Kite Line Radio

60 | Fighting Words

This week, we have two contributions –one closer to home and one many more miles away- but both aim to describe an unfair relationship of power each contributor’s community faces. We first hear an essay from a prisoner in Southern Illinois, followed by a statement sent to us from a member of the community of…

Read More

59 | Prison Lives Matter

This episode is an interview with Kwame Shakur, who is currently incarcerated at the Pendleton Correctional Institution. On August 11th , Indiana prison activists held a demonstration at the state capitol building in Indianapolis opposing new Indiana department of corrections regulations restricting incoming prisoner mail. The new policy prohibits all mail which is not hand…

Read More

58 | Family Values: A Conversation with Ray Luc Levasseur

In this episode, we continue our conversation with Ray Luc Levasseur. He is a former underground combatant with the United Freedom Front, which carried out a campaign of attacks from 1975-1984 against South African Apartheid and US intervention in Central America. He spent 13 years in solitary confinement after his capture. This week, he shares…

Read More

57 | Lines Should Be Drawn: Ray Luc Levasseur on Fighting Jim Crow and Surviving Federal Supermax

Ray Luc Levasseur is a former underground participant in the United Freedom Front, which carried out a campaign of attacks from 1975-1984 against South African Apartheid and US intervention in Central America. He spent 13 years in solitary confinement after his capture. In the first episode of our series on Ray Luc’s experiences in prison…

Read More

56 | Kara Wild: From the Midwest to a French Prison

This week’s story is that of Kara Wild. An anarchist prisoner from Chicago, Kara is a trans woman who has been in a French prison for over a year and a half. We first give some background on her case, and then hear from her friends and loved ones, who share some stories about Kara….

Read More

55 | Prisoner Perspectives on Reform

We cover a range of news in this week’s episode- from a brief history of Black August and the upcoming August 19th prison demonstrations, to current prison conditions in regards to education, visitation, and forced sterilization. We then read a letter from prisoner Keith Malik Washington about the continued suffering from extreme heat in Texas…

Read More

54 | Prisoner Perspectives on Collateral Damage

We start this episode with a message from Angaza, a prisoner in the IDOC system who describes recent unfair changes in prison correspondence and what people on both the inside and outside are trying to do about it. As of April first, the Indiana Department of Correction is no longer accepting any correspondence for inmates…

Read More

53 | “They haven’t deterred our work”: Ramona Africa on the MOVE 9 and State Violence

This week, we share a conversation with Ramona Africa, who talks about the MOVE 9 case, the 1985 police bombing of the MOVE house, and the relationship between this history and contemporary struggles against prisons and police violence. We also hear updates on the struggle at the medium security facility in St. Louis, called the…

Read More

52 | The Workhouse

In this episode of Kite Line, we cover the recent demonstrations outside the Workhouse in St. Louis, Missouri. On July 21, police there used pepper spray to disperse 300 people protesting conditions in a medium-security jail called the Hall Medium Security Facility, known popularly as the Workhouse. The demonstrators demanded that the jail be closed,…

Read More

51 | Communication and Resistance

Maintaining contact with long-term prisoners is key to both their survival and to ongoing struggles across the prison walls. In this episode, we hear a statement from Cindy Crabb, supporter of long-term anarchist prisoner Marius Mason, who will soon enter his 9th year of incarceration. Cindy stresses the need for us on the outside to…

Read More