in Central CA: All out to Corcoran prison Saturday as 30,000 prisoners strike for justice 7/13
The Community Alliance newspaper received this urgent call from the S.F. Bay newspaper www.sfbayview.com moments ago:
All out to Corcoran prison Saturday as 30,000 prisoners strike for justice
Headlines circled the world: 30,000 prisoners on hunger strike up and down the West Coast from the Canadian border to Mexico starving themselves to end solitary confinement. Not only are 10,000 currently held in solitary but the threat of solitary hangs like a dagger over the heads of all prisoners.
A mass strike deserves mass support. Join a caravan to Corcoran State Prison for a MASS STATEWIDE RALLY early tomorrow morning, Saturday, July 13. Pelican Bay isn’t the only California prison with a SHU (security housing unit, or solitary confinement); the Corcoran SHU holds 2,000 men in solitary.
Caravans will leave for Corcoran tomorrow morning from MacArthur BART in Oakland and Chuco’s in Inglewood at 8:30 a.m. The rally begins at 2 p.m. at Cesar Chavez Park, 1500 Oregon Ave., Corcoran, followed by a march to the prison.
Protesters should come prepared for 101-degree heat. Everyone is asked to avoid contact with police in consideration for those on parole or probation or who are at risk of imprisonment because of prior “strikes” under California’s despicable Three Strikes law. Grassroots peacekeepers will be there for you.
Please spread the word so the rally is as massive as the hunger strike!
How did prisoners in solitary confinement organize a 30,000-strong strike?
How long has it been since 30,000 people went on strike for any reason? Yet this protest – this hunger strike and work stoppage paralyzing the California prison system – was organized by men in solitary confinement. Allowed no phone calls, they’re punished even for shouting to a neighbor or “fishing” a note from one cell to the next.
So how did the organizers’ call to strike reach the cells of 30,000 other prisoners? Do you mind if we give ourselves some credit? By “we,” I mean all 2,121 of you in this email group who have so generously kept the Bay View alive and kicking.
The Bay View is the only newspaper circulated to both prisoners and the public. In California, where it’s illegal to facilitate communication between prisoners and illegal for journalists to interview prisoners, the Bay View publishes prisoners’ letters. A thousand prisoner subscribers pass their Bay Views around their cell block, and their families spread the word outside.
The result: a strike so massive it warns prison officials everywhere that justice is inevitable, that our prison system is rotten and needs to be trashed. And this time the major media is making sure they get the message.
Even the San Francisco Chronicle published an editorial yesterday that concluded:
“Interestingly, the department is blaming gang leaders within solitary confinement for the strike. If that’s true, it’s an indictment of the department – if gang leaders who aren’t even part of the general prison population are able to tell 30,000 inmates what to do, who’s in control? When it comes to its massive prison system, it increasingly looks like the state of California is not.”
Prison officials’ threats frighten some into quitting
Participation numbers dropped to about 12,500 yesterday, according to corrections officials, and now we know why. Just in this morning is this message from a prisoner in New Folsom Prison:
“Peace to the brotherz and sisterz at the Bay View. I am a prisoner – or convict – and full participant in the hunger strike and work stoppage here at CSP-Sacramento New Folsom Prison. The administration here has utilized tactics to implement a divide and conquer technique which worked for the majority of the C-Facility population.
“However the B-Facility mainline population are standing firm and not folding under pressure. There’s only a chosen few of us Afrikan brothaz left in the struggle on C-Facility with many tapping out from threats of losing materialistic privileges – threats that all our property will be taken and we’ll be placed in isolation and force fed if we continue striking.
“The Southern Mexicans are all pushing forward in full stride, and I commend those brothaz to the fullest as well as the rest of us Afrikanz that’s still with the movement. We will not give in until our demands are met and adhered to!
“CSP-Sac is imposing underground and illegal methods of discipline for participating in a peaceful protest, and we need these corrupt acts to be exposed. I conclude with love, peace and power! U’huru assasa!
“Sincerely, Asafo”
= new reply since forum marked as read
