishes, the prison is the primary employer. This is a result of the low educational standards (another record held by Louisiana). This summer was unusual for us because a portion of the prison (one of three buildings), which up until now was used for storage, was refurbished to be ready to accept prisoners again for this fall. Several men were put to work, all were occasionally paid scraps of extra food or a couple of cigarettes but they made it happen. Even if they did it right at the deadline set by their slave drivers (thank you 13th amendment), but DOC didn’t send any prisoners - somebody else did.

After Katrina, New Orleans was constantly both rebuilding (which is still going on) and restructuring. Being a transplant to this state listening to the horror stories told by the prisoners who were in OPP during the storm (they were abandoned for a week) seems like something that couldn’t happen in a Christian based land, but we all know now that it can and does. The prison, however, has been getting a makeover. Orleans Sheriff Marlon Gusman pushed for years to get funding to build a brand new 1400+ bed facility so that he could shut down the Main Jail at the Sheriff’s office. Orleans employed five separate jails when I was there in 2010. The Sheriff’s office was split down the middle to create CLU and HOD. Then had tent city next door, which was literally eight military hangar-type tents. These three no longer exist in their prior functions. The other two are Conchetta (which is used for DOC) and the Old Parrish (which is in the court house to hold violent offenders and escape risks). The new prison utilizes a large re-entry program that is only a couple years old but both New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Gusman insist has lowered recidivism. September 10, 250 pre-trial inmates of every spectrum of the criminal code were moved three and a half hours away to Lak Providence. They are here now, mixed together under no variation or classification (murderers with sex offenders with pot dealers with traffic violators) and being guarded by the lowest common denominator of the states workforce. This is for an increased rate of $30 a day per head, a 20% increase from staying in Orleans to be milked from the taxpayers. Some of the guards enjoy telling us about their time in prison and how that makes them one of us.

The Orleans public pretender office is taking issue with this because they are also broke and short staffed. Traveling here to see their clients is obviously unrealistic to both the lawyers and the clients. Who are now going to be down several months longer due to missed court dates and other scheduling conflicts. A motion to forbid Gusman from moving pretrial detainees before DOC inmates was put before U$ District Judge Lance Africk, who is overseeing a federal consent decree aimed at reforms at OPP; Africk ordered Gusman to appear in his chambers to discuss these problems. The Sheriff has so far ignored all attempts to work out some other alternative, he obviously wanted this move to happen. Something tells me he’ll be bringing money when he visits the judge. As Darren Sharper and Jaime Foxx have shown, prosecution in New Orleans only happens when District Attorney Leon Canazarro doesn’t get paid.

The prison here is full and content not unlike a corpulent child after a buffet. No one here seems to mind and I will tell you from experience that Gusman will not do anything unless it appeals to his own personal interest.

Now, I could expound on the human cost or push the legality of access to one’s lawyer but all of those things make sense. Not dollars. I’ve seen almost every state in this union but nothing compares to what I’ve been forced to witness in Louisiana. I tell you that this will be the outcome for the rest of this country and all capitalist societies. Prisons come before schools, profits come before rights and politics come before people.

I’m writing you in regards to my personal (incoming & outgoing) mail at Lanesboro Correctional Institution. Since I’ve been on Anson Unit (segregation), correctional staff have been confiscating my (and about 50 other prisoners) incoming and outcoming personal mail.

The mailroom staff, and Anson Unit Managers (Mr. Hatley & Mrs. Wieks) and their staff (Sgt. Allen, Officer Mack, Officer Jones, Officer Tillman, and Officer Harrington), are all conspiring to deprive me (and about 50 other prisoners) of my (our) rights to communicate. They are using all types of frivolous excuses to try to cover it up.

When it comes to NCDPS Division of Adult Corrections “mail policy & procedure” it doesn’t specify who’s to deliver or pick up the mail. The mailroom staff doesn’t deliver our mail, but in actuality they should, because they are solely responsible for it. When the mail is picked up from the post office, by the mailroom staff, they sort it out, place the prisoners “housing unit” & “cell number” on the letters, then they send the mail to each housing unit, for the officers on each unit to pass out. By doing this the burden shifts towards the unit managers and their officers. But anytime I or any othe prisoner inquire about the mail delivery problems, unit management or their staff tells us to write the mailroom. So, what’s happening is that they’re shifting the burden back and forth to where the problems are never getting resolved.

It is with these hystoric words once shouted by Chican@ revolutionaries a hundred years ago that we proudly echo this sentiment today as we announce the completion of Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán, on this anniversary of the Plan de San Diego. A hundred years ago, so-called “bandits” and “heathens” in the conquered territory of the United $tates, known as Aztlán, declared their war of liberation from Amerikan imperialism. And just as the Plan de San Diego grew out of heightened national oppression both on a domestic and international level, so does Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán come out of the depths of Amerika’s dungeons at a time in which the Chican@ nation, and indeed the world, risks being swallowed whole by various imperialist factions; principally Amerikan imperialism.

Those once thought to be our old guard have come closer and closer to unity with our oppressors than to our own people, yet the Chican@ lumpen pushes through, rises to the challenge and presents us with the most correct political analysis to the most pressing questions facing Aztlán today. Vendidos (sell outs) might say that revolutionary nationalism is an ancient and dead phenomenon no longer relevant in a “globalized world.” But it is exactly because of this “globalization” (i.e. imperialism) that this work is more needed than at any other time since the last round of national liberation struggles inside of U.$. borders.

Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán has been in development for well over three years and is a collaborative effort between Chican@ revolutionaries from northern and southern Califas-Aztlán and MIM(Prisons). Our comrades on the outside facilitated, guided and made possible this manifesto. This work is an example of the political unity between both major regions of Califas-Aztlán that must come to bear by the imprisoned Chican@ lumpen on an Aztlán-wide basis before we are ready to put this ideological unity into practice.

Throughout the creative process of this book there were indeed many times in which we found it difficult to continue this collaboration. This was due not only to the same old tired divisions amongst Chican@s in California that have been keeping the imprisoned Raza from uniting as one, but due to ideological and political immaturity as well. However, through all of this, Chican@ revolutionaries from both major sections of Califas-Aztlán managed to resolve our differences through the tools and weapons refined for us by the great protagonists of oppressed peoples’ movements everywhere: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. But above all, the reality that bound us throughout this work was not only our common oppression but the want and need to one day see our people free. And so, largely through the method of unity-struggle-unity and the dialectical materialist frame of thought did we finalize this important task. And as great as this work is, and as much of a watershed moment we are celebrating, we remain very much aware that this is just the opening shot to the quickly flourishing revolutionary nationalist movements within Amerika’s prisons.

This book is in service to the imprisoned Chican@ lumpen in order that they may finally have a general framework from which to build ideological unity and from which to politically grow and wrest state power from Amerikan imperialism and the white settler nation.

Just as author Benjamin Heber Johnson makes the statement, “In fifty years the projected ninety-six million Latino residents of the United States would, if considered a nation, follow only Brazil and Mexico as the most populous country in Latino America” so will it probably take as long to see the fruits of our labor.(1)

The Chican@ nation is comprised of oppressed Raza and it forms a part of Latin@ America. Chican@s Unite!

MIM(Prisons) adds: Get your copy of Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán today! We are hosting a one-time study group with the authors, so ask for the book ASAP so you’ll have time to participate.

Sitting in a Texas Pen
Fed like it’s 1908
For we are given skimpy trays
So we have to lick the plate

They try to say we are well fed
I tell you that’s a lie
Tortillas to hide our scrambled eggs
Make grown men want to cry

One hot dog on our largest part
Slot two slices of bread
The last three slots will stop your heart
So you might just wake up dead

I’ve eaten better homeless
And I’m not too proud to say
I’ve had more food out of dumpsters
Then what Stiles puts on your tray

I came here weighing 222
I now weigh 151
The only way that I’ll get more food
Annie get your gun

No these are not my greatest words
But I’m about the starve to death
I’ve seen people feed more to birds
But in Texas, I’m out of breath

Bulloch County Jail in Statesboro Georgia has an isolation wing (or control unit) which consists of many isolation cells on both sides of a hallway. The windows on these cells doors facing the hallway are covered by hinged metal flaps that open and close from the outside of the cell. The majority of these cells have no windows to allow prisoners to see outside. In the cells which have a window it is only a narrow slot of glass too heavily frosted and high up off the floor to see out of. The only time officers open the flaps are for 2 to 3 seconds at count times.

Every night at 9 p.m. all of the cells lights are shut off (including in the cells without outside windows). The cells are pitch black until the next morning at breakfast. There is a nightlight function which only stays on when an officer outside of the cell pushes a button and holds it down continuously. As soon as the button is released the nightlight goes back off. This is obviously just to allow officers to count during lights out.

It would probably be easy to modify to allow lights to stay on for prisoners desiring some light to read, write, or move around by. But nobody in the jail is organizing to write grievances on this, etc. Prisoners are discouraged from knocking on the insides of their cells doors or calling out to summon staff by threats of pepper-spray, tasing, or use of a restraning chair. In 2014 I was in this isolation/control unit while some type of inspection group toured the jail and I heard a female visitor/inspector open one of the metal flaps and comment “that can’t be right.” Yet this practice continued until I was transferred in March 2015.

I read in PARC Prisoner Resource Directory’s 2015 issue some “standards for treatment of prisoners” that restriction to a dark cell, as punishment, is a violation of the Geneva convention. And many of the prisoners there are under disciplinary status. Though Bulloch County Jail staff attitudes are that at this jail they do what they want. I have personally seen them take positive remedial action when it becomes known to them that someone on the outside is paying attention to the jail’s treatment of prisoners. This is my first attempt to gain attention on this particular complaint. The jail captain is John Staten and his chief lieutenant is Danny Tremble. They have these prisoners “living in darkness” literally.

The prison oppressors have maliciously transferred me to Jester III Unit here in Richmond, Texas. I have filed numerous grievance complaints and indicated filing a Section 1983 civil lawsuit, due to prison staff violating my Constitutional rights.

I had to wait about 15 days before I was allowed to write to you all, because the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) indigent program only allows me to mail out 5 personal letters a month. Once I have submitted the 5 letters, I’m forced to wait until the next 30-day period starts. I have filed a grievance, and hope a class action lawsuit is presented to the court so that I can join in.

According to Guajardo v. Estelle 432 F.Supp 1373, prison officials must furnish postage and stationary to indigent prisoners weekly, without a waiting period. By denying me communication with my family, friends and advocates, it hinders me from informing people of the extreme mistreatment I’m constantly subjected to here.

I respectfully request the recent issue of Under Lock & Key be mailed to my new address, plus any study material to help me teach the 5 principles of the United Front for Peace in Prisons (Independence, Internationalism, Growth, Unity, and Peace) within the prison environment. I greatly appreciate my beloved comrades’ assistance and highly need support. I will write to you and other comrades in the struggle as much as is possible or allowed.

MIM(Prisons) responds: It is all too common that laws are set, but that the problems continue because prison officials simply don’t follow the laws. As this correspondent writes, there are already legal standards for how indigent correspondence should be handled in Texas. Yet the Texas Board of Criminal Justice modified TDCJ’s correspondence rules in opposition to this law.

In communication with Mumia Abu-Jamal, in Mumia’s book Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A., Ed Mead explains this phenomenon well:

“[The courts] may order that you have more peanut butter on the main line but they’re not going to do anything significant or fundamental in terms of serving the public interest. And that is the limitation of jailhouse lawyering, you can get yourself out but there will be another one to replace you. You can get a friend out; there will be another one to replace him. You can file a prisoner rights suit but they’ll just not enforce it… or if it’s enforced, after a while it just dissipates, like a puddle of water evaporating and nobody really notices that it’s gone.”

For those issues that people notice are dwindling away, such as the restrictions on indigent mail in Texas, what role can lawsuits play in ensuring these rights are protected? Our correspondent would like to join on to a Class Action suit on this issue, and surely there are plenty of Texas comrades who would be interested in something similar. Ed Mead breaks it down:

“[T]he courts are a part of the State’s apparatus of repression… and the State is the means by which one class suppresses the interests of another class. And since the police and the prisons are a part of that and the courts as well, none of these enforcement mechanisms are going to abolish themselves. Once you get beyond the point of litigating over ‘we want more peanut butter on the main line,’ if you’re looking for substantial issues, then the courts aren’t the place to go…

“And the way I look at it is that the prison is the factory that turns out the product. And that product is angry people who are released to the streets full of rage, which gets taken out on their family members, their neighbors, and the community. And to try to treat individual products that the factory spews out, it’s spewing them out faster than you could possibly fix the problem. You need to focus on shutting the factory down. And the courts aren’t going to be of any assistance in that.”

In the context of our anti-imperialist organizing, we see lawsuits as having two functions. First, they can be a way to organize people by bringing them into political struggle, and demonstrating the limitations of the injustice system. Second, when successful, lawsuits can help to make space for this revolutionary organizing. Lifting the severe restrictions on indigent correspondence would definitely be better for people who are submitting articles to Under Lock & Key, participating in our correspondence study groups, or just keeping their ULK subscription active. And we’re sure that most of our comrades behind bars don’t just write to us! But even if this restriction were lifted, as it should be, there would just be some other injustice being thrown our way. Or eventually the law would be “forgotten” and we’d have to go to court over the same thing, again.

Ed Mead is a former prisoner, jailhouse lawyer, founder of Prison Legal News, and long-time revolutionary. Ey presently publish the newsletter The Rock and recently had eir autobiography published by Kersplebedeb. With Ed’s vast and long-time experience in the anti-imperialist prisoner-focused movement, ey has this to say about putting our legal efforts into a broader context of struggle: “The main thing is to put jailhouse lawyering in a context of class struggle. And when you put it in that context its limitations become abundantly clear.”

Mumia reflects on Ed’s perspective on jailhouse lawyering,

“For this one man, jailhouse law was a doorway into other realms of social reality, where the courts, for all their pomp and ceremony, were largely irrelevant to the larger social struggles rippling through society. What Mead learned was that jailhouse law was simply a means; it was not an end. It had, in Mead’s view, severe limitations.”

To move beyond these limitations, we expand our scope. While this legal system fails us, we instead aim to set the stage for communist revolution on these shores. We have various campaigns and projects centered around this goal, which we report on regularly on this website and in Under Lock & Key.

9 September 2015 marked the fourth annual Day of Peace and Solidarity in prisons throughout the United $tates. This is an opportunity for us to commemorate the anniversary of the Attica uprising and draw attention to abuse of prisoners across the country. The demonstration was initiated in 2012 by an organization participating in United Front for Peace in Prisons (UFPP) and has been taken up as an annual UFPP event, with people committing to participate in prisons across the country. Activities vary, from peaceful resistance and fasting to study groups and educational events. Some observe the event alone due to their confinement conditions and some take this opportunity to organize with others.

This demonstration is focused on the UFPP principles of peace and unity: We organize to end the needless conflicts and violence among prisoners, and we strive to unite with those who have a common interest in fighting the oppression of the criminal injustice system. On this one day we call on all prisoners to take up these principles and cease all prisoner-on-prisoner hostilities, and use the day for solidarity building and education.

While we don’t organize for just one day of peace and unity, this day of action expands awareness and broadens our base of support to build for peace and unity year round. In this way we build from smaller campaigns to broader goals and ultimately to a movement that can stand up against the entire criminal injustice system.

We have already received reports from a number of September 9 participants, which are summarized here. Look for more reports in upcoming issues of Under Lock & Key.

Comrades in Arkansas commemorated the day by joining USW and committing to stepping up their work in the coming year:

“Happy Day of Peace and Solidarity! Today my comrades and I celebrated by eating a chili spread and discussing the many ailments that plague prisoners as a result of our confinement. We also discussed the ways we might non-coercively combat the prison establishment from within. That is no easy task because at the first sign of unity the pigs are quick to lock us up and separate us. Not that we have much to lose considering we are being housed on administrative segregation (23 hour lock down).

“We decided to name our study group CRASH or Crazy Revolutionaries Against Social Hierarchy. We thought it fitting to name ourselves on this day to commemorate Attica. We would also like to join USW. We absolutely agree with all 6 points of MIM(Prisons) and would like to join other like-minded individuals and take a more active role in helping unify the oppressed against imperialism. All power to the people and let burn the renewing flames of the communist revolution!”

In Louisiana a new comrade devoted the day to serious study and fasting:

“I am writing to inform you that because of knowledge I received by reading Under Lock & Key I participated in my first commemoration of the September 9 Day of Peace Peace and Solidarity movement. Six months ago I was unaware such a movement even existed, especially since I was first exposed to the tragedy in, or rather at, Attica in the late 90s - the same time I was first introduced to the Souljah George. The organization I was/am a part of already in our protocols recognized Black August. But the September 9 movement was unknown to us.

“Even though I hadn’t heard of the movement I still responded to your call to arms. I fasted from solid food the entire day and only had one cup of water after sundown. I also, after each prayer (as I am a conscious and conscientious Muslim), reread articles from ULK and expounded upon them to my neighbor who, incidentally, is the guy who was involved in the failed judicial lynching attempt of Lil Boosie.

“I also revisited The Wretched of the Earth by Fanon with particular emphasis on the preface written by Jean-Paul Sartre. And although it is a scathing denunciation of European imperialism/colonialism and a concise treatise advocating, or rather understanding, the use of violence to uproot that system, I still believe it was appropriate reading for the commemoration of this day. For as we know, the overall goal you wish to achieve and those I am aligned with will not be a peaceful act in the traditional sense of the word. The forces of capitalism will not go quietly into that good night.”

In Michigan one organizer is spreading information about this history of Attica and the September 9 Day:

“I’ve been talking to a lot of prisoners about the September 9 Day of Peace and Solidarity but a lot of prisoners knew nothing about the Attica uprising by the comrades against the injustice department of corruption of the DOCs across the country. I myself fasted on September 9 for the remembrance of the fallen comrades, but the majority of prisoners in the Michigan DOC played games, watched TV, and talked shit about the ‘new private food services trinity.’ But they aren’t for peace and solidarity.”

While this comrade found most prisoners wasting time, the seeds of discontent are there with their discussions about the food service. These seeds can be nurtured with education and organizing to build a core devoted to peace and solidarity.

A comrade at the California Health Care Facility wrote in advance of the date about plans:

“For September 9 this year my comrades and I are organizing a hunger strike to make the pigs start cleaning our unit. We live in a controlled unit that doesn’t allow porters, leaving the cleaning up to the pigs or custodians. But they never do it so we are forced to live in filth.”

On September 10 we received the following update from this same comrade:

“Update on my September 9 hunger strike. The pigs conceded and cleaned the unit. On top of that I had 15 copies made of the grievance campaign petition and had two comrades join me in flooding the listed offices with them. I provided the postage for them all since they are stingy with the indigent envelopes here. I also led a small group in which we went over the history and importance of September 9 and enlightened a few who were unaware of the struggle. I broke my fast at midnight a few minutes ago so now I’m going to spend some time in contemplation and get some zzz’s.”

Another California comrade wrote about organizing at California Correctional Institution:

“For September 9 I attempted to raise the level of consciousness amongst the inmates here on a few issues:

“1) I spoke on comrade George L. Jackson’s untimely death at San Quentin, and his particular struggle transforming the colonial and criminal mind into a revolutionary mentality. I talked about how he vied to unify the blacks and other groups. But, the reactionary system wasn’t having it one bit. So as a result of his struggles in prison he was assassinated.

“2) I also spoke on Hugo Pinell, who was also slain unfortunately during Black August, and what he stood for in terms of solidarity amongst progressive people. I also spoke on Attica’s uprising. Mao said, ‘one spark can light a prairie fire.’ And it definitely did.

“3) I spoke on how it is vitally important to end all hostilities amongst all groups of prisoners and beyond. In spite of the fact that hostilities will be fomented by the reactionary state. We must continue to vie for peace, harmony and love amongst each other no matter what. The enemy will stop at nothing to foil our efforts. It’s part of the struggle to continue moving forward until our goals can be realized, and at that we can set more.

“Also, I spoke to them about the importance of maintaining a study group here even after my departure from prison. And that each and every one of them have an inherent obligation to conduct and maintain a study group amongst themselves so that they can continue raising the social and political consciousness of prisoners as a whole.

“I did what I could to commemorate September 9. The discussion was for 2 hours. It turned out pretty well. Most of the participants didn’t have a clue about these historical events and about the prison movement in general. And of course, some had questions. About 12 people attended the group. Also, I did a thousand burpees myself to commemorate September 9. It was exhilarating and refreshing at 53 years of age, to continue to push forward in my 34th year incarcerated. Pamoja tutashinda uhuru sasa!”

Also from California at High Desert CF we received a preview of September 9 plans from the organization Abolitionist From Within:

“As the leading member of the Abolitionist From Within (AFW) I do support MIM(Prisons) and embrace as a group the five core principles of the United Front for Peace in Prisons. While AFW may not agree with every political issue MIM(Prisons) advocates, it is the issues that we both support that bring us together in this revolutionary struggle. AFW recently had our first demonstration at High Desert State Prison (HDSP), bringing together a cohesive front in reflecting, fasting and uniting to honor those nameless and faceless men of Black August and Attica (1971) by coming together in solidarity. We brought up the issues of the day affecting us and we all offered solutions from each individual’s perspective. It was a beautiful and righteous energy as we synergized, listening to each other, and offered the best of ourselves during this time. We will meet again on September 9 and try to agree on the best solutions in attacking and combating the issues that are inflicting us today from the first meeting.”

“It’s been a blessing to learn and grow from each comrade who has engaged in a solidarity demonstration with the movement, Abolitionists From Within (AFW). We came together for all the lost comrades and those that continue to struggle and unite to break the chain of injustice.

“We fasted September 8 to September 9 in a show of solidarity. Also we studied together reading books with study questions and we also read material from Under Lock & Key No. 45 and the September 9 Day of Struggle Study Pack. After reading, we came up with questions from the material and off we went back to our cells. We also shared the word with anybody who was willing to listen. Back in our cells i heard the comrades feeling like freedom revolutionary fighters and that’s what’s up! We stand in solidarity with the comrades who fought and died in the uprising at Attica. Continue to struggle with peace on our tongue.

“Here on ‘D yard’ there was nothing but peace today in solidarity with the movement and with the Attica freedom fighters. The movement prevented many young men from being swallowed by the prison culture and that’s how I feel about the MIM(Prisons) movement helping us comrades who want change, so I say stay struggling and thank for your continued struggle with us prisoners. Revolutionary Greetings!”

In California Pelican Bay also represented this September 9,

“Today was a good day. No one had any canteen or nothing to make food, but we had good conversation about Yogi’s death and how it was a benefit to the state. The hunger strike was brought up and I talked about how our hunger strike was a continuation of the struggles of Attica.

“It was hard to speak of peace when we are so close to the tragedy at Folsom, but folks here with me want peace; we have all voiced peace and how it helps us all in our own struggles. Doing the state’s bidding by oppressing other prisoners is not coming from anyone housed around me. We know that the real contradiction lies in prisoners vs. the state. Hopefully other circles come to realize this or are weeded out because Attica gave us a concrete example of what us vs. them looks like. So did the San Quentin Six and the California hunger strikes.”