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ORAL HISTORIES oF
NORTH AMERICAN @)
POLITICAL PRSONERS g

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“Revolutionary Women
Behind Bars”
Originaly hosted us aliv conversation by Firestorm Books,
recording available on Firstorn' youtube channel
e youtube.com watchv-RitXeoQxgs

November 24,2024

Publshed by AK Pross, Ratding the Cages: Oral Histries of North American
PoliticalPisoners s roject of abolitionists Josh Davidson and Eric King, The
ook illed with the expericnce and wisdom of over hist current and former
North Amrican poiical prisoners. It provides first-hand detal of prison e and
the poliieal commitments that continue o lesd prisoners into direet confrontation
with state authorites and insitutons.

Transcription, editng, and formatting by ev, Danielle,Josh & Jeremy with help
from Firestorm Boak.

allsbor votunteered

with whatever weapons a hand

Linda Evans was an antiimperialist political prisoner for 16 years, and
before her imprisonment she was involved in many organizations,
including Students for a Democratic Society, the Weather Underground,
and the May 19th Communist Organization. She was captured in 1985 and
convicted for her part in the Resistance Conspiracy Case. Her sentence
wwas commuted by outgoing president Bill Clinton in 2001, Linda was
imprisoned at various jails,including the DC jail and FCI Dublin. Since her
release, she has co-founded All of Us or None, a grassroots civil rights
organization of formerly incarcerated people and their familics, and she
works tirelessly with California Coalition for Women Prisoners, the Drop
LWOP Coalition, the Immigrant Defense Taskforee of North Bay

Organizing Project in Santa Rosa, and the successful campaign to free Dr.
Mutulu Shakur. Along with her partner Eve Goldberg, Linda wrote The
Prison-Industrial Complex and the Global Economy (2009).

Laura Whitehorn served almost 15 years in high security federal prisons
for her involvement in the anti-imperialist armed actions that culminated
in the Resistance Conspiracy Case of the mid-1980s. She served time at the
Baltimore City Jail, the DC jail, FC1 Lexington, FCI Alderson, FCI Dublin
(then called Pleasanton), and the high security unit in Marianna, Florida.
Laura was involved in anti-imperialist organizations including the
‘Weather Underground Organization (WUO) and the May 19th Communist
Organization, and rights and AIDS support groups. Since her release at the
turn of the century, she has been involved in a number of causes including
campaigns to free political prisoners and is a cofounder of Release Aging
People n Prison (RAPP), a community based organization founded and led
by formerly incarcerated people and family members. Laura edited and
wrote the introduction for The War Before: The True Life Story of
Becoming a Black Panther, Kecping the Faith in Prison and Fighting for
Those Left Behind (2010) and wrote the introduction to Vietoria Law’s
Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women. She and
her partner, the writer Susie Day, participated in a prison, labor, and
academic delegation to Palestine in 2016,

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Nicole Kissane i a dedicated animal rights activst who was sentenced to
21 months at FC1 Dublin for Animal Enterprise Terrorism,. Since the mid-
20008, she has passionately advocated for animal rights. After a brief
hiatus following her release, Nicole has expanded her focus, working with
local groups on prison abolition and immigrant rights. Alongside her
activism, she has also returned to school to further her knowledge and
impact

‘Eric King s a father, poet, author, and activist. In December 2023 he was
released from the supermax ADX prison after spending nearly ten years as
a political prisoner for an act of protest over the police murder of Michacl
Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. He was held in solitary confinement for
‘years and was met with violence by guards throughout his incarceration.
Eric has published three zines: Battle Tested (2015), Antifa in Prison (2019),
and Pacingin My Cell (2019). His sentencing statement is ineluded in the
‘book Defiance: Anarchist Statements Before Judge and Jury (2019). Exic
now works as a paralegal for the Bread and Roses Legal Center.

A et s
Libertie Valance: Welcome everyonel Thanks so much for joining us. My
name is Libertie, and P a member of the Firestorm Collective. Tonight,
we're excited to host former political prisoners Eri King, Linda Evans,
Laura Whitehorn, and Nicole Kissane to discuss women fighting back in
US prisons and jals

P part of the Firestorm Collective, which is a 16 year-old radical
bookstore awned and operated by a queer feminist collective in southern
Appalachia on the land of the Cherokee people. Our collective strives to
feature books and events that reflect our interests and the needs of
‘marginalized communities in the South. We're also continuing to doa fair
‘number of events, like this one, online, both because it's lovely to be able
to conneet with folks at a distance, and because we know even within our
own community there are lots of people-
related to getting to in-person programming.

Pm going to go ahead and pass it off. This is an incredible group of peaple
with so much history and so many stories. 1 look forward to hearing from
all of you!

Eric King: Here we go! I'd like to welcome everyone who's with us right
now. To you three, thank you so much. This is really, really big, and I feel
50 happy to be talking with you. What I want to start with—and ll start
with you, Nicole—r'd like to know what led you to the actions that led you.
to prison? What was happening in the world that affected you, or what did
‘you feel you had to take a stand against? What was it that led to your
incarceration? Nicole, if you want to start, friend.

Nicole Kissane: Yeah! I don't even know the timeline, but I started get
alittle bit more active with people in Long Beach in LA and started d
demonstrations against BlackRock and continuing with the SHAC case
and getting those ties to be severed. Eventually—1 mean it started before
that for me, reading books, but then I got more active as 1 got older and 1
could actually drive to places like Long Beach in LA. I grew up in San
Diego, by the way. There wasn’t much happening in San Diego, so I drove
‘mostly up there. And then... I think there was always something in me
that was like, “This isn't enough. This sn't ever going to be enough.” Then
it obviously went further along the path. Yeah, T think T ahways knew

ct action was the only thing that was actually going to make a
ifference, and so 1 fel that it needed to be me to do that.

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‘Eric King: Were you inspired by previous action? You mentioned the
SHAC7, but the ALF and the ELF, were those things inspiring to you? Or
did you just find in you that “I have to do something because this is what T
need to do?”

Nicole Kissane: Oh, no. Definitely. The ALF and the ELF... Every book I
could read on them 1 did. They were definitely people that inspired me to
be more active. Definitely.

‘Eric King: Awesome. Thank you so much. Laura, if you'd like to go. What
inspired your action? What led to those actions?

Laura Whitehorn: You know, P've been thinking about that a lot recently
because of the United States and Isracls intransigence around
committing total genocide against the people of Palestine. It made me
realize, it's sort of like... Everything I now live on stolen Lenape land, and
Twas just texting with an old friend of mine about his effort to get
involved in Land Back, which he's actually doing with Lenape Nations in
Pennsylvania. T was remembering when I was a kid all the senses of
unfairness, which now I realize it was settler-colonialism. It wasn't just
capitalism. I hated it. Then, getting involved with the Panthers, the Black
Panthers in the 60's it was like a light bulb. Part of being underground
and part of being in the Left was understanding that miseducation is a
tool of imperialism, and so we want to get in there and learn our own shit
tried to do that in school and luckily was able to some and began to
understand that there was so much, so much disparity of resources and
privilege and everything. Then, when I met the Black Panthers, I kind of
went, “Oh, duh!” It's power. Racism isn't bad ideas. It isn'tlike, “Let’s
unlearn racism. Let's change ourselves.” It a matter of power, and that's
the point. That's the way that it can be overturned.

‘That led me to... 1don’t know, Linda, I don’t know what you would say. We
went into it slightly together. We were both in Weathermen around the
same time, and we were organizing and trying to organize white working
elass people and did for many years. But also feltlike there was a power
imbalance that had to be pointed out. That's what led me into the Weather
Underground and armed propaganda. Then, what led me into the period
that gave rise to our case, the Resistance Conspiracy Case, was that the
BLA, the Black Liberation Army, the FALN, Los Fuerzas Armada del
Liberacion Nacional Puerto Rico, were both being hunted by the cops. T

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was in New York, and the New York police department was on the trail
Assata Shakur had been liberated. The Brinks expropriation had
happened. There were bombings that the FALN did, and the cops were.
getting close. So, we started doing actions to lead them off the scent to
something else. 1 have to say, I'm a great believer that solidarity is not
about statements and t-shirts even though this a really cool t-shirt.
Everyone should get one.

{Laura shows the t-shirt she is wearing representing Release Aging People
from Prison (RAPP)]

Solidari

is about what the fuck you do.
[Eric shows the t-shirt he is wearing depicting Marilyn Buck.]

Oh, nice! Oh my god, Marilyn. Oh, Marilyn Buck. Our co-defendant,
Linda’s and mine.

Linda Evans: Presente!

Laura Whitehorn: That was kind of it. You know, Russell Maroon Shoatz
said to Susie Day and me and Barbara Zeller when we visited him years
ago, he said, rage and testosterone for him, humiliation and testosterone,
that's what he said, for him and for a lot of the men. It was being
humiliated as a Black person over and over again. That sense of
powerlessness. For me, Id say it was witnessing that robbing peaple of
their humanity and subjecting them to any kind of brutality, torture, and
unfairness. Fighting back felt exactly like what I needed to do.

Eric King: Amazing. Thank you so much. Linda, would you share your
journey that led you to incarceration?

Linda Evans: Similar and different from Laura. We are honored to be in the
same generation and have shared a lot of experiences with each other.
grew up in lowa and was never exposed really even to Black people until 1
Left home and went to Michigan State University for about a year ora year
and a half. Couple different things happened to me there at that time in
‘my life. One was that I was able to go to Detroit and walk through the
inner city of Detroit. That had a profound impact on me, walking on
broken glass and seeing how people lived. For a young white gitl from

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lowa, it's very eye-opening. At that same time, my parents put me i
‘mental hospital, and T was locked up and paralyzed by thorazine. I was
locked up for about eight weeks, nine weeks, and paralyzed, I think, three
times until T could work my way to be able to get rid of it. That was the
first time I was ever locked up. As a 21 year-old, that was very radicalizing
ona very personal level.

When I got out of the mental hospital and made my way back to the
community where I was living in cast Lansing, I started to get involved in
political work. There was a crackdown on the student dorms for drugs,
pot and things like that. They raided all the student dorms, and we formed
an organization, Students for a Free University. That was a precursor to
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which was started at University
of Michigan. Bl Ayers and Diana Oughton were travelers, SDS travelers,
to Michigan State. We organized an SDS chapter there. Michigan State was
the center of police training for the Diem regime, the South Vietnamese
regime that was allied with the United States. Michigan State University
trained the secret police for Saigon. At that point in time, there were
seven different police forces that were active on our campus. There was a
lot of anti-police, anti-repression kinds of activity.

We were able to transform a lot of that into being pro-NLF support. ROTC
was there. We burned down the ROTC building, like many campuses at
that time did, of course. We were very close to Ohio, and Michigan/Ohio
was a region of SDS. We were seriously impacted by Ohio State, of course.
1 think that came a little bit later. But in 1969, I think, for me a very
seminal experience was that 1 traveled to Vietnam. 1 witnessed what the
United States did there, what genocide looked like there. The fact that
everything was being bombed. I mean, the United States at that point in
time was saying, “Oh, we're only attacking military targets.” Well, yeah,
they could call them military targets, because People’s War meant that
every place was being defended by the Vietnamese people. Hospitals had
militias that were going to defend them, just like it's happening in
Palestine now.

I think the connections, Laura, that you were drawing, the parallels that
you were drawing, I think are really important in terms of the need for us
to stand up against genocide and against how the United States is using,
these weapons of war that are keeping our economy going. Let's look at
the big picture here. That's kind of what led me to take action at that time,

5 et s
some of those experiences and those conclusions.

Eric King: Yeah! So, getting arrested is scary as shit. It s terrifying
situation, and going to prison can be very scary. I would like to know what
it was like: i you were prepared for prison? If you knew you were going o
be arrested? If you had already done prison support, so you kind of knew
what to expect? What was it ike when you were not only arrested but first
Iocked up? What were you feeling? What were you experiencing at that
time? Nicole, fire us off!

Nicole Kissane: I did some prisoner support before going in. For the most
part Iwanted total anonymity. For me, that meant no one knowing how I
\write, my handwriting, no one knowing my address. 1 wanted anonymity.
When 1 got arrested—1 still remember the day. 1 left the morning from my.
place, went for a jog, and knew I was being followed immediately. There
were these three, very much military-like, very big men following behind
me. T stopped when I knew they were following me. As they crossed,
they're like, “Oh, the slow one in front of us?” I was like, “Oh, they're
talking about me.” I was like, “Okay, somethings going to happen.” I get in
my car, and, as soon as 1 pull out, I see another car pull out, and I ike,
“Okay..” So, then L drive o my house and park, and they park, too, and
Tmlike, “Okay, something’s going to happen.” Then 1 go up to my place—
‘me and my codefendant were sharing the same place—and I was like, “Tm
being followed. Something’s happening.”

‘This was the point where I was like, “You need to get on the phone. I'm
being followed.” This is more than the normal following—because we got
followed before. Probably 10 minutes later, if that, there was a bang on the
door. It was like, “We have your arrest warrant. Open the door.” Not even
five minutes later they come in through the door. I couldn’t even tell you
‘how many they were. This is in San Pablo in Oakland, California. This was
the place I was living at. I was in a third story of an apartment complex
building. They come in, arrest me and my co-defendant, walk us down the
apartment complex. All of San Pablo is blocked off except going South. Its
blocked off. Then I get whisked away and taken to downtown Oakland.

‘That's how I was arrested. Was I prepared for it? 1 mean, how canIbe
prepared for it? You know it’s happening, right? You're like, “Okay, it’s
going to be a time,” because you see people following you. But I was not
prepared for that day. I wasn't prepared to say, “Oh, yeah, today’s the

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day.” Tjust knew they were following me.

‘Eric King: Had you mentally reconciled the fact that like, “I might go to
prison for what 'm doing?” Like, “That day will come?” Or was it kind of a
shock to you?,

Nicole Kissane: When I was doing the things I was doing, T was like, “Yeah,
' going to happen.” When, I'm not sure. But T knew it was going (o come
at some point.

‘Eric King: Yeah. Damn. Thank you. Il be back to you. Laura, if you could
tell us what it was like when you were first arrested? Were you prepared?
What did you experience when that first happened?

Laura Whitehorn: Nicole, while you were talking, 1 was remembering that
at one point I was being interviewed years ago after I got out of prison—or
maybe while I was still in—and I said, you know, I didn’t think it was legal
to bomb the capital, so I couldn’t be very surprised when I was arrested. I
had been arrested—and so had Linda—a number of times before. One
time, we did, I don’t know, a few months in Allegheny county jail and
house arrest in Pittsburgh for an action. had visited people in pri
Walpole in Boston where I had been living before I moved to New York in
77 or something, Nothing about prison itself particularly surprised me.
knew it was overwhelmingly fill of Black and brown people. 1 knew kind
of what it waslike.

Getting arrested? That day sucked. And 1 fought. Actually, this
unbelievable, but I think because I'm so little—and this has always been
something interesting for me in street fighting—is that cops look at me,
and they see me—P'm not even s feet tall—so they look for bigger peaple.
‘That gives me some running time. I actually got out of the FBI car—got out
ofit—and then they jumped me a few times. Then, I was chained up all
day toa chair. The first day was really, really horrible, because I was
sitting chained up in the FBI office and hearing that the FBL.. Marilyn and
Linda had driven to New York, and they were arrested there. 1 was just the
whole time thinking, “Please, please don't be arrested.” Let's have Marilyn
and Linda be in the wind. They came in gloating. They said, “Guess who we
arrested?” That was really shitty.

Going to prison, I think anyone who's political should not be surprised if

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they walk into a prison, because it's just like America, you know? Malcolm
X said that, I think. He said, “If you're Black, you were born in prison.” I
was in Baltimore city jail. I did my first five years in Baltimore city jail and

the DC jail. They looked just like Harlem in New York and Roxbury in

Boston. The thing that was surprising to me—and 1 learned it pretty fast—
Twas held in total solitary, you know, “Terrorist, terrorist, terrorist,” and
“Offlimits,” and “Do not talk to this person.” All that bullshit. Even with
all of that, because I was in Baltimore and DC, I had some kind of social
privilege as a white person. I didn’t realize that, actually, until one time
when there was a fight on the floor, and a cop started to beat a woman. T
jumped in and started wailing on the cop, and I never got charged wi
Afterwards, it oceurred to me awhile later.

g that was new to me—or no, it wasn't new to me—
every time I've gone to prison or jail this has been true. Once the women
that Iwas with found out T was on a political case that was about fighting
against the government and fighting in support of oppressed peaple, I was
grected with so much love and support. I never, ever, ever went without.
never lacked for anything, even before I could let people on the outside
know. The other thing that did kind of surprise me was how political
people were in a city jail who were in because they couldn't pay a $300
bail—mostly in Baltimore city jail it was sex workers, people addicted to,
drugs and maybe selling small amounts—the awareness that people had of
what was going on, and how much they wanted me to share with them
what T knew and what I had done.

1guess that’s it. Yes, 1 was a political prisoner. Susan Rosenberg and I have
laughed about this, because she’s not very big either. Every time we were
‘moved to a new prison, they would have it RET-ed. They would have
these jumpsuits for us that were huge. And they would say, “Where’s
Whitehorn?” looking around... The whole sense of political prisoners was
very, very interesting in there. 1 guess the main thing that I would say is
that what 1learned from prison over and over again, because it's a lesson
that doesn't come easily if you're brought up in a capitalist society, is the
power of collective love and support and strength. In Baltimore city jail,
the cops had a sign on my cell: “Do not talk to this person.” The women
came right past it and talked to me and tore the sign down. T remember,
inda, that happened to us in the DC jail, oo, where the administration
tried to tell people that we had tried to kill Jesse Jackson to try to get us to
be hated by the mostly—all except for us, pretty much—Black women in

ationg the cages "
there, and they just didn’t believe it. They just did.

I guess those are the things 1 would say. The last thing I want to say s that
people think political prisoners go to prison and we get treated so badly.
‘There are things, there are definitely many things—and I'm sure Susan
talked about them when she did this—about the Lexington high secu
unit, and singling us out, and telling us, “There are no political prisoners.
We'll write you up if you call yourself that.” All the extra monitoring and
all of that. T know Daniel McGowan was in a CMU, a management unit, and
experienced that. But he also saw how that happened to any Muslim
prisoner, anyone from the Middle East.

We also saw how it happened to other women. We should never kid
ourselves that being a political prisoner brings down repression that is in
its essence different from the prison system as a whole. It's a—1 don't
Know what the word is, you know, like when you boil off the water and get
the essence—it’s the essential repression, but it is not different in kind
from all those thousands of people who spend years in the hole. s just an
extra, added thing because we had the nerve to say, “This is imperialism.
1t racist. It can be overthrown.” Not just that it should be overthrown,
but the thing that they really hated about us,is that we said, "It can be
overthrown.”

‘Eric King: Thank you so much. Linda, do you have any recollections o any
thoughts about what it felt like when you were first arrested or first put
into prison? Any fears or any thoughts or just what you experienced when
that was happening?

Linda Evans: That day, Marilyn and I had gone, and we knew we were
being followed, too, Nicole. We kept trying to throw them off and thinking
we had succeeded.

‘Eric King: Shake ‘em.

was a couple day saga. It turns out that they ended up
g @ microphone on our car, so they knew where we were. They had
putit on during the journey.

‘Eric King: And you all were underground at this time?

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Linda Evans: We were. We were underground and doing surveillance. It
was actually my birthday.

Eric King: Oh, no!

Linda Evans: They just took us down and basically strip-searched us ina
parking lot I was bad. When we got there and found out that everybody
clse had been arrested also, like Laura said, it just got worse. | remember
the first night that I was locked up in that time in prison—it was actually
in jail—but at the start of it all, T had a very vivid dream of being on my
bicycle, riding my bicyele, and going down this hill, coasting down this
Austin, Texas, where 1 had lived. 1 knew where it was and

everything It was that lceting freedom dream o something.

1guess I wouldn't say that I was exactly prepared. We had done some
support work with what now has become international CURE—
United to Rehabilitate Errants, as they callit. 1's a very old-fashioned
name. It was started by two people, a former nun and a former priest:
Charlie and Pauline Sullivan who worked in Texas and worked against
Texas department of corrections, which was a plantation system at that
time—Black people working in the fields—and continues to this day. There
have been some reforms, but they were wiped out. They've been wiped
out now.

tizens

What Iwould like to say as far as the continuum of prison and things that
Ilearned...1had already been working against the klan in Texas through
the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, and working in solidarity with the
Black Citizens Task Force and the Brown Berets. Those were really.
important experiences and relationships to me. When we got arrested, 1
ended up doing about a couple years, maybe a year and a half, in

Louisiana. There, I ran into the fact that there was absolute segregation in
the prisons. It was very difficult to cross that line, because there was no
trust. It made me also have to stand up and address some of the racist
language and racist actions of the other white women. I was alone. 1 had
no comrades there, so it was very important to me to be able to do that
and to have the consciousness to do that during that time that I was there.
Twould agree also with Laura about the ways that people took care of each
other in prison. 1 want to say that that has been continued.

Eric King: That's my next question!

g theages 1
Linda Evans: .1l do the segue, guess—in CCWP, the California
Coalition for Women Prisoners —our other slogan is Caring Collectively for
Women Prisoners—we have been able to provide mutual aid and support
for alot of women inside and formerly incarcerated women outside. Ill
leave it there, because I know we're going to talk more about that.

Laura Whitehorn: I want to say something, Eric, about Linda. Linda did
time in New Orleans parish jail or whatever it was, and I did time in
Baltimore, and those jails are not fit for human beings to live in—nor
animals, T will say, and not just because Nicole’s on here. When we got to
the DC jail, there were no spoons, so you had to take a milk carton, throw
out the milk, and eat with that. There were no clothes.

Linda Evans: | remember that
Laura Whitehorn: In Baltimore city December in
freczing fucking cold, because all the windows in the jail were broken—
there were just bars and then garbage bags—women in hot pants, because
that’s what they had been arrested in because there were no clothes.

Linda and I were both in the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, and,
Linda, you just reminded me that that was true in Montgomery county
jail, too, which is the first jail [ was in. I walked in. 1t was Mother’s Day.
Everyone was drugged by the jail, because everyone was a mother and
they were so depressed. The long table where people were eating—white
women here, black women here—and the white women said to me, “Come
on, come on, and we'll give you shampoo and stuff” I said, “Thank you
very much” and sat with the Black women. 1t was like a lttle bit of an
action, but that was the way that the jails are set up.

Linda, I'm just gonna say this, I'm so sorry to be breaking this, that Linda
is an incredible jailhouse lawyer, which my comrade Mujahid Farid, who
started RAPP with me and who died in 2018, also was. I don't think people
understand what a jailhouse lawyer is and how much a jailhouse lawyer is
‘motivated by feclings of great love for their fellow incarcerated people. I
don't think that’s going to come out—Linda didn’t say it—so Ijust wanted
to say it, because she brings that to all of her work. I think it's also in this
period really important, because we're not going to necessarily be able to.
get any anything from the federal government or the state, but we can

still win, because you can sill be in your brain a jailhouse lawyer using the
system, breaking it apart from the bowels, and Linda really taught me how

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to.do tha.

Eric King: Fuck yeah! Thanks for bringing that up.

Linda Evans: The other thing about federal prison, i’ international. It s
so international. 'm sure, Eric, you ran into that, too. And Nicole. All of us!
‘The United States has turned itself always into the policeman of the
world, and this is ome way that i effects individuals. People are locked up
and waiting for detention with no legal services. s really, really difficult
for people that are waiting there on ICE holds.

Eric King: Yes. Thank you both so much. Something that gets a lot of
attention when spoken about prison to try to dehumanize prisoners is the
level of violence inside. People almost fetishize talking about prison
violence. The flip side to that coin, though, is the relationships we build
with people inside and the communities we b

‘That's something that affects me stil today. T would like it ifyou all could.
talk about friendships you formed, bonds you formed, special moments
with people inside that you shared. Things that weren't just the, “Oh, they
got stabbed” but like, “We formed a community!” Those sort of things.
Nicole,if youd like to start. Please, friend.

Nicole Kissane: Yeah, there are amazing people in prison, and I think this
narrative of “bad people go to prison,” L don't tink anybody that’ i this
‘meeting believes that, but there are a lot of people that believe that. There
are just so many amazing people in prison. I had a lot of—1 don't want to
say alot of friends—but I did. 1 did have a lot of riends, mean, friends
that would make food for me when it was my birthday, and they knew I
was vegan, and would make stuff specifically for me, which i really
amazing, Friends, during commissary we'd have rotating items, one time
it was a dark chocolate bar, they would get mea dark chocolate bar,
because they knew that's what T could have. Friends with whom we
shared really intimate moments. They were struggling because family
‘members were struggling and they couldn't do anything. The thing with
the prison system—and I think alot of people don’t knoww this—is that you
can't touch people in prison. You get a shot, which is basically—1 don't
know how to explai

Eric King: A disciplinary write-up.

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Nicole Kissane: Exactly, and it works against your good time. Most people
are trying not to get shots, because you don't want to get your good time
taken away from you. Touching s one of those things. Like a hug. Any
type of way of showing people intimacy is completely... s a shot. But
there are moments that you can share that with people. Yeah, 1 had alot of
amazing friends i there and shared a lot of intimate moments with
friends. Maybe it's different in men’s prisons, but I fecl ke in women's
was...1don't think 1 was the only person either. I think it was something
that many people shared with their friend group.

Eric King: Did you do any activism inside? Were you able to share your
views and values, or did you try to keep that under wrap?

Nicole Kissane: I shared my views and my values with the people T was
with, but Lonly served 18 months—and I know I say that, “Only 18
‘months”—but there are people that are serving longer time than me.
When I was in Dublin, and I think when people understand that you're a
short-termer, i’ like, “Don't rattle the cages too much for us who are
going to be in here longer.” I understood that. I understand. If you have
only 16 months and someone has 56 months, they're like, “Hey, neweomer.
‘You're going to be in and out of here in no time. Watch your T's.” We had
loose weights at FCI Dublin. “Keep the loose weights in there.” Sometimes.
people would bring them back to the unit. The old-timers—1 call the old-
timers —would be really mad because they're like, “We're one of the only
prisons that has loose weights, s0 knock that out and put it back, because
this is what we have, and you're gonna get this taken away from us. You're
only here for six months, so stop.” There are moments you can share with
people,but also 1 just, T didn’t feel ke it was my place t0 go in there and
belike, “Let me educate you all on this.” just didn'tfeel like it was my
place to do that.

‘Eric King: Oh, fair play. Were you in two-man cells? Or were yo
How did they do it at Dublin when you were there?

apod?

Nicole Kissane: They are four-person cells. There’s two bunk beds on each
side. Usually, they're three people in a cell, but a majority of the time it's
four peopl

a cell. You have sink and a toilet and a locker.

‘Eric King: Right. Thank you. For anyone listening, [ know Nicole
diminished it, but 15 months is still 15 months of lost freedom. It s still

o g thecages
serious time. It i still time away from your family. It is not lttle. I's not
small. It sucks.

Laura, T would love to hear about... You were inside with a lot of your
comrades, from what I've read in your interviews. I'd like to hear about
the friendships, bonds, activism stuff inside, just the things you did that
that were community-based inside prison,

Laura Whitehorn: Nicole, I so appreciate the way you said that, that
awareness of the difference in privilege that someone would have if they
were in for a short time and a longer time. I really, really appreciate
hearing that

Tjust want o say one thing about women’s prison and about prison. 1
think I should have said this when you asked about anything you learned.
Ilearned differently, and 1 feel traumatized when I read—you know, I
work with people at Center for Constitutional Rights and watched the Abu.
Ghraib trial and everything—1 have a reaction when I see the level of
brutality and inhumanity and un-fucking-believable torture that this
country, and other Western European countries and Israel, do to prisoners
and to people in general, to oppressed people. 1 remember that feeling in
prison of the lack of the right to assert your humanity. It's the basic thing.
Knowing that if you're raped... And people do. There are cases—and we've
been working together, 1 know you two have been working much more on
it, 'm sure, around Dublin and allthe rapes there—but there are... And
‘Herman Bell was almost beaten to death in prison. He can now, once he
gets out and recovers, he can sue. All of that's true, and the suits are
important. But that sense in every moment of being in prison that they
could do things to you that would destroy you for life in terms of some
‘mental thing or maybe it wouldn't destroy you. You have no recourse at
that moment. Each of us had those things done to us by men in pat
searches, where they would do—you can imagine—what they're not
supposed to do.

Thave to say that, because all of the solidarity and the fear among women
sometimes inside of being involved in resistance, because you know that
when you resist there's a big danger of them coming down on you,
whether its going to the hole or being shipped out. We had a whole
rebellion. It was very little. When the sentencing commission
recommended that the punishments for crack and powder cocaine be

oty theges 7
equalized, because the way the sentencing structure worked was so racist
and punished crack at such a higher rate than powder cocaine, and—
remember that?—there were hearings in the congress, and they didn't
change them. There were rebellions in many of the prisons, and there was
arebellion at Dublin, and the women just got moved out, until we got out.
Linda, 1 see Nicee now all the time, but she was one of my best friends, she
got—whoop!—she got moved out. I didn’t. There’s all of that, but there are
two parts for me and you.

Our comrade Dylcia Pagan just died a few months ago. We had two.
‘memorials for her here, and talking about her and seeing the slides of her
once she got out—and she was released right before or after Linda, also by
Clinton when all of the Puerto Rican independentista political prisoners
got clemency, except for Oscar Lépez who got out 10 years later. One of
my friends, SB Martell, asked me to speak at the first memorial, and so 1
just told stories, Linda, about what we used to do. The hard cheese club,
remenmber? The hard cheese club, which was like, because there were
some people—like what you're talking about, Nicole—who would come in
todo 5 months or 10 months, because even though at that point it was also
amax, women who were in max were in Dublin, but women with short
time were t00, because it was an FCL They would whine about, “Ob, the
kind of shampoo they have on commissary doesn't smell very good.” “Oh,
Ithink my hair’s getting..”And we'd be like, you know, “Shut the fuck upl”
We would say under our breaths, because one of us had a British friend
who said, “Hard cheese, chap!” Dyleia made me—1 still have it—this little
block of Swiss cheese made out of clay, and it says ‘Hard Cheese Carmen
Valentin used to say—what did she say?—“precious memories” when we
would have a good time together. We would steal food from the
commissary and make quesadillas or something and have a lttle party.

We gave each other enormous support as politicals. We wrote statements
together. We spoke by phone to rallies and stuff ke that, so we felt like
we had some agency together. But I have to say that some of my best
friendships that I formed in prison, they did happen, I mean Linda and I
have known each other for 500 years, but we became much closer in
prison. Linda, I see Apple sometimes. My cellmate. $he's from Kansas City
like Susie. I would never have known her if we hadn't been in prison
together. In my work now—and Linda’s work 1 think it’s the same-
among formerly incarcerated people and family members of incarcerated
people. I have to say, and I suggested to Josh, [ hope you guys do this,

g hecages
Eric...

Eric King: Don't spoil it

Laura Whitehorn:...to do one of these with the family members of
political prisoners and let them talk about the shit that they went through
while we were in prison. The people I work with are,a lot ofthem,
formally incarcerated women from New York state, not from the feds.
When we go to things like the National Couneil of Formerly Incarcerated
Women, then we sce our comrades from prison. Those are friendships that
last forever, because we were up against the state together. We found
ways to exist,to esist, to love, Like Nicole said it was illegal to touch, but
e did it. After a certain point, they couldn't keep writing us up. also
want to say, what Nicole described about that cell that cell was built for
one person. The cells at Dublin and other, especially women's, federal
prisons were built for one person, because it was before mass
incarceration. When first got to Dublin in 's7, 86, cither ‘w6 or 87,
remember Linda? There were two people in a cell built for one. By the
time It in99 there were four people n that same cell.I's tiny cell.
People were doing life sentences, some of them, in a cell with no place to
st

s work against solidarity, but solidarity exists anyway.
Ithinkif you ignore women in prison, and you only look at the situation,
of men, you don't see some really, really creative forms of collective
struggle, because women, we're not as big as the guards. We have to use
our hearts and our brains, which I know the men do, t00, but we really
have to pool all of that to work. If you really wanted me to talk about all
the friends in prison, we'd be here all night, and no one else would get to
talk. That's the strength of RAPP, too—I know for Linda, I'm sure that's
true. When I came to the Drop Bell WAP conference a few years ago... That
loveis palpable in all of our resistance and all of our work to try to abolish
the system, because that’s what we need. Freedom is the only eure for the
ailings of prison,

Eric King: Thank you so much. For everyone listening, to touch on what
Laura said a second ago about how if you resist you get moved and
shipped away, 1 was in prison for 10 years and was at 12 different
institutions. They are very quick to move people if you resist, so finding
solidarity and friendship with each other s a blessing,

g theages 19
Linda, could you please share with us moments of friendship, moments of

‘bonds, moments of collectiveness, that you experienced inside prison?

Linda Evans: Sure! Yeah, Tl just say that in the feds they have the
opportunity to ship you around. It's much less truc for women than it is
for men, because they don't have as many institutions. That's one of the
things that we have noticed in following up with the women that were
shipped when FCI Dublin closed is they ve been shipped all over the
United States in all kinds of holding facilities, not just prisons. Alot of
them are in MDC Miami, which is the Miami detention center. s a high-
rise prison. 22 stories high. They have “roof time.”

Nicole, when you talked about the cells,it did something to me, too. 1 have.
to say, it brought it back, thinking about the lack of privacy, the lack of
dignity. They try to rob you of that. I found so much pride in the women
that I lived with, despite what was going on. That really helps.

When I got to Dublin, 1 walked into the unit, the living unit. The cop
unlocked it, and Ida, my cellmate-to-be, was there, and her cellie had just
left. She knew who I was, and she said, “This is it! Come ont” I'was lucky,
because at that time [ lived—you know, Nicole, you'll know—in the ‘wing,’
and there were only two people in those cells. So, I went straight 0 a two-
person cell. That was very unusual. Later, when I got, you know, in trouble
for various things, I got demoted to the four-person cell.Ida, of course,
became a really dear friend of mine. She had a political consciousness
already. She had tried to hijack an airplane to Cuba to free a Black.
prisoner from the Republic of New Afika, and so she understood why T
was there, and I understood kind of why she was there. We have, stll to
this day, a very close friendship. Very important to me. Of course, the
Puerto Ricans, being there in prison with them was a tremendous boon.
My experience would have been so different without those friendships,
because we were close. We spent a lot of time together and cracked jokes a
lot and, of course, 1 was extremely lucky to be in prison with Laura and
Marilyn, my dear co-defendants. Every time 1 look at one of the quilts [
made, T think of the night that we named i, sitting in, I think it was, your
cell, Laura. Those friendships certainly created a different atmosphere
than maybe people think about.

We made friends also through some of the political work that we did and

the organizing that we did at Dublin. We had started an organization

B g thecages
there. Ithink that people have to understand, it really depends what the
administration is like in a particular prison. Who's the warden? Who's the
e warden? Every time you get a new warden, they want to take
something away.

Eric King: It always gets worse.

Linda Evans: You don't have that much to begin with, right? So, they just
keep taking and taking and taking 1 remember when... At one point, we
had our own clothes at Dublin. It was a long time ago, and they not only
took the clothes, but, then, people could have colored underwear, and
wwhen they took the colored underwear, that was a really big deal to
people. I remember that. Every administration does things differently.

Eric King: How did you get your own clothes? Was that where they mailed
itin, or did you order them off commissary?

Linda Evans: Mailed in. We had a box once a year. T even got quilting
fabric. We only had boxes, I think, a couple years by that time, maybe
three, but, yeah, you could get a box with a certain limited number of
clothing, A long time ago. That's right, Laura.

What I'wanted to say is that there at Dublin, we were inspired by the
organizing that was being done in the New York state prisons by the men.
David, I think, David Gilbert, is on the webinar, not a speaker but a
participant. David, with others in the New York state system, started
doing AIDS counseling and education, and then at Bedford Hills Judy
Clark and Kathy Boudin and many others, Cheryl, formed an organization
called ACE—-AIDS, Counseling, and Education—at Bedford Hills. At Dublin
d by the need, number one, but also by the work that was
being done in those prisons, to start an organization called PLACE—
Pleasanton AIDS, Counseling, and Education, because at that time Dublin
wwas known as FCI Pleasanton. That work was really important in creating
bonds amongst women, because we were able to go with women when
they got an HIV test or got the results from their tests, so we were able to
ive support.

We got permission from the administration. We were doing their work.
‘The health clinic should have been doing AIDS education, should have
been telling people that they didn’t need to be afraid to st in a chair where

oty theages 2
somebody had just sat who they were afraid had HIV. There was no
education being done, and it was mandated by law. So, what ended up
happening is we filled the gap, because people really, really needed to
know that they didn’t have to be afraid to talk on the telephone after
someone, and they didn’t need to shun people who were potentially HIV-
positive. There was a big process of education, and, actually, Allison
Bechdel, who's a lesbian comic strip artist, gave us perm to use some
of her comic strips from Dykes to Watch Out For, and we translated
copied and pasted, and made a big education flyer in English and Spanish
using her comie strip characters, and we got permission to distribute that
to everybody on the compound.

and

I think some of the most moving experiences that we had were when we
‘brought in the AIDS quilt into FCI Dublin. Again, depending on the
administration, that would never happen, probably, today, because..

the whole question of outside people coming into prisons
has been extremely limited both in the state and the federal systems. But,
then, we did have the AIDS quilt at FCI Dublin. We, as PLACE, organized a
showing of i, and what it made me recognize was that every single person
on the compound had been effected by HIV and AIDS, including the cops,
including the guards. That was a very unifying experience for all the
people that were inside and all the prisoners. That work was very
important,

‘Eric King: This is kind of off topic, but how many phone minutes were you
all allowed back then when you were in,like per month? Because you had
talked about the commissary changes, so I wanted to see if there were
other changes, too.

Linda Evans: 1 honestly don't remember. We could have 20 people on an
improved list. I wanted to talk a tcle about bit more about Dublin, and,
Nicole, to hear more from you, too, about Dublin, what it was like when
youwere there, because I think it's important that people know what's
going on in the federal system, because it's going to get a lot worse.
mean, i’ terrible now, but it’s going to get a lot worse.

‘Eric King: It only gets worse. It's horrible.

B g thecages
Ihave three more questions. I want to have—1 don't want to say a
comparison—but I would like just to hear how Dublin has changed, what
it was like for you all in certain ways, comparatively to Nicole.

Twas reading an interview today, and it was an interview that Marilyn and
Laura did with Susie. This was a decade ago or 20 years ago. In the
interview, Marilyn was, I forget the question, but her response was
basically like, “At some points, I'm just too pissed to want to interact with
people. 1don’t want to go to the chow hall.1don’t want to see these
people. Isit in my cell. 1 have my select friends, and 'm tired of this
bullshit” I thought that was really real. I think people get this idea that if
yowre political, or if you have powerful ethies, that you have to be this
‘grand-standing warrior at alltimes that can’t have feelings. That just
‘moved me so much. So, 1 was wonderingif you all could talk about times
where it just seemed like too much, like it seemed like, “Puck this,” or it
just hurt bad, like you just felt it, and how then you pulled yourself out or
got pulled out by others. Nicole, if you have experiences, would you like to
share?

Nicole Kissane: I created a routine for myself immediately. I went to MCC
San Diego, and I was there for a week. I’ a high-rise, 1 don't know how
‘many floors there are. There’s one floor for women. You get to go out once
aweek.On a roof, the roof opens up, you see blue sky, and that’s it I think.
there were basketball hoops, but you don't get basketballs,so don't
understand the point of that. You just walk around in basically a rectangle.
Twas there for aweek, and then I went to Prompt, which s like a holding
place unil you get transferred to another place. then got transferred to
FCIDublin. Gosh, lost my train of thought. What was your question
again? [Laughter.]

Eric King: Were there times where it just seemed like to0 much?
Nicole Kissane: veah!

Eric King: What was that like? How did you come out of that?

Nicole Kissane: Okay, that’s where I got the routine. Thank you. So,T
created a routine as soon as T went to Dublin. As soon as L hi the ground.

Chow or breakfast was 6:30. Your count call would basically be at 5:30, 50
‘you could get up and run to the shower if you wanted to. T heard it

g theages 33
immediately at 5:30, got dressed, 6:30 got to chow, went to breakfast,
came back. You had to be back before 6:30, because every move is on the,
hour. 8o, came back, changed, 6:30 would go right to the rec yard, and T
ran. Twould run every single morning, Every day. Every morning, except
Saturdays and Sundays, because that's when I got visits, but I ran. That
was the one thing that I would honestly say saved me, gave mea lot of
tolerance for a lot of things, because I found my way, because nobody was
getting up—no, I don't want to say nobody—very few people were getting
up at 6:30 to go running. So, that was my place. T actually had the field to
myselfamajority of the mornings. That was beautiful. When you're ina
facility with so many people, you don’t get time to yourself. The only time
you get to yourself—and I'll be very clear—is the shower, and that’s why
people lot of times will take two, three, four showers, because that’s the
only time you get to yourself. That's it. Sometimes you have bunkies that
arein their bed all day. That's fine. That's how they do their time, but that
means you don’t get time in your room. So, you would do showers or do.
whatever.

Iwould find that peace running, That gave me more time or more
patience, 1 guess. But there were definitely times where I just couldn’t
stand being around people. Claws was a big TV show at the time when T
was in, and everybody wanted to watch Claws. 1 don’t really know what it
was about because I never watched it, but it was like, “I can’t. 1 don’t want
to know about it. I don't care. I just want to go in my room and read.” I
would find times—and, right, this is why you respeet your bunkie—
because at that time there was three of us in the room, sometimes there
were four. You needed to also respect your bunkie. The way it worked—
and everyone can tell their story—but the way it worked is whoever got in
the room or had the room first, it's their room. My bunkie was in there for
eight years. That was her room. She got the room.

‘Eric King: Same cell?

Nicole Kissane: Well, don’t want to say the same cell, but she was at
Dublin for eight years, so it could have been the same cell but 'm not
sure. But that was her room, and we respected her rules. When she would
get out, then it was someone else’s. It was the next person in line. That
was their room. You had to respect the room, right? Most prisons, s all
about respect. You give whoever wants the room their room. You give
them respect. You go n there, and you read, and you're quiet, because you

B g thecages
don’t have that quiet time. T guess what I'm getting at is you find ways to
find little bits of peace everywhere. But, yeah. People definitely get the
best of you. I€’s inevitable in a place where there’s way too many people in
there.

Eric King: Did you have lots of visits?

Nicole Kissane: 1am very, very, very thankful. T will speak to the Earth on
that. T was in Dublin, 25, 50 minutes from Oakland, probably 45 minutes
from San Francisco. 1 had visits, and I had a partner that visited me every
single weekend, if they could. I was very, very, very, very thankful. Yeah,
grateful.

Eric King: Did you guys play games? Did you play Serabble or Uno or

anything?
Nicole Kissane: We didn't have games. They did not give us games.

Eric King: Oh, no!

Nicole Kissane: When your visitors would come, they could bring some
‘money to get the vending machine. Visits would start—1 was just talking
10 my partner about this—7:30 1 think, and you would have to be back into
‘your room before, T think t was, the 4:00 count. You had to be back, so
they did not provide lunch for you. They didn't provide anything for you.
1f you got a visit, your visitor needed to bring money, and they needed to
bring dollar bills, and, fingers crossed, that vending machine works,
because ifit didn't, you're not cating at all. That was it. You could either sit
inside and be heavily watched by guards—they watched you talk, move
‘your arms, they wanted to see if you were doing signs to cach other—or
‘you could go outside and sit down and just talk. So, always went outside.
‘Always went outside. There was this amazing hemlock tree, until one of
the wardens came, and she said, “This place needs to be a prison, not a
tree.” She said, “Take it out,” and they took out more tres. When I was
reading Rebecea's account in the book about how there was a tree in the
recyard... No. No trees. There are no trees. 1 was like, “What trec?” was
ike, “l missed a tree!” No. There are no trees. But, yeah, you did not get
games, at least not that I remember.

Linda Evans: No trees in front of the units?

oty theages 35
Nicole Kissane: No.
Linda Evans: Those willow trees? Gone.

Nicole Kissane: Oh, no willow trees. Definitely no willow trees. Gone. But
do remember there was that sign that says, “No walking on the grass,” and
they still have that sign. Yep, they still have that sign.

‘Laura Whitehorn: There's no grass, but no walking on it in any case,
should it come up.

‘Eric King: Did you two, were you able, Laura and Linda, were you both
able to get visits and have peaple come and see you?

Laura Whitehorn: Oh, yeah T was just telling someone recently about this
man named Ahmed Obefami, who sadly died a few years ago. He was a
great revolutionary member of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) and the
New Afrikan People’s Organization (NAPO). He was a good friend of ours.
He visited me when I was in Monigomery county detention center for like
3 0r 4 months, which was hell on earth. That place, the toilets were out in
the middle of the dorm. It was just a big room, there was no wall, no
nothing, and the guards would come right in. Everyone who was in that
prison—that jail—locked up for more than a month ended up with all
kinds of digestive problems. He came and visited me there. Because it was,
adetention center, they had visiting 24 hours a day, and he visited me at
‘midnight when he was traveling. Anyway, we got a lot of visits from the
political prisoners tradition, mostly in Dublin we got more visits
Something about visits, okay. For all those years, I was in all those
women's prisons. We would go and walk into the visiting room, and it was,
full of women visiting the women. There would be a couple of men. The
women were the mothers, the sisters, the friends bringing the kids. All

When I got out, when I got off parole, the first thing I did—which it was
thanks to Linda that T knew that I could apply to get off parole after five
years, supervised release—I went to visit Herman Bell, who was at that
point, I think, in eastern Napanoch in New York. Walk into the visiting
room. Guess who's in the visiting room? All women. It was just amazing
Who supports incarcerated people? If you looked at the movement, alot
of times you would think it was men. Nothing personal. Present company

3 g thecages
excluded.
Eric King: You're right!

Laura Whitehorn: Men are people, oo, But it was fucking women who
support the people who are in prison. For me—and Herman and I have
talked about this in particular—every place I was I would find some
beautifl thing, There would be—in that same Montgomery county lock
up, which was awful,the fluorescent lights on over your bunk all night
and allthat—there was one lttle sliver of a window. You could look out,
and there was a tree that you could see. I would Iook at that tree. When T
wwas in Dublin, remember, because there did used to be an outside
visiting area, and in the yard, too, there were burrowing owls...I's an
army base, basially, that has prisons on it, and it’s in the foothill,sort of
between Sacramento and San Francisco, and, yeah, very close to Oakland,
butit'sin the country, and you could see

n the distance.

Like Nicole said, you never could be alone. One time I was kind of glad
when got sent to the hole, because I was in a unit in Lexington—
Lexington was the worst; Lexington, Kentucky—because you were in a
unit with hundreds and hundreds of women and four telephones. I should
have said that before when you asked how many calls we could get. It
didn’t matter, because—and the phones were always broken—there were,
what, six phones or four phones for 200 women. Something like that, I
can’t remember the numbers. For women, what was available was terrible.

Ido want to say, I think in the movement—T'm so glad you're doing this
one with the three of us—because of the overwhelming number of men in
prison, alot of people think about the movement and about people in
prison, they pieture men. The incarceration of women is also an act of
genocide, because the women we were in prison with—Black, brown,
Mexican, Indigenous—they're in prison during their childbearing years,
from their 20's up to, in some cases, given long sentences now, until 0
and 90, but certainly even with shorter sentences. They either can’t have
kids or they can't take care of their kids, and the destruction of
generations is part of the UN definition of genocide, as if the UN had any
‘meaning anymore after not being able to stop the genocide of Palesti

But that was definitely true. There were days when I would hear a mother
on the phone erying, wailing, because she’s talking to her sister who's

oty theages 27
trying to raise the incarcerated woman’s daughter, and the daughter has
gone missing, and they can't find her, and they think maybe her father,
who sexually abused the mother who's in prison, has... You know, that
kind of shit. Sometimes you feel like it's in the walls, that kind of suffering
and pain. There are times like that, but, 1 do have to say, Linda and I were.
Iucky because we were together. We were with Carmen and Dyleia and
Marilyn and Lucy and Alicia and then Apple and Ida and Hamdia.

Laura Whitehorn: All the women I just named, when they get ou, they're
doing something to try to abolish prisons, either directly through the kind
of work that Linda and 1 do, or indirectly, like Carmen, teaching about it
That doesn't end.

‘The last thing I want to say. The resistance is what kept me going. I think
all the time about this moment at Lexington, when we wouldn't go in for
count. We all gathered in the main yard. We were resisting. The next day,
we all got shipped out and, shit, we got a lot. But it was warth it, because
at that moment—the sacrosanct moment in the federal system s count—
and the fact that we wouldn't go in, and they kept saying to us, “What's
wrong with you? You have to go in for count! You have to go in for count!”
We went “Ha hal” We looked up at the sky, and it reminded me of that
‘moment that the Attica rebels talked about when they looked at the night
sky for the first time in their sentences and saw stars and felt free. You,
carry freedom in your heart at some point, and the kind of resistance we
talked about before, when Linda talked about the AIDS work, that’s what
keeps you going when you feel like you can’t do it anymore.

‘Eric King: We carry freedom in our heart

Lind, so this was originally going to be about—this question—about
Marilyn and feelings of hopelessness inside and coming out of it, and, if
you have examples of that, Id still like to hear, but 'd also like to hear
some of your visiting stories, or other stuffinside prison that maybe we
didn't touch on enough that you'd like to share.

Linda Evans: Well, T think what I would like to share, since we don't have
that much time left..

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Eric King: We got all the time you need. We'll find the time.

Linda Evans: Laura talked about the rebellion that happened at Dublin. 1t
was relatively small compared to what the men were doing, which was
burning down administration buildings at their prisons, but people did get
shipped out. I think the most important thing that happened from that
time is that a couple of the women who were labeled as the organizers of
\what happencd-—I mean, some fires were set, and we were out at
‘midnight, which was fun—but they got rounded up the next day, and
some of them were put in FDC Dublin, which was the men's holding
faclity. The guards opened up the cell that the women were in for money,
and they were raped.

Eric King: No!

Linda Evans: Oh, yeah. As a consequence of that, those women ultimately
g0t out and got some settlement, but it was the beginning—1 o' think it
really was the beginning—but it was one of the milestones, et's say, in
‘Dublin's history of sexual abuse. Nicole, you were there even more
recently, so1 think you probably can talk about some of those specific
guards, but Ibelieve cight of them now have been convicted of sexual
abuse...

Eric King: One of the wardens!

Linda Evans: .including—T mean, Nicole if you want to say something—
the one that got me the most, 1 have to say, is one of them was a chaplain!
A chaplain! If you understand prison, where you're in along time, a lot of
people that's how they surviveis religion, is their faith. Particularly at
Dublin, T willsay that young Latin American women were extremely
religious and freaked out, because they were away from their country,
away from their family. They were not speaking English, and the only.
place they had refuuge was the chapel. I can only imagine the preying—the
preying, preyin g—the predator that was the chaplain, and hes been
convicted. But Nicole, ' sorry. You have more information.

Nicole Kissane: I was not surprised when I saw it being exposed. While T
wwas inside, there was three wardens. I believe the first warden left before I
even got there, so we didn't have a warden for a couple weeks, until the
second warden came in. She came in, and she was there the majority of

g theages 20
the time I was there. Then, right when I was leaving, she was leaving as
well.So, then there was going to be a third one, which I believe was the
guy that came in, thankfully. Not thankfully, but he came in

Linda Evans:

ne of the people convicted was also a warden.

Nicole Kissane: Yeah, I guess that’s why “thankfully.” He got convicted.
When 1 first read—1 was reading names—and I was like what about... The
biggest person, for me, was a counselor, which was Daryl Smith. He was
the worst in mine. He was—and I was in Unit E, he was my counselor in
Unit E I remember correctly, you had a unit manager, and then you had
a counselor. When first got there, he was never there—and just so
everyone knows, you have to cither see your unit manager or your
counselor to get your visits, to get the visit papers, and to also get your
unit number—most of the times, you get them at MCCs or holding
facilities that then ship you there, but if you're aself-surrenderer, you
have to go to those people to get the number, so you can then get money
on your books or get a phone call or any of that. They were never there,
but he was definitely never there. Finally, when he did come in, because
everyone was like, “Oh you're in Smith's..” L was like, “What do you
mean?” They're like, “Just watch out. He has a type, and he likes them
young, and he likes them Latina.” I was just like, “I don't understand what
that means” They're like, Just watch out”

Imean, he would come in—and I'm sure you all see his picture—he would
‘make smirks, he would definitely look in your room. Most of the time, for
privacy—you don’t get privacy, but people found ways to make privacy—
you put pads in your window if you're going to the bathroom, or you put
pads in your window if you're changing. Dublin had blinds—or not blinds,
curtains. Eventually, when I was leaving, they took them out, so people
could actually see into your units, which—PRIA, if nobody knows is the

n Rape Elimination Act—and that's what gets touted about, like, “Oh,
if yowre having an issue, call PRIA” It doesn’t do anything. He would
always peek in your things. At one point we had longer shower curtains, T
don't know who implemented it, someone implemented it to shorter
shower curtains, and he would make his rounds more often, he'd walk
around more often. There was one time... Everyone knew something was
wrong, 1 mean, like something is wrong with this guy. I remember there
was an incident where a person—and I don’t know if she ever came
forward—but a person was like, “U'm done. I'm not dealing with this

o g thecages
anymore” and she was shipped immediately. The next day she was
shipped. He was walking around the unit smiling the whole day when she
was shipped and put into the shoe.

‘The chaplain... The chaplain, he was... He would walk around... The
chaplain... 1didn't go to church all that often or go into that area that
often, but when I would, because they would have very limited classes,
but Twould go in and meditate, and he'd check in and then walk away..
‘There was a CMS, which was another guy that was in there, because, as far
asTknew, there weren't cameras in a lot of places, and the CMS was one of
the guys that got caught, too, and that's where that was happening. In
commissary, that’s where the other guy got caught, doing it in the
commissary truck. There were a lot of places that they... Everybody knew.
‘That's what Pim getting at. Everybody knew what was happening. There
wwere guards... [ remember one of the people who was there when I first
got there, she got a job in the kitchen, and I still know about this guy, his
‘name is Connor. He cornered her in the kitchen and said, “I can do
whatever I want with you right now, and no one will ever believe you.” He.
didn't get called out yet, so do I believe he probably did that? Probably. He
knew he could get away with .

Iwas never going to... I was like, “Tll stay away from the kitchen as much
asThave to.” But every single guard knew what was happening there.
Every single guard. The warden knew. Everybody. To be like, “Oh my god,
this doesn’t happen.” Yes, it happens at every single prison. Absolutely.
And the fact that people are
not. It is not a rare incident. Every single guard knew what they were
doing, Every single guard knew what was happening. There was another
‘guard that put money on girls’ books and they were... He was getting
caught. He got caught. He said, “I'm done with Dublin,” went to another
federal government facility and got caught, because he was... I forget what
the video streaming system was. You could video stream with people. He.
got caught, because he was doing it with multiple people.

e, “Oh, this is just a rare incident.” No. It s

Linda Evans: Oh my God.

Nicole Kissane: He had muliple people on the books. He didn't even get
charged. Nothing happened to him. They were pulling in the gils like,
“Did anything happen to you?” And they're like, “No, nothing.” Because
they didn’t want to get chipped, right? FCI Dublin is the only federal

g theages 3
Nicole Kissane: Now ' closed. Exactly. People that have family from
anywhere in California, it was a lttle bt closer..

Linda Evans: 1 want to tell people what happened there. Actually, some
lawyers who had clients that were facing deportation during Covid were
trying to get access to their clients, and they couldn’t get into Dublin.
They kept trying, kept trying. When they finally got in, they found out
that the guards weren’t wearing masks, which was required on all federal
property at that time, and there was a massive outbreak of Covid. Over
200 peaple got sick because of the violations of that. But these lawyers
were so determined, and they were so amazingin that they did not just
speak up for their clients. They took on a class action lawsuit, and it the
process of that class action lawsuit, which is going to go to trial in the
spring of 2025, and these individual convictions of the guards that led to
something unprecedented.

Never happened in the history of the federal bureau of prisons. Number
one. A judge came to the prison and spent the entire day. Anybody could
walk up to her and talk to her for however long they wanted, and that was
the judge in the class action lawsuit. So, she saw firsthand the conditions
in the prison. Women told her all kinds of information, not just about
sexual abuse, but about medical conditions, about dental, mental health
care, their cases, they could tell her anything. She came back to the
courtroom and appointed a special master to oversee FCI Dublin. Never
has that happened before. That special master was tasked with reviewing.
everybody’s case to find out—because they had been stealing people’s
good time. T know you guys know about that. People should have been
released. There were issues with the way that the Covid quarantines
fucked up people’s release dates. All kinds of stuff. So, the special master
was tasked with reviewing everybody’s case, hearing all their complaints.
Five days later, Dublin was closed.

Because the bureau of prisons will not tolerate oversight. They still have,
not responded to a judiciary committee letter from the senate judiciary
that was signed on by 18 representatives and senators requesting specific
information. Colette Peters, the head of the bureau of prisons lied, just

S g thecages
lied through her face about, oh, yes, “The closing of FCI Dublin was
planned for many weeks.” I mean, really? Five days after the special
‘master was appointed, you're going to try to say that? And, of course, the
women from Dublin were scattered everywhere, so any family ties that
they had built amongst each other were separated, were blown to shit,
and their family ties with people that were visiting them were blown,
because they were mostly east of the M; pi. They are treated like
shit. Everywhere they go they are demonized by the guards. They'll get to
the chow line, and suddenly there’s no main dish left, because the cops
have taken it, because the Dublin women got released for cho.

‘They're being discriminated against really seriously, and their cases never
got reviewed, so probably a lot of them should be released anyway, but the
saga of FCI Dublin will continue, and that class action lawsuit s going to.
trial in the spring.

Eric King: Thank you all so much. Thank you for letting me be here and
hear your stories and experiences. We are running out of time. T could talk.

to you three honestly for goddamn 17 hours.

Twould like to know—this

basically our last question—but I'd like to
know what release was like? Sometimes we walk out of prison with a lot
of trauma, and we carry that hurt, and it doesn’t always just go away. It
doesn't go away because we're free. Sometimes we stay active, and we.
take that anger out on these motherfuckers, and we keep fighting them
until all these doors are open.

So,Twould like to hear about what your release was like and what your
freedom has been like since being released? What you're doing? What
you're experiencing? All of that. I’ an open question, but take all the time
you need, please, to tell me about what your releases were like? If you've
had trauma, and how you work through it? And, then, what you've been
doing since being free? Nicole, if you want to jump us out.

Nicole Kissane: Release was...So, 1 did't get halfay house time. 'm
going to throw that out there. 1 didn't get any. I never was told why.
Basically, it was, “You get out July 16th. That's it” T was like, “Well, what
about halfway house time?” “Oh, their beds are full” I got out str
‘my house right away. It was on a Friday. 1 was thankful, because I didn't
have to check in with my CO until Monday, so I had the weekend.

oty theages 3
‘Eric King: Ohhh.

Nicole Kissane: Yeah, which was really nice. But got out, and I isolated
myself, to be honest. I didn't talk. 1 mean, obviously, my welcome, like my
“Welcome home everyone!” was there, but lisolated myself. 1 was angry
at...Lwas angry. T was definitely angry, but 1 was also angry at a lot of stuff
that went down with my case and my co-defendant. Istapped talking to
my co-defendant before I was sentenced. So, there’s a lot of anger and a lot
ofhurt and a lot of misunderstanding with the Animal Rights Movement
i that there was still support for him after my relcase statement was out
for him and after another person came out with a release statement. 1 was.
just angry at the Animal Rights Movement in general because...

And this is where Lisolated a lot more when it came to that movement,
because how can you support people who are doing this for sentient
beings, and when they're talking and coming out and saying, “This is all
the trauma I endured from this person.” And you're like, “Yeah, but it's
okay, because they helped animals.” I was out. I was done. I was like, “See
youlater. P'm good.” So, T isolated myselfa lot, and I kind of did my own.
Ididn't have therapy. I didn't have someone connected. T had job, got
into that. Thad a CO. My first CO was okay, honestly, and kind of let me do
my thing, checked in with me when he could. He was just like, “Okay, do
your thing”

Disolated. 1 didn’t want to talk to people—or not that I didn’t want to talk
to people—1 talked to the people that were close to me, but the friendships
Iereated when I had letter writings and everything when 1 was in, 1 kind
of dropped the ball on it. T was like, I just want to understand what I went
through in a movement that 1 thought supported me, but only supported.
me inaway that 1 didn't..” They didn’t want to know what happened.
‘They're like, “Okay, we're good. Keep that for something else.” I kind of
felt that way. So, yeah. That's how it was post-release for me. Tisolated
myselfalittle bit.

‘Eric King: What are you doing now? How do you feel now?

Nicole Kissane: I'm fecling more connected than have been ina long
time, so thank you. 1 appreciate being here. Now, I'm more focused on
abolition and doing work on borders. That's my goal inlife, and that’s
where I'm sceing my focus, honestly, in border work, It needs to crumble.

S g thecages
Eric King: Where you're at right now, are you comfortable? You have a
home? A job? Your life feels all right? Feels good?

Nicole Kissane: Yeah, I'm in a spot where I'm very comfortable and very
supported, and the people around me very much support me, and I love
them. But it took me a while to work around it. Because after prison, and
especially with that, 1 didn’t trust anybody, and especially with what
happened after that, and when I was working through... There’s a lot of
trauma that happened with my co-defendant and me, and nobody knew. 1
kept that so secretive, because I was like, I don't want to hamper their
support.”So, when that person came out, and they're like, “Do you
support this person?” 1 was like, “abso-fucking-lutely not. No, 1do not.
do not.” All my amazing support team, they're like, “We're on it. Don't
worry. We've got this for you.” 1 want to give hugs to everyone, because
they were amazing, and they supported me, and 1 fel the love every
‘minute. P'm good now, and I'm okay to talk about it now, but for a while
was very angry.

Eric King: Nicole, 1 love you, dude. I'm 50 happy. I'm so happy you're free.

For anyone listening, when Nicole got released, she took what was left of
her commissary money and distributed it among some of us. 1 could not
afford phone calls at that time, and Nicole’s money came, and I was able to
talk to my wife because of Nicole. That's why I started erying while you
were talking. T was like, “You didn't deserve this bullshit, dude.” You
didn't deserve these people to treat you that way. You are amazing. I'm so.
thankful for you. Sorry for getting all emotional. I'm sorry.

Laura, please, tell me your stories about being released, and what you've
been involved in. If there was trauma, please. If there was joy, please. Just
what you went through when you were released, and what you're doing

Laura Whitehorn: Nicole, 1 am so sory you went through that. 1 don't
know anything about it. 1 want to say about our movements, and
especially the political prisoner movement, ignoring trauma, especially
when it's inflieted by people that we think are heroes, wil
than anything else. That goes for sexual predation within the movement,
and it gocs for any of us being cruel to each other and not supportive, Alot
of shit like that.

us faster

g thecages 38
Lalways say T am the luckiest person in the world. T went to prison. I faced
75 years for a variety of reasons involved with some legal stuff. The cops,
the FBI did a totally illegal search of the apartment where Linda and
Marilyn and lived. A lot of stuff. I ended up with only 23 years, and, then,
because of the sentencing structures, the prison computation structures, [
only did a little more than 14. | met—because she came in to interview me,
Linda, Marilyn, and Susan—I met Susie Day. We fellin love. She stuck with
me, even though I was a butthead in many ways, and we won't talk about
that now. She can talk about that if she wants when she’s on.

‘Eric King: Oh, she will!

Laura Whitehorn: I got out, and she was waiting for me. I have a totally
supportive sister. 1 had—we had—built alot of support, which then we
had to struggle to make sure that the support and the awareness of
political prisoners that came because we were white anti-imperialists
would still function in building the support for all of the Black and Pucrto
Rican political prisoners who were still in. got to do that with some
amazing people, who, i I started naming them, we'd be here all night
Then, because of the AIDS work we had done, and this was Linda’s idea,
she suggested that I ry to get a job at POZ magazine, and 1 did, as an
intern at $8 an hour in the beginning. I stayed there for I can't remember
how many years, but brought a consciousness of people in prison with
HIV, AIDS, and hepatitis C to that magazine. They're wonderful people.

Ihelped them be aware of and start work against HIV criminalization
laws, which was very fulfilling to me that they were able to do that. Alot
of stufflike that. Then, my old comrade and Linda’s, Kathy Boudin and our
dear lawyer, Maryn's lawyer, Sophia Elijah, and I met Mujahid Farid, when
he got out of prison after he'd done 33 years on a 15 to life because of
parole denials. We started Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP), and
because I said that thing about jailhouse lawyers before, but because Fay
was a brilliant jailhouse lawyer, we didn’t do legislation. We did
regulation. We got in there and changed regulations. We pressured the
governor to appoint different commissioners and stuff. We were able to
contribute to the success of all of the New York state political prisoners
who were in then getting out on parole and clemency.

Iremember that I used to say to Susie, because RAPP, a community-based

organization is not an easy thing. People who come into i, all the family

5 g thecages
‘members of incarcerated people, have enormous trauma in their lives.
‘Enormous problems. It's exhausting, and it’s tiring, and it’s its sad, and 1
was old. said to Susie, “You know, if we could just get Herman out,”
because we had become such good friends. “If we could just get Herman
out.If we could just get David Gilbert out. If we could just get Seth Hayes,
ifwe could get Jalil out, T can retire.” They're all out, and I'm sill in it,
because I actually love it so much, even though it’s such a struggle. We've.
been going now for, this is our 11¢h year working. Unfortunately for all of
us, Kathy and Farid have both died. But we have an organization of a lot of
women and femmes who were isolated before they found RAPP.

‘We deal with people with life sentences. We deal with people who are the
“hard cases” that most of the movement when we started wouldn't touch,
the people with life sentences. Peaple with homicide. People who you
can't say, “Ohall they did was..." You know, “They really needed money,
sothey sold a bag of dope.” No, this is murders. It has been some of the
‘most fulfilling work of my life, and the fact that we are, I believe, rais

the ability to abolish the prison system, all of us together, is mag;
Andit’s discouraging. And it obviously not happening next year. But T
love it. And I still get to work with Linda, because we have something
called Death by Incarceration s Torture. So, that's where I'm at. 1 am the
luckiest person in the world, because I did what I wanted to do. Idid time
forit. To be in prison sucks, but if you have to be in prison, and you're in
prison with the people that Linda and I named before, including Apple,
Nadine Ferris, and Ida and everyone, Hamdia, then yow're a very fortunate
person.

Tean't say T've kicked the trauma. I think part of my freaking out every
fucking day—1 go to every demonstration I can about what Israel is doing
and the United States supporting i, so frontally—part of my visceral
reaction to that comes from what I talked about before, about that sense
of, when all of a sudden you realize you have no power to defend yourself
in that moment. Every time we hear about, you know, another bombing or
the rape of prisoners.

Ijust want to say one thing about Palestine since P talking about it. This
wwas true when Susie and I were on that that delegation we talked about.
Palestinians, the Palestinian movement supports their political prisoners
full force, but they don't do it as a series of individuals. You don’t hear
people talk about, “Ob, the sacrifice that this person made.” That's why I

oty theages 37
react to when people talk about political prisoners as heroes or whatever.
In Palestine, support for political prisoners is an occasion to expose the
nature of the genocidal zionist regime, and the resistance toit, and the
fact that people under those incredibly horrible conditions —where
settlers just go hog wild on the Palestinian peaple whose homes they are
stealing, all of that level of brutality—still people are capable of resisting,
and they do, and they are, and that’s what the promotion of the issue of
“Free Our Political Prisoners” s in Palestine. I feel like for us, that has to
beit, too.

Tdlike to hear, Id like us to talk more about how we resist than how we
suffered, even though I think that has to be talked about, too, because it
exposes the system.

Oh, another thing about how we use trauma, because this was taught to
me by someone on one of our trips, our advoeacy trips where we talked to
the legislators. People talk about their experiences in prison and talk
about being strip-searched all the time, talk about their children being
taken away. Aterwards, we come together, and we hold each other, and
sometimes peaple cry. There was a rabbi in one of the groups 1 was in one
time, and she said, “I really respect you all for re-traumatizing yourself for
the sake of justice.” I thought, “Oh, that really says it perfectly.” So, that’s
what we do.

‘Eric King: That's really beautiful. Thank you so much.

Lind, i you could talk about your release, any traumas you suffer still or
then, what you've been up to since then, and just how your life is doing,
would really love to hear i, please.

Linda Evans: Like Laura, feel like P the luckies person in the world
sometimes. So privileged, so privileged. 1 fecl privileged because it's been
raining for three days here, pouring rain. I'm warm and dry. There’s alot
of peaple in our town and our county and our country tht are freczing.
My release was sudden, because 1 had put in a clemency petition to the
president like many, many, many people do in the federal system, and [
got released. 1 got a presidential clemency, so 1 was released suddenly. [
will el the story of how that happened. My lawyer, Debbie Katz, a lesbian,
knew the awner of the women's bookstore in Washington DC. That owner

5 g thecages
of the bookstore also knew the lesbian chief of staff for president
and brokered a phone call between Debbie and the chief of staff. They
talked for, Debbie said, over an hour, and at the end of the conversation,
Debbie said that the conversation went so well, the woman said, “T'm
going to put the petition on the top of the pile,” whatever that means, and
‘Debbie had to say, “You know she was convicted of bombing the capitol”
[Laughter.] The woman said, “That won't be a problem.”

We received word—my partner, Eve, whom I also had fallen in love with
who visited me because of a series of odd circumstances—she received a
‘phone call from somebody that saw it in the newspaper, and so Eve heard
it.1 called Eve in the morning, and she said, “Well?” I said, “Well, what?” 1
idn't know about it. She said, “You're getting released today!” I said,
“Don't...'m good.” I had just talked to my friend, Brenda, who had a
sentence and was a Native American in the Four Winds Club. She said,
“Every year 1 learn something new.” That's how she did her time. T have
this good attitude here, because we had expected to hear something
‘maybe. Here I was! There, it happened. People were in the visiting room,
visiting Marilyn, and took me to Oakland. It was very, very shocking. 1t
wwas shocking,

Eve drove up from Los Angeles where she was living. T had about a month
in Oakland and then got my parole transfer to Los Angeles and moved in
with her. Our relationship has managed to survive all this time. We're
‘married. T'm really, really lucky. 1 will say that after, when we lived in Los.
Angeles, we moved because Isaw a listing on the Black Radical Congress
website about a job at the Center for Third World Organizing, It was
‘mostly people of color. T thought, “That'd be a good place to work” It
turned out that it was to defend a grant that had been written to the Soros
foundation for a fellowship. I received the fellowship, and that money
enabled me tolive, to be part of organizing, and starting All of Us Or None.
That effort was very, very important

Ithink that its eritical that we have been organizing formally
incarcerated people to believe that we have power and the power to
change things. We started a campaign that has affected formerly
incarcerated people, people with convictions, in many of the states—1
think a majority of the states now—called Ban the Box that eliminated the
question, “Have you been convicted of,” whatever, “a crime by a court?”
from the employment and housing and student loan applications. That

g teages
was a very big deal. The initial applications by law can no longer have that
question in both public and private employment in some places. I think,
that was important work.

Now I'm doing a lot of work with the California Coalition for Women
Prisoners around life without parole sentences and trying to eliminate
LWOP in California. Like Laura was saying, it's extremely rewarding work
tobe with people that have shared the kinds of experiences and traumas
that we have and to work with their families. We've tried a variety of
approaches and have not been successful getting our legislation through,
but we have been somewhat successful in some of the re-sentencing
efforts that we're making. s a process, but we have a statewide coalition.

Ijust wanted to say that I think what we have to look out for now is a real
increase in construction of prisons and the filling up of prisons because of
mass deportation, which is going to start happening, The private prisons
are poised to make a profit like they have never made before, because
they are the ones that are going to be tasked with building these detention
camps. I think i’s going to be eritical for all of us to pay attention to this
construction and to oppose it every single place that we can, because the
immigrants that are being locked up are our friends, our family, our
neighbors, people that we work with. That is going to be, I think, the point
ofthe spear for the Trump administration. He's going to start it right
away. He's got his people in place. They're evil, evil people, and they don’t
care if families are separated, if children are ripped from mothers’ arms.
‘They don't care. They like it

Ifeel very, very strongly about the need for everybody to come out and
oppose the construction of those prisons and build the community
structures that we need to protect people. This s not just people from
Mexico or Latin America. This s people from Africa, from Haiti, from
Palestine. It's incumbent upon us who know what the prison system s
like to act to oppose the construction and really build the solidarity, build
the love that we can share with people.

‘Eric King: Thank you so much. I'd like to thank you all, the three of you.
‘This has been probably my favorite talk I've ever done. It was really
inspiring, and I hope everyone listening understands that we can do this.

o g hecages
‘We can fight this fight. We have people that have been talking to you that
are still doing it despite all they've been through and despite how much
the world has changed. They're still fighting and finding ways to fight
Please, let that motivate you.

Talways end by encouraging people to write prisoners. My wife wrote me.
in prison, and that's how we met, and we are still together 11 years later.
‘This book came together because Josh Davidson wrote me in prison, and
wwe became friends. That's why I get to talk to you all now. Please. It won't
just change their life, it might just change your lfe. It might change the
world. Please write a prisoner. Thank you all so much. Libertie, you can
close us out, friend,

Linda Evans: Thank you so much, Eric and Josh.

Libertie Valance: I's been an incredible conversation. Thank you. T had
almost nothing to do. Ya'll did it all It was incredible. 1t was such a
beautiful conversation. 1 hope everybody has a great evening

Eric King: 1 love allthree of you so much. Thank youall.
Libertie Valance: Good night, folks.

Linda Evans: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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People, Places, Events, & Organizations
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) — an international animal rights

campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), an animal-testing
company based in the UK and US. SHAC was one of the most successful
grassroots animal rights campaigns n history, utlizing mass sbove and
belowground direct actions targeting not just HLS but also its material and
financial supply chains. HLS were brought to the brink of bankruptey on
‘multiple occasions, and over 500 companies were pressured to quit doing
business with HLS, including their insurance company. Activists also managed
o et HLS dropped from the New York Stock Exchange, eventually stopping
their stocks from being publicly traded altogether. Many activists associated
with SHAC faced repression. In 2006, the SHAC 7 were arrested in an FB raid

and were the first activists to b charged under the Animal Enterprise Terorism
Act. During the trial, the defendants were prohibited from providing evidence of
animal ruelty taking place at Huntingdon Life Sciences testing lsboratories. Six
of the activists were sentenced to betwween one and six years in federal prison.

‘Animal Liberation Front (ALF) — an international, leaderless, decentralized,
mostly anarchist movement engaged in direet actions aimed at opposing animal
cruelty and liberating animals. These actions include removing animals from
laboratories and farms, damaging facilties, providing veterinary care, and
establishing sanctuarics for the rescued animals. Some of the aims of the ALF
includes To inflct economic damage on those who profit from the misery and
exploitation of animals. To liberate animals from places of abuse, L.
laboratories,factory farms, fur farms ete, and place ther in good homes where
they may live out their naturallives, ree from sulfering, To reveal the horror
and atrocities committed against animals behind locked dors, by peforming
nonviolent direct actions and liberations To take all necessary precautions
against harming any animal, human and non-human. Many activists associated
with AL have faced and are still facing repression. See also: The
Northumberland 2, Daniel Andreas San Dicgo.

Earth Liberation Front (ELF) — the collective name for autonomous individuals
ar covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use “cconomic sabotage.
and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the
environment.” ELF “monkeywrenching’ i carried out against facilities and
companies involved in logging, genetic engincering, GMO erops, deforestation,
sport utility vehicle (SUV) sles, urban sprawl, rural cluster and developments
with larger homes, energy production and distribution, and a wide variety of
other activities, ll charged by the ELF with exploiting the Earth, its
environment and inhabitants, The Earth Liberation Front has no formal
leadership, hierarchy, membership or official spokesperson and is entirely
decentralized; instead consisting of individuls o cells who choose the term as &
banner 1o use. Techniques involve destruction of property, by either using tools

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to disable or the use of arson to destroy what activists believe s being used to
injure animals, people or the environment. Many activists associated with ELF
have faced and are still fcing repression. See also: Marius Mason, Dariel
MeGowan.

Black Liberation Army (BLA) — an underground Marsist-Leninist, Black-
nationalis guerrill organization composed offormer Black Panthers (3PF) and
Republicof New Afka (RNA) members who served aboveground before going
underground, that ook up arms for the iberation and selfdetermination of
Black people in the Uited States. By 1970, police and FBI sabotage
(COINTELPRO) inflration,state sepression, and assassinations had
signifcantly undermined the BPP. This convinced many former party mermbers
of the desirability of underground existence, sccing that a new period of viclent
repression by the U. federal and local government seas at hand. According to
Geronimo Pratt (AKA Geronimo i Jaga) the BLA "as a moverment concept pe-
dated and was broader than the BPP.” suggesting that it was arefuge for ex-
Panthers rather than a new organization formed throvgh schism. And according
t0 Assata Shakur's autobiography, “the Black Liberation Army was not a
centealived, organized geoup with a common leadership and chain of command.
Instead, there were various organizations und collctives working together and
simultancously independent of ach other.” The BLA would partcipate in
attacks on police, expropriations, prison beaks (notably Assata), plane
hijackings, and other actions n the struggle for Black iberation. Many political
prisoners have been captured mermbers of the BLA,some of whor are sl
imprisoned to this day.

Puerzas Armadas de Liberacién Nacional Puertorriquefa (FALN) — Armed
Forces of Puerto Rican National Liberation — a Pucrto Rican clandestine
guesrilla organization that, through dircet action, struggled for u Puerto Rico
independent of US colonization. The FALN was founded in the 19605 and was one
of several organizations established during that decade that promated.
clandestine armed struggles against the colonial forces of the United States. The
FALN was founded following decades of persecution by the FBI, including llegal
imprisonments and assassination sgainst members of the Puerto Rican
independence movement. Throughout their actions, the FALN would str
for the frecdom of political prisoners from the previous generation of
independenistas. In 1999 the sentences for 16 captured FALN political prisoners.
were commuted by Bil Clinton. E1 Ejército Popular Boricus / Los Macheteros
would succeed the FALN in the armed struggle.

‘Assata Shakur — a Black revolutionary and a member of the Black Liberation
Army (BLA) who escaped from prison and lives frec as a maroon in Cuba. Assata
became involved with Civil Rights protests while in community college in New
York City in the mid-60's. After graduating from CCNY, she moved to Oakland,
California, where she joined the Black Panther Paty (BPP), working with the

g teages 43
party to organize protests and community education programs. Ater returning.
to New York City, Assata led the BPP chapter in Harlem, coordinating the Free
Breakfastfor Childsen program, free clinics, and commaunity outreach, Assata
joined the BLA, an offshoot of the BPP whose members were inspired by Third
World liberation struggles, engaging in guerilla warfare against the US.
government for Black liberation. On May 2, 1973, Assats, along with Zayd Malik
Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were involved in a shootout with the police, during
which Zayd was killed and Assata was wounded. Ater Assata's capture, between
197 and 1977 she was indicted ten times, resulting in seven different criminal
rials. On November 2, 1979, Assata, alter ix years of imprisonment (where she
birthed her daughter, Kakuya Shakur) escaped the Clinton Correctional Facility
for Wormen in New Jers

visiting her drew concealed 45-caliber pistols and a stick of dynamite, seized
two correction officers us hostages, commandeered a van and (with the
assistance of members of the May 19 Communist Organization) made theis
escape. Despite one of the largest police and FB1 manhunts in history

made her way to Cuba, where she has continued to reside to this day. Assata is
the author of the books Assata: An Autobiography, Stil Black, Sl Strong, with
Dhoruba bin Wahad and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and many articles and poerns.

when three members of the Black Liberation Army

Assata

Release Aging People from Prison (RAPP) — led by formerly incarcerated people
‘and fumily members of people in prison, RAPP works (o end mass inearceration
and promote racial justice through the release of aging people in prison and
those serving long sentences. For more information: sappeampaign.com

Marilyn Buck — an anti-impesialist revolutionary who was imprisoned for her
participation in the 1979 prison escape of Assata Shakur, the 1981 Brinks
expropriation, and the 1963 US Senate bormbing. Marilyn joined Students for
Demoeratic Society (SDS) during the height of activism against the Vietnam war
whille at the University of Texas. 1n 1967 she moved to Chicago where she edited
the SDS newsletter New Left Notes, and incorporated Marxist feminism into the
organization's politics.In San Francisco, she worked with Third World Newsreel,
amedia collective that showcased anti-imperialist and anti-colonialis struggles
around the world. Convicted for purchasing ammunition for the Black
Liberation Army in 1973, she was sentenced 1010 years in prison, furloughed in
1977, nd went underground instead of returning to prison. After her capture in

she was sentenced to 80 years in federal prison, where she wrote on
women in prison, political prisoner support, and revolutionary poetry. Marilyn
passed away on August 3, 2010, days after her release.

Russell Maroon Schoats — a Black revolutionary and member of the Black
Liberation Army (BLA) who escaped multiple times from prison, carning the
name "Maroon.” Maroon grew up in Philly and as a part of his gang activities
spent his youth in and out of reform schools and youth institutions. During the
carly and mid 60's, Maroon become politically active n the Black liberation

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‘movement, co-founding the Black Uity Council, which later merged with the
Philadelphia chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1965, In August 1970, at the
height of the state repression of the Black liberation movement, Maroon and
four others became fugitives (“The Philly 5%, after a police officer was killed ina
retaliatory attack on a Philadelphia police station. From August 1970 to Januiary
1972, the date of his capture, Maroon was active on the armed front of the Black
Liberation Army. Maroon was sentenced to life after his capture and conviction.
In September 1977, Maroon three other Black prisoners liberated themselves
from the Huntingdon state prison in Pennsylvania. Two of them were
recaptured., another was killed, but Maroon remained free for a month, flecing,
from a massive “slave hunt” by local, state, federal, and milita forces. In March
1980, Maroon and another Black political prisoner of war iberated themselves
after a Black sctivists smuggled a revolver and sub-machine gun into the
institution. Al three were captured after a gun battle with local, state, county,
andfederal forces. Despite enduring over 22 consecutive years of solitary
confinement, Maroon organized liberation schools n the prisons, and remained
committed freedom fighter. Maroon was granted compassionate release in
202, after sullering from cancer. Maroon passed away less than two months
Iater, on December 17. Masoon is the author of Maroon the Implacable: The
Collected Writings of Russell Maroon Shoatz, The Dragon and the Hydra: A
Historical Study of Organizational Method, and an autobiography, I Am Maroon:
The True Story ofan American Political Prisoner.

Students for a Democratic Society (8DS) — a national student activist
organization in the US during the 19608 and was one of the principal
representations of the New Left. From its launch in 1960 it grew rapidly in the
course of the tumultuous decade with over 300 campus chapters and 30,000
supporters recorded nationwide by its st national convention in 1969. The
organization splintered at that convention amidst ivalry between factions
secking to impose nationsl leadership and dirction, and disputing.
“revolutionary” positions on, smong other issues, the Vietnam War and Black
Power. Ina decision to elfectively dissolve the organization (marches and
protests won't do "), one fuction resolved upon armed resistance. In alliance
with “the Black Liberation Movement,” a “white fighting force” would "bring the
war home.” On October 6, 1969, the Weathermen planted theis frst bomb,
blowing up a statue in Chicago commemorating police officers killed during the
1886 Haymarket Riot.

Bill Ayers — former militant organizer and co-founder of the Weather
Underground (WUO), revolutionary group that sought 1o fight American
imperialism. During the 19605 and 19705, the Weather Underground conducted a
campaign of bombing public buildings in opposition to US invelvement in the
Vietnam War and in solidarity with the Black Liberation Movement. The
bombings caused no fatalitis
group's devices accidentally exploded. Bill became involved in the New Left and

except for three members killed when one of the

oty theages 45
the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). He rose to national prominence as
an $DS leader in 1965 and 1969, The group Ayers headed in Detroit, Michigan,
became one of the carliest gatherings of what became the Weathermen. Before
the June 1969 SDS convention, Bill became a prominent leader of the group,
which arose as result of a schism in SDS. Later in 1969, Bill participated in
planting s borb at a statue dedicated to police casualties in the 1886 Haymarket
affsi confrontation betwween labor supporters and the Chicago police. Bill
participated in the Days of Rage riot in Chicago in October 1969, and in
December was at the “War Council” meeting in Hint, Michigan. Bill participated
i the bombings of New York City Police Department headquarters in 1970, the.
United States Capitol building in 1973, and the Pentagon in 1972, Ater the
bombing, Bl became a fugitive and, together vith Bernardine Dohi, led
underground. In 1973, new information came to light sbovt llegal FBI
COINTELPRO operations targeted against Weather Underground, after which
Bill's charges were dropped. Bill s retired professor, co-author of the political
statement of the Weather Underground, Prairie Fire, and author of other books,
including Fugitive Days: A Memoir.

Diana Oughton — revolutionary member of Students for 4 Democratie Society
(SDS) and the Weather Underground (WUO). After graduating frorm colle

Diana traveled to rural Guatemala, an experience which sedimented her radical
beliefs. Returning to Michigan, Diana became a teacher at a community school,
met Bill Ayers, and became full-time organizers with SDS, where she helped
create a women's liberation group. Four events in 1968 turned Dians and many
others into self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries: the Viet Congs Tet
Offensive, the student sit-in at Columbia University, the near-revolution in
France, and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. With the split of
DS in 1969, Diana and Bill joined the Weatherman fiction. In August 1969, Diana.
participated in an SDS delegation that traveled to Cuba for the third meeting
between Vietnamese and American delegates. Diana was one of the many
arrested during the Days of Rage riots in Chicago 1969. Diana and other members
of the WUO were assembling bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse when one
of them exploded, killng Dians, Ted Gold, and Terry Robbins, as well a injuring.
Kathy Boudin and Cathy Wilkerson, who were helped out of the wreckage and
subsequently fled

National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF) — aka Viet Cong (VC) — the
communist-driven armed movement and united front organization in South
Vietnam that fought with North Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and
United States governments during the Vietnam War. Many of the fist Viet Cong,
were Viet Minh, the communist-led nationl independence coalition led by Ho
(hi Minh, that liberated the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from French and
US-support. The Communist Party of Vietnarm approved a People’s War on the
South in 1959, for which the VC formed the NLF, a united front that called to
“overthrow the disguised colonial regime of the imperialists and the dictatorial

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¢ conlition administration.”

administration, and to form a nationl and democrat
‘The US would inerease support for the South Vietnamese colonial regime from
900 troops in 1961 10 536,000 by the end of 1968, which inflicted untold suffering,
destruction, orture, massacres, and extermination. The VC and the NLF
exemplified the tactics of guerrilla warfare with the theories of Vo Nguyén Gilp.
After the Tet Offensive in 1967, which coincided with an increasingly militant
anti-war movement in the US, the US would begin withdsawing by 1969, and
peace accords were signed by 1972 In 1975, the North Vietnamese People’s Army
in the Ho Chi Minh campaign would capture Saigon in the South, re-unifying the
country.

Maleolm X — a Black revolutionary and Nation of Islam spokesman. During the
Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X advocated for reedor “by any means
necessary.” After leaving the Nation of slam, Malcolm traveled to Alrica and.
West Asia, meeting with revolutionary Pan-African socialistleaders such as
Kwame Nkrumah, Ben Bella, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and others. Before his
‘assassination, Malcolm converted to Sunni Islam, and after completing the Hajj
10 Mecea he became known as “el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.” Malcolm connected
with the communist Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and advocated
revolutionary Black internationalism, before he was assassinated on February

Susan Rosenberg — spent sixtecn years in high security federal prisons for her
involvement in the ant-imperialist armed actions that culminated in the
Resistance Conspiracy Case of the mid-1950s. Her sentence was commuted by
outgoing president Bill Clinton in 2001, Susan was imprisoned at the Lexington
high security unit at FCI Lexington, the first maximurm security prison for
swomen in Marianns, Florids, and FCI Danbury, and she also spent time in the DC
il She was involved in the May 19th Communist Organization, the Puerto
Rican independence movement, the movement to Ban the Box, and the
successful fight for the release of longtime political prisoner Dr. Mutul Shakur.
Susan published the book An American Radical: Plitical Prisoner in My Own
Country.

‘Daniel MeGowan — & member of the Certain Days collective, and former
political prisoner from Qucens, NY. He works with NYC Books Through Bars and
the Anarchist Black Cross Federation (ABCE). At the end of 2005, the FBI opened
a new phase of its assault on casth and animal liberation movements —known as
the Green Scare—with the arrests and indictments of a large number of activists.
‘This offensive, dubbed Operation Backfire, was intended to obtain convietions
for many of the unsolved Earth Liberation Front (ELF) arsons of the preceding
ten years—but more so, o have a chilling effect on all ecological direct action. OF
those charged in Operation Backfire, nine ultimately cooperated with the
government and informed on others in hopes of reduced sentences. Four held
ot through a terrifying year, during which it scemed certin they would end up

g theages 47
serving decades in prison, until they were able to broker plea deals i which they
could claim responsibility for their actions without providing information about
others, including Daniel. A “terrorism label was applied to Daniel’s sentence, and
he was ultimately sentenced to 7 years' imprisonment, He relcased on probation
inJune 2015

John Brown Anti-Klan Committee (BAKC) — an ani-racist organization based in
the US that protested against the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other white
supremacist organizations and published anti-racist literature. Members of the
JBAKC were involved in a string of bombings of military, government, and
corporate argets in the 19805, The JBAKC viewed themselves as anti-
imperialists and considered African Americans, Native Americans, Putto
Ricans, and Mexicans to be oppressed colonial peoples. The JBAKC was started in
1978 by a group of white anti-racist activists with tis to the Weather
Underground. They named the organization after abolitionist John Brow, who
advocated and engaged in violence s a means to end slavery in the US.
‘According to founding member Lisa Roth, the event that triggered the formation
of the group was the discovery that the KKK was actively organizing in New
York State prisons. In 1950, the John Brown An

pamphlet entitled “Take Stand Against the Klan", which outlined the group's
“principles of ity Fight White Supremacy in All 1t Forms! Death to the Klan!
Support the Struggle of the Black Nation for Self-Determination! Support the
Struggle to Free the Land! Follow Black and Other Third World Leadership
Support the Struggle of Third World People for Human Rights! Oppose White
Supremacist Attacks!

Klan Committee distributed a

Dylela Pagan — a revolutionary Puerto Rican member of the FALN who received.
asentence of 55 years for seditious conspiracy and other charges. As a student at
Brooklyn College she helped organize the Puerto Rican Student Union which
resulted in the formulation ofa student-controlled Puerto Rican Studics
Department. By the carly 19705, she began a career as a TV producer and writer
developing investigative documentaries and children's programs. She worked
with the Puerto Rican Media and Education Council, which

lawsuits against the major television stations which fuciltated the local public
affsis programaming that sl exists today. She also worked us the English editor
of the blingual daily, El Tiempo. Dyleia and 11 others were arrested on Apil 4,
1980, in Evanston, linois. They had been linked to more than 100 bombings or
attempted bombings since 1974 in their attempt to achieve independence for
Puerto Rico. None of the bombings of which they were convicted resulted in
deaths or injuries. When she was arrested, her young child, whose safety she
feared for, was hidden from the government, While in prison, Dyleia Dyleia
released in 1999 when her's and 16 other's sentences were commuted. She

ed a series of

returned to Puerto Rico where she spent her final years. She passed away June

s ey thecages
Berets — Los Boinas Cafés — a Chicano liveration organization that
emerged during the Chicano Movement in the late 19608 in the barrios of the
Southwest and fought for the self-determination of Chicano people. David
Sanchez and Carlos Montes co-founded the group modeled after the Black
Panther Party. The Brovn Berets was part of the Third World Liberation Front
and worked for educational reform, farmworkers' rights, and against police
brutality and the Vietnam War. One of the many serve the people programs the
Brown Berets set up were free health clinics. Like other groups at the time, the
Brown Berets were extensively sabotaged, infiltrated, and repressed by the
police and FBL

California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) — a grassroots abolitionist
organization —with members inside and outside prison-—that challenges the
institutional violence imposed on women, ransgender people, and communities
of color by the prison industrial complex (PLC). For more information:
womenprisoners.org/sbout-us

Herman Bell — a former member of both the Black Panther Party and the Black.
Liberation Army, and he was imprisoned for forty-five years. Herman was
captured in New Orleans in 1973, and eventually he, Jail Muntagim, and Albert
Nuh Washington were convicted of attacks on police. Herman was slso
implicated in the San Francisco 8 case and pleaded guily to a lesser offense. He
spent five years imprisoned in the federal system, n the Marion control unit for
tawo of those years, before spending decades in various New York State
‘maximum sceurity prisons. While imprisoned he was commmitted to community
work, and he s a founding member of the Victory Gardens Project and the
Certain Days Collective. He was released in 2016, after his cighth parole hearing,

Osear Lépez Rivera — a Puesto Rican revolutionary who was a member and
suspected leader of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional Puertorriqueiia
(FALN), a clandestine guerrilla organization devoted to Puesto Rican
independence that carried out more than 130 bomb attacks in the Urited States
betaveen 1974 and 1983, Oscar Rivera declared himself a prisoner of war and
reflased totake part in most o his trial. He maintained that according to
international v he was an anticolonial combatant and could not be prosecuted
by the United States government. Sentenced to 55 years in federal prison, Oscar
was not disectly linked to any specific bombings, and released in May 2017,
having served 16 years in prison,longer than any other member of the FALN.

U, President Bill Clinton offered him and 15 other convicted FALN members
conditional clemency in 1999, which Oscar rejected the offer on the grounds that
ot allincarcerated FALN members received pardons. Oscar Lopez Rivera, Entre
la Tortura y la Resistencia,a collection of his letters, was released in 2011

Carmen Valentin Pérez — a member of the FALN, an armed clandestine group
sehich fought for Puerto Rican independence from the Usited States during the

g theages 49
19705 and 19805, On April, 4, 1980, the US government captured 11 Purto Rican
women and men and accused them of being mermbers of the FALN. All 1
declared themselves prisoners of war,since Puerto Rico has been militarily
occupied since the US invasion in 1896, As anti-colonial reedom fighters, they
completely refissed to recognize US jurisdiction and demanded to be ried by an
international tribunal or set Iree. Carmen was sentenced i, 1980 for seditious.
conspiracy and other charges on February 18, 1981 to 50 years imprisonment.
Carmen was released casly from prison after President Bill Clinton extended a
clemency offer to her and 16 other FALN prisoners in 1999, after which she
returned to Puerto Rico.

Republic of New Afrika (RNA) — a Black nationalist organization in the United.
States popularized by militant Black liberation groups that argued that Black
people in the US constitute a subjugated internal nation or internal colony. The
larger New Afrika movement in particular has three goals: Creation of an
independent black-majority country situated in the Southeastern United States,
i the heart of an area of black-majority population. Payment by the federal
government of several billion dollars in reparations o Alrican American
descendants of slaves for the damages inflicted on Africans and their
descendants by chattel enslavement, im Crow Liws, and modern-day forms of
rucism. A referendum of all African Americans to determine their desires for
citizenship; movement leaders say their ancestors were not offered a choice in
this matter after emancipation in 1865 following the American Civil War. The
vision for this country was irst promulgated by the Malcolm X Society on March
21,1968, at a Black Government Conference held in Detroit, Michigan. The
conference participants drafted a constitution and declaration of independence,
and they identified five Southern states Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia
‘and South Carolina (with adjoining areas in East Texas and North Horida) as
subjugated national territory. Robert E. Williams, a Black sevolutionary and
founder of the Black Marxist Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) who was
then living in exile in China, was chosen s the fist president of the RNA
provisional government

David Gilbert — a lfelong anti-imperialist who was captured and imprisoned as
aresult of an attempted expropriation of a Brinks truck in Nyack, New York,in
1981 He was sentenced to seventy-five years to lfe but his sentence was
commuted by outgoing Governar Cuomo, and he was released from prison after
nearly forty years in November 2021. Though he spent short stints at MCC-NY
and other federal prisons and jails, David spent the majority of his orty-year
incarceration at the six maximurm secusity men's prisons in New York (Attica,
Auburn, Clinton, Comstock, Wende, and Shawangunk prisons). While in prison,
David was a cofounder of the Certain Days Colective, and he also helped pioncer
AIDS aneareness programs that saved thousands of lives in prisons scross the
country. David wrote numerous zines,including Our Commitment Is to Our
Communities: Mass Incarceration, Political Prisoners and Building a Movement

S et thecges
books—No Surrender:

for Community-Based Justice. He also wrote thry
Witings from an Anti- Imperialst Political Prisoner; Love and Struggle: My Life
in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond; and Looking t the U.S. White
Working Class Historically (z017).

Judy Clark — a member of the Weather Underground and the May 10th
Communist Organization (1), Judy joined Students for a Democratic Society
(5DS) whilein college, and later co-founded the Weather Underground (WUO),
participating in the Days of Rage uprising in Chicago. She went underground,
was arrested and briefly incarcerated; aterwards she lived in New York City, co-
founding M19.In the early 19505, M19 linked with the Black Liberation Army
(BLA)to carry out bank expropriations. After her capture after the Brinks
expropriation, Judy was sentenced three consecutive 25 o ife terms for murder
in the second degree. While imprisoned. Judy became involved in HIV/AIDS
activism, and published articles in Social Justice. Judy released on parole in 2019,

Kathy Boudin — a white American revolutionary who served 23 years after the
Brinks expropriation. Kathy was a founding merber of he Weather
Underground Organization (WUO), which engaged in guerrilla struggle against
American imperialism. In 1969, Boudin was founding member of the
Weatherman faction of Students for a Democratie Society (SDS), which in 1970
became the WUO. In 1970 Kathy and Cathy Wilkerson, who were the only
survivors of the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, fled underground
where Kathy remained a fusgiive for more than a decade, engaging in multiple
additional bombings (none of which resulted in injuries) and other militant
actions. In 1981, Kathy and several ormer members of the Weather
Underground, with current mermbers of the May 19th Communist Organization
‘and the Black Liberation Army, robbed a Brink's armored car. Captured after the
expropriation, Kathy contributed many writings in prison, including articles and
‘poems, s well s continued to organize, especially with AIDS education. Alter
her release in 2003, Kathy worked at AIDS clinics, post-release health support,
‘and education. Kathy passed away on May 1, 2022

Rebecea Rubin — received a fiv
committed in support of the Earth Liberation Front during the lte 19905 and
carly 20005. A shy animal lover from Vancouver, Canada, Rebeca found herself
o the run for seven years before surrendering to face draconian charges in the
midst of the Green Scare. She served four years and four months and spent
several months in various holding faclities and Oregon jils before spending
two years imprisoned at FCI Dublin in Californis, followed by time in a reentry
centerin Portland and then home confinement. She did notle this time impact

year sentence for her involvement with actions

herlove for nature o her sense of humour.

New Afrikan People’s Organization (NAPO) — The New Afrikan People’s
Organization (NAPO) was formed in 191, From it beginnings, the NAPO was o

g theages 8
coalition-based organization, ocused largely on cadre-building and developing
the grassroots support for a New Alrikan nation-state. Rather than secing
themselves as the immediate leaders of a political movement, the NAPO directly
centered the local organizing struggles of various New Afrikan formations und
attempted to bridge their collective struggles towards establishing the nation-
state. In contrast to the PG, the NAPO was very expliit about being a
revolutionary socialst, Pan-Africanist organization. The NAPO was clear that
democratic centralism would be a key component in faclitating the
development of their state power. In contrast o civil rights movement-era
organizations, the NAPO made it very clear in ts ereation that socialism was o
core component of the NAIM. They recognized their struggle for iberation as
intrinsically inked to other Black people abroad, specifically under the political
objective of Pan-Africanism, defined as “the Total Liberation and Uification of
Africa Under Scientific Socialism” s laid out by the All-African Peoples
Revolutionary Party (AAPRP). The NAPO carsies the most obvious, direet
relationship to the PG's organizing legacy and has since continued to spawn
more organizations relevant to this present moment. In its most The most
prominent formation active today that s directly tied to the founding and
development of the RNA s the Maleolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM)

Robert Seth Hayes — afler the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.and the
social upheaval which followed it, Robert Seth Hayes joined the lack Panther
Party, working in the Party’s free medical clinics and free breakfast programs.
Like many other activists, Seth was forced underground by FB1 and police
repression of the Panther movement. Once underground, Seth joined the Black
Liberation Army. In 1973, following shootout with police, Seth was arrested and
convicted of the murder of a New York City police oficer, and, while maintaining
his innocence to this day, sentenced to 25 years to ife in prison. Imprisoned for
nearly forty years, Seth has long since served his sentence. Seth first came up for
parole in 1998, but prison offiials have refused 1o release him, focusing on his
involvement with the Black Panther Party and his knowledge as to the
whereabouts of Assata Shakur and not his conduct while imprisoned. While in
prison, Seth has worked as librarian, pre-release advisor, and AIDS counselor,
mentoring younger prisoners and continuing to struggle for his people. Seth
passed away at the age of 72 on December 24, 2015.

Jlil Mutagim ol was 19 years okd when e was arrested. He's a former
member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, and was one
ofthe longest held plitiea prisoners in the world.Jalil was born October 15,
1953, in Oakland, CA. His carly years were spent in San Francisco. Jali
participated in NAACP youth organizing during the civi rights movement. In
high school, he becarme a leading mermber o the Blck Student o, often
touring in speak-outs.” Aer the asassination of . King, Jall began to belicve
amore miltant response to acism and injustice was necessary. He began to
ook towards the Black Panther Party for Slf-Defense for leadership and was

S et thecges
recruited into the BPP by schaol friends who had since become Panthers. Two
‘months shy of his zoth birthday, Jalil was captured along with Albert “Nuh"
‘Washington in a midnight shoot-out with San Francisco police. While in San
Quentin prison in California in 1976, Jail lnunched the National Prisoners
Campaign to Petition the United Nations to recognize the existence of political
prisoners in the United States. Progessives natiomwide joined this effort, and
the petition was submitted in Geneva, Switzerland. This led to Lennox Hinds
and the National Conference of Black Lawyers having the UN International
Commission of Jurists tour U, prisons and speak with specific political
prisoners. The International Commission of Jurists then reported that political
prisoners did in fact exist i the United States. In 1997 Jallinitiated the Jericho
Movement. Over 6,000 supporters gathered in the Jericho 98 march in
Washington D and the Bay Area to demand amesty for US political prisoners
on the basis ofinternational law. The Jericho Amnesty Movement aims (0 gain
the recognition by the U.S. government and the United Nations that political
prisoners exist in this country, and that on the basis of international aw, they
should be granted amnesty because of the political nature of their cases.

Allof Usor Nome (AOUON) — project of Legal Servicesfo Prisoners with
Children,is a grassroots organization led by formerly-imprisoncd peaple
committed o fghting for the human dignity of currently and formerly-
incarcerated people,and thir respective family mermbers,as well asagainst the
systemic discrimination fcing therm while in captivity and upor thei relcas.
“Through thei grussroots organizing, AOUON is building a powerful political
movement to win full retoration of their buman and civil ights.For more
information: prisonerswithchildren.org,

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Write to Political Prisoners
‘mentioned in this conversation

Smart Communications/PA DOC
Joe-Joe Bowen® #AMa272
sCl Tayette
Post Office Box 33028
St Petersburg, Florida 33733
*Address envelope to Joseph Bowen

Kojo Bomani Sababu* #39384-066
FMC Butner
Post Office Box 1600
Butner, North Carolina 27509
“Address envelope to Grailing Brown.

‘nycabe.wordpress.com/write-a-letter/

g thecags
Write to Political Prisoners
‘mentioned in this conversation

Kamau Sadiki® #0001150688
Augusta State Medical Prison
3001 Gordon Highway
Grovetown, Georgia 30813
*Address envelope to Freddie Hilton.

‘Smart Communications/PA DOC
Muhammad Burton® AFss96
SCI Somerset
Post Office Box 33026
St Petersburg, Florida 33733
*Address envelope to Joseph Bowen.

nycabe.wordpress.com/write-a-letter/

ationg the cages
Write to Political Prisoners
‘mentioned in this conversation

Marius Mason #04672-061
FMC Fort Worth

Post Of

Fort Worth, Texas 76119

Box 15330

‘nycabe.wordpress.com/write-a-letter/

g thecags
Rattling the Cages

1) Political Prisoners, Mass Incarceration, & Abolition
Eric King, Herman Bell, David Gilbert, Susan Rosenberg

2). Continuing the Struggle Inside & Out

Eric King, Ashanti Alston, Ray Luc Levasseur

3) Antifascism Behind Bars
Eric King and David Campbell

4) Black August & Prisoner Support
Eric King, dequi kioni-sadiki, Harold Taylor

5) Eric King in Conversation with James Kilgore
Eric King, James Kilgore

6) Post-Prison Activism & Archiving Resistance
Eric King, Jake Conroy, Claude Marks

7) Until All Are Free
Eric King, Jason Hammond, Jeremy Hammond

8) Revolutionary Women Behind Bars

Eric King, Linda Evans, Laura Whitehorn, Nicole Kissane

9) Becoming Politicized in Prison
Eric King, Josh Davidson, Heetor Rodriguez, Farhan Ahmed

10) Rattling the Cages: How We Dit It & How You Can Too

Eric King, Sara Falconer, Josh Davidson

all conversations are available @FirestormCoop on youtube

g theages 57
Support Political Prisoners

As yowve heard & read, it is vital that we support the political prisoners
of our liberation movements. Providing support builds bridges across and
through prison bars, giving those locked inside a connection to the
outside world. Your support matters.

Get involved. Write to a political prisoner—a simple letter provides a
needed eseape. Visit them in prison. Ask what a political prisoner needs
and do what you can to help them. Offer them support.

Visit the NYC Anarchist Black Cross website (nycabe.wordpress.com) and
learn more about those currently imprisoned for political reasons.

Buy a Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar
(certaindays.org).

Visit your local Books Through Bars group and send books to those.
incarcerated (booksthroughbarsnyc.org/resources).

Join your nearest Anarchist Black Cross group (abef.net)

Visit rattlingthecages.com to learn more.

S8 et thecges
ationg the cages
linktr.ee/rattlingthecages

Eric King speaks with former political prisoners
LindaEvans, Laura Whitehorn, and Nicole Kissane
about their experiences in underground and
abolitionist movements. Together they explore
the repression, the resistance, and the
resilience of women fighting back in US prisons.

FRESTORM