The whole country is in upheaval as a vast Movement for Black Lives continues to challenge white supremacy and the institutions of policing and prison. As monuments fall and precincts are seized in Minneapolis to Seattle, the lies and hidden truths of American society are being revealed. We’ve been reminded of James Baldwin’s line that…
Read MoreThis week’s episode covers the situation in the Midwest. We hear from Ben and Aaron, who work on supporting prisoners in Ohio and Indiana, respectively. Ben informs about Ohio prisoners who are still facing repercussions from the 1993 Lucasville uprising. We’ve introduced Lucasville in previous episodes of Kite Line, including an early episode focusing on…
Read MoreAs we approach the August 21st launch of the national prison strike, Kite Line is focusing on the historic and recent precedents for the current prisoners’ movement. This strike, called by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak along with a growing coalition of grassroots prisoners’ groups, is grounded in four decades of organizing, symbolized by George Jackson’s state…
Read MoreThe death penalty is the barest, most explicit aspect of state violence. Relatively few people are sentenced to death, and even fewer are actively, legally killed by the state but the death penalty persists as an assertion of the sovereign right to take life or to let live. This week on Kite Line, we’ll begin…
Read MoreThis week concludes our series on the mass escape from the Woomera immigrant detention center in 2002. Aren Aizura, who helped organize the solidarity camp outside the prison over Easter weekend of that year, tells us more about the aftermath: follow-up organizing with captive refugees, and the Australian government’s push to move the prisons to…
Read MoreWe go to the neighboring state of Ohio this week in order to dig into the history of Midwestern prison resistance. We share more of the story of Siddique Hasan – one of 5 prisoners on death row for their role in the 1994 Lucasville Uprising – as well as his organizing and his case….
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