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My name is Reginald Sinclair Lewis. The name of this piece is "Say Our Names." It is certainly deeply heartening to see throngs of Americans of all ages, races, educations, economic, and social strata, marching side by side. [] Rage, as they shout "black lives matter" in a powerful new civil rights movement for police reform galvanized by the televised public lynching of George Floyd before cops on the streets of Minneapolis. We are witnesses to a rage and sea of change of the country, the rapid obliteration of the old world, the burgeoning of a national and global racist consciousness and conscience.But for countless no-named black men and women behind bars our death begins with a life sentence imposed by racist white judges,  prosecutors, and juries, [transcriber could not parse] personally selected to seal our fate. They give deference to the often precarious testimonies of police officers, detectives, medical examiners, and forensic experts. Failure to follow habeas corpus in federal court is also an act

My name is Khalfani Malik Khaldun. I am calling from Wabash Valley Correctional Facility. This is my cry of support [], in celebration [] for George Floyd; power to the people and all those that are protesting around the world. All eyes are on America today.I can't breathe; I can't breathe; I am George Floyd. I sat in my prison cell watching the police kill yet another black man. Damn, again, them pigs! I can't breathe; I can't breathe; I am George Floyd. "Never again" rings true today. The blessing of power of the people has impacted states and cities with anger and justifiable disobedience. I can't breathe; I can't breathe. Why are we the only ones dying and standing around crying, while Trump disrespects us and dishonors another murdered young man in inner-city streets?I can't breathe; I can't breathe; I am George Floyd. This is our moment and our time to unify and build a real revolutionary movement, one that is self-sustaining, one that the people can win, and one that can mobilize all the poor masses of

My name is Omar Askia Ali. I'm at SCI Coal Township in Pennsylvania, and my topic today is on white men are allowed to stand on the steps of a government building in protest of their liberties being stepped on unchallenged by law enforcement. They also burned down Black Wall Street in Tuscaloosa, Oklahoma; its destruction by white mobs, which included over 300 black people being killed. However, none of them went to prison.Racist disparities expect the circumstances of black people in America: the Coronavirus and the healthcare of black people in America among other disparities, which also include the all-white jury, which is supposed to be unconstitutional, because the United States Supreme Court has ruled that this draconian, premeditated illegal move is synonymous to a high-tech lynching.However, DAs all over America do use this scheme, circumventing the high courts' ruling and rendering it impotent. My book, "The Truth and Nothing But The Truth" contains the manual that DAs all over America utilize to tra

Toppling white supremacy. I have to admit I was cautiously optimistic when protests and other acts of resistance sprang up across the nation this past month. Mainly, I was worried that the people's energy would fizzle and things would go back to business as usual, but it hasn't, and that's even more encouraging.It's more encouraging that people have begun to destroy symbolic relics of a racist past. I watched in awe and admiration as people, both young and old, topple statues of white supremacists such as Columbus and Caesar Rodney. These statues are an affront to black life and allowing them to remain would be akin to erecting a statue of Adolf Hitler in Germany. After all, Hitler was to the Jewish people what Columbus was to Native Americans. But I want you all to dig deeper, because the struggle has only just begun. What I'm about to say is heavy, and it should incite, not only your passion, but your anger and rage, and it should motivate you to complete your mission.If Columbus and Hitler are historic equ

How do you fight an unjust and racist system? Definitely not by being their good n***a. How do you find an unjust and racist system that uses the power of the state to grind people into the dirt? Currently, there's all this talk again about criminal justice and prison reform in the wake of all the violent protests resulting from the death of George Floyd. Here in New York state, the legislature was quick to pass legislation seemingly aimed at curbing police brutality.Here's my question though: didn't we already know that there was a big problem with how the police treat and interact with black, brown, and poor people? We black, brown, and poor people have known this intimately for several decades. So what has changed now? What happened to George Floyd isn't no surprise to us. So what has changed then? We have Governor Cuomo talking on TV about the systemic racism that existed in the criminal justice and prison systems, but we knew this already! What has changed now with Governor Cuomo and others now seemingly

I want to tell you a quick story about a young man who does eleven years in prison from the time he's 18. While in prison, he really doesn't learn how to be an adult or to handle adult responsibilities. Although he educates himself on some things, he never gets pushed or challenged to excel or to cultivate his potential except for the few short times his mentor and big brother is in the same prison with him.Most of his time is spent idly, not necessarily by his own choice. Prison simply doesn't offer much of anything but the bare minimum. The few mandatory programs he does have to take are superficial; they don't really conform to his reality. His reality is one mostly filled with anxiety. He fears his past coming back to hurt him. Something he can't escape. He thinks his release from prison will relieve the stress and worry, but it doesn't.The first few weeks are a dream. After his release, everyone is happy to have him home and shower him with money and gifts. Then slowly but surely, real life seeps in: wor

Institutional violence in America is a manifestation of America's ideology. It's become not just a part of American culture but the defining  characteristic. In America, might makes right, therefore those who are in power get to determine what justice is, leaving the rest of us to grapple with fundamental questions. If a law is unjust, must I still obey? Or worse, whenever I had to impose an injustice upon another, or have an injustice imposed upon me, even our struggles are an effect of America's culture of violence. The chokehold that killed Eric Garner and the knee that killed George Floyd weren't technically illegal, but they should have been, the same way that lynching still hasn't been designated as a federal hate crime or an act of terrorism.Sometimes we tend to forget that we're not really so far removed from slavery. My grandmother recently passed away; she was born in 1925, which means that her grandmother was likely enslaved and forced to endure the most heinous forms of American violence on record

THE WORLD ON FIRE, by Mumia Abu Jamal 6/7/20Guess what? The world is on fire!I don't mean environmental degradation or global warming, no, although that too is true.I refer to protests, not just all across the United States, but all around the world.Protests from London to Paris; from Berlin to Nairobi; from Toledo, Ohio, to Tokyo, Japan.Protests in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and against police aggression and racism.Protests stemming from the cruel brutality that led to the slow motion killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.The solidarity from Sydney, Australia stems in part from the long standing discontent of from the dark Aborigines the indigenous communities in Australia and New South Wales, who like Black folk in America, have suffered from generations of state repression. For example, in the recent murder of Aboriginal David Dungay, an aborigine, who like his brothers and sisters in America, his last words were ′′ I can't breathe ′′ as they choked him to death.And how have the cops re

The problem is that rich keep getting richer while the rest of us barely make ends meet. People must work two, three jobs just to live the American Dream. Many of you will have to shoulder heavy student debt just to get a college degree that you will have to pay off for most of your adult life. How has that fit? Don't we all deserve to enjoy the fruits of our labor if we're willing to work hard and earn our way? But don't we also deserve to earn a decent, livable wage that allows us to also enjoy our lives without having to work ourselves to death? Nothing is going to change until we create a people-centered economy that allows more black, Hispanic, and poor people to share in the wealth in this country.This is why racist cops keep shooting us down. This is why COVID-19 is killing us all. We lack wealth and power. People forget that not only was this country founded upon white supremacy, it is also based upon a capitalist system. For the most part, this is a dog-eat-dog economy. It's principally about competi

Now that four corrupt police officers have been charged in the murder of George Floyd, the conversation has shifted to the issue of police reform. I hear that word a lot: reform. It's popular, but most of all, it's safe. In fact, that's why police departments and politicians across the country use the word "reform" so much.We as a people need to understand the true meaning of reform so that we don't continue making the mistakes of calling for it. To reform means to strengthen or to make better. From the perspective of the ruling class, reforming the system is in their best financial interest, since it is the ruling class who benefits most from it. Working-class, poor black and brown people have no real stake in this system. Therefore reforming it means little to nothing when it comes to us.For example, when juveniles were being sentenced to life without parole, people called for reform and they got it, but it wasn't what they expected, because while juveniles are no longer sentenced to serve life without paro

My name is Sergio Hyland, and I'm from Philadelphia. Like the rest of America, prisoners across the nation have been glued to their television sets watching coverage of the uprising which resulted from the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man choked to death by police officers. As prisoners, we feel a deep connection to victims of police brutality. It takes place every day on the inside of prisons and jails in America. Each  morning, we wake up with the ominous feeling that, if any particular guard is having a bad day, our life could be taken by their hands. Just like any other black person living in the ghetto, prisoners must be extra careful during our interactions with staff. One false move, and everything that we've worked so hard for would be destroyed.And just like the police, prison guards are never forced to be held accountable for their actions. Instead, they're called heroes, but how heroic is it for six armed cops to choke an unarmed black man who wasn't even resisting? How heroic is it for

When good people do nothing, tyranny reigns. Let us analyze why people are looting and rioting in the wake of George Floyd's death. It's because people lose respect for law when the very people responsible for enforcing the law break the law and keep getting away with it. Police brutality, prosecutorial misconduct, judicial bias, institutional racism, mass incarceration are all examples of the abusive authority that angers and frustrates people. How many times have police officers killed unarmed citizens and either have gotten away with it or have gotten slapped on the wrist? When people witnessed this over and over and over again, they start to ask, "Why should I respect the law when the police don't?"But let us ask even deeper questions: where all the so called good cops? If most cops are good cops, then how can so many bad cops not get exposed until they murder someone in cold blood on video cameras? If the institution of law enforcement wasn't corrupt, then bad cops would get rooted out quick. It would be

George Floyd and state power: what do you expect to happen? The death of George Floyd is on a long list of unarmed black people murdered by the police. His death is sad and tragic. Unlike similar deaths of others, his has unleashed a national wave of violence and anger not seen in this country in decades. It revealed that issues of racism are reaching a boiling point. What upsets me is how law enforcement officials and politicians want to label the violence we are seeing as criminal. I'm not a proponent for senseless violence, but one has to ask the question: when the very people entrusted to uphold and enforce the law, who are sworn to protect and serve, turn around and murder defenseless people, what do you expect will happen? When this happens over and over and over again, and nothing really changes after all the talk, what do you expect will happen?There's going to be an erosion of law and order. If law enforcers break the law, then people will lose respect for the law. Condemning the looters and rioters

The furious struggle for justice for the late Eric Gardner, took years, long hard years. But his family and friends before a bare pittance was granted in the belated decision to dismiss the cop who choked him to death. Uncharged I might add. The name Eric Garner has become a catch word for the state of black America for decades, if not centuries, who can barely breathe free air? The phone cam recording of the police killing of George Floyd in the street.of Minneapolis, Minnesota, by a beefy cop putting his knee on the neck of Floyd provides an eerie echo of Garner's words from at least five years before. I can't breathe. Floyd, his breath cut off, cries for the person gave him life: his mama. Within minutes Floyd is gone. Eric Garner was approached by a police squad after a merchant complained that he was selling loosies or single cigarettes. Floyd was approached by several cops. After a merchant claimed he passed a forge to $20 bill. Think about that. Two men, two fathers, choked to death because of merchant

This is a report by Dennis Solo McKeithan, DB2253 at SCI Phoenix. Today, while watching the news and seeing George in Minneapolis murdered by the police sitting on his neck, it was reminiscent of so many things that happened in here on a daily basis, including what happened to myself at SCI Albion when I was being choked out. It took myself pleading. And I heard a voice saying, get off his neck, let him go, get off his neck. And that voice saved my life. And when I was listening to him say, "I can't breathe" and then call out for his mother, I sat there and I thought of all the murders of innocent unarmed black men and women over the past few months.And I look at society talking about: they need more cameras, they need more training. What people don't understand is you cannot legislate racism. That's something that's in peoples' hearts. I see it in here on a daily basis and it's the same idea: jobs like police officers, prison guards, they are magnets for white racists, because they can practice hate crimes w

It seems to me that prison officials don't want to accept responsibility for their own conduct. However, they will punish those of us who are behind these walls for the things that we do wrong. For instance, I went to law library, um, a couple of days ago, um, after not receiving my call out, so I had to, you know, speak to a couple of officers and a sergeant to try to get me down there. And then the officer there, uh, in the law library, he got extremely upset. His name is CO McKinnon, and he basically is, you know, catching an attitude with me, saying that, you know, I'm being a pain in the ass. So when I attempted to try to explain to him that the call outs that, uh, are usually passed out in the galleries, the block, weren't passed out, so I had to, you know, go through the chain of command and make sure that I was able to get down to the law library. So he receives a few calls and he just went ballistic, but instead of addressing the issue of the fact that the call out slips are not being passed out or t

After One Hundred Thousand. What happens when the counter strikes one hundred thousand? Nothing. One hundred thousand Americans dead. That means for all intents and purposes, nothing much. So does the counter stop counting? Or does it continue rolling on like the mighty Mississippi river. Is one hundred thousand an end, or just another number. And then summer begins to emerge. And people rush out of doors to get some "socializing" in. What happens in the next two weeks? A spike? A dozen Spikes? It must be said that even as the official number strikes one hundred thousand, the official number isn't the real one.For the US, you're so stingy with testing. There's thousands of people, some who died at home or never tested. How many homeless people have died? And do you really think they get tested?In times like these, all people are not created equal. For Black folk, this has been a time of irreparable loss. For many of the workers, cleaners, nurses, orderlies, bus drivers, cab drivers, and the like. Their work w

 Francis Golden: Housing Activist, Radical, and Literary Agent. Presenting. Who knows the name, "Francis Golden?" The better question may be: "Who doesn't know her?". She had spent a long and colorful life on behalf of the poor and dispossessed, and almost began it as a politician, but luckily that was not to be. She ran for the New York State Senate in 1951 on the US Labor Party ticket.And guess who led the slate? None other than W. E. B. DuBois. Labor didn't win, but that didn't stop her. Later in the 50s, she and several colleagues formed the Cooper Square Committee to fight on behalf of the residents of the Lower East Side. Fight against what? Perhaps New York's most famous city planner, Robert Moses, was trying to bulldoze the homes of some 2,400 poor tenants to make room for apartments for the middle class who could pay more money. Francis, and other members of the committee, Thelma Burdick and Walter Thabit, fought long battles against the city and almost 50 years later, over 50 in fact, homes were ope

In 2012 Frances Goldin gave an interview about her work with Mumia for the making of the film Long Distance Revolutionary (2012). This four-minute cut is a collection of some of the most poignant things she said in the course of that half-hour interview.  Transcript:I think that Mumia's body is incarcerated.  But not his mind.  I think that he lives in the whole world. Not in that cell, not in that small seventeen by eleven foot cell. It is only his body that’s encaged. He’s more free than a lot of people I know that are not in prison at all. He has broken the bounds and if he hadn't they would have let him out long ago. This man is not doing time. He is using time in a way that nobody I have ever met who is in prison has used time. Well I am a radical woman. So one day over the transom I got a manuscript from this prisoner at Huntingdon in Pennsylvania and he had written a story about prisoners on death row.  And I read it and I thought it was terrific. And I sent it to twelve people and I sold it. And that

My name is Dennis Solo McKeithan. I'm chairman of project 60, a committee underneath the Gray Panthers organization at SCI Phoenix, which is a senior citizen organization with about 900 members. The main agenda under our organization today is the Aging Out Bill. Time to establish aging out legislation. And right after having a meeting with one of the state legislators, the next week coronavirus took over the world. So that put a slowdown on everything and it brung a new step into, or a new step of adversity, into our struggle. Being that most of the prisoners in the Gray Panthers are over 60 years old, some with one leg, some with one arm, some with one eye. Most with some kind of heart condition, various other pre-existing conditions, that make you even more susceptible to the coronavirus. It has brung a new fear and a new state of anxiety, including to myself, who was in his mid 60s. And after 38 years of sitting in prison I have never seen that type of fear in elderly prisoners as I see today, including my