April 19: Say No to Mass Incarceration

From the Stop Mass Incarceration Network:

This country imprisons more people than any other country on the planet. On Thursday, April 19th, everyone who is concerned about injustice must join in saying — NO TO MASS INCARCERATION — in a loud voice. There must be rallies and demonstrations in cities across the country. College and high school students must hold teach in’s and other actions o n their campuses. There need be cultural events held on that day. The architects and enforcers of mass incarceration must be challenged over the inhumanity of the policies they are inflicting on society.

A lot of important work has been done on this front. Michelle Alexander and others have done a lot of exposure of the horrors of mass incarceration. Prisoners, activists and others concerned about injustice, including a number of prominent have been involved in building resistance to this problem. It is crucial that this resistance be taken to higher level — NOW.

We must do this because:

• 2.4 million people, 60% of them Black or Latino, are held in prisons across the US.
• Racial profiling practiced by police and courts serves as a pipeline to these horrific numbers.
• People in prison are subjected to torture-like conditions.
• The formerly incarcerated face discrimination, even after they’ve served their sentences.

We must do this now because in this very political time — with the presidential elections heading into full swing — the horror of racially targeted mass incarceration is being hardly mentioned. And when it does come up, it is raised only to call for even harsher measures. Only our independent mass action can puncture this atmosphere — putting this injustice forcefully before society and challenging everyone who is concerned about justice to take a stand.

Signers to the National Call (list in formation):
All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party (GC);
Gbenga Akinnagbe, Actor;
Rafael Angulo, Professor of Social Work, USC;
Edward Asner, Actor;
Lawrence Aubry, Convenor, Advocates for Black Strategic Alternatives;
Nellie Bailey, Occupy Harlem;
Carissa Baldwin-McGinnis, Director of Peace and Justice, All Saints Church. Pasadena, Ca.;
Jared Ball, VOXUNION Media, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement;
Blase Bonpane, Ph.D., Director, OFFICE OF THE AMERICAS;
Herb Boyd, Harlem-based author, educator, journalist and activist;
Bob Brown, co-director, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) Institute;
John L. Burris, Civil Rights Attorney;
Rev. Richard "Meri Ka Ra" Byrd, Senior Pastor, KRST Unity Center of Afrakan Spiritual Science;
Kendra Castaneda, Prisoner Human Rights Activist with a family member in CA State Prison Segregation Unit;
Denika Chapman, mother, and Marco Scott, uncle, of Kenneth Harding, Kenneth Harding Foundation;
Solomon Comissiong, Executive Director, Your World News Media Collective (www.yourworldnews.org);
Colin Dayan, Robert Penn Warren Professor in the Humanities, Vanderbilt University;
Oscar De La Torre;
Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist, co-initiator of Campaign to Stop "Stop and Frisk";
Kevin Epps, Independent Filmmaker/Activist;
Glen Ford, executive editor, Black Agenda Report;
Jeff Haas, Civil Rights Attorney, Activist and Author of The Assasination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther;
Kelley Lytle Hernandez, Professor of History, UCLA;
Jeremy Hiller, Education Not Incarceration;
Melvin Ishmael Johnson, Director of Dramastage-Qumran Workshop;
Mesha Irizarry, Idris Stelly Foundation;
Cephus ‘Uncle Bobby’ Johnson, Oscar Grant Foundation;
Robin DG Kelley, Distinguished Professor of History, UCLA;
Wayne Kramer, Jail Guitar Doors USA, Co-Founder;
Sarah Kuntsler, Esq., National Lawyers Guild NYC*;
Rev. Janet Gollery McKeithen (Unity Methodist Clergy), President, Methodist Federation for Social Action, Cal-Pac;
Gregg Morris, Assistant Professor, Journalism, Department of Film and Media Studies, Hunter College;
October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation (New York Committee);
Mary Ratcliff , Editor, San Francisco Bay View Black National Newspaper;
Rev. Dr. George F. Regas, Rector Emeritus, All Saints Church, Pasadena, CA;
Joyce Robbins, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Touro College;
Dylan Rodriguez, Professor and Chair, Dept. of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Riverside, and founding member of Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex;
Stephen Rohde, Chair, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace;
Dan Siegel, Civil Rights attorney;
Paul Von Blum, African American Studies, UCLA;
Jim Vrettos, Professor of Sociology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice;
Anne Weills, National Lawyers Guild;
Cornel West, author and educator, co-initiator of Campaign to Stop "Stop and Frisk";
Clyde Young, Revolutionary Communist, and former prisoner

*For Identification Purposes Only. 
Updated:  March 29, 2012

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The "Stop Mass Incarceration: We’re Better Than That!" Network is a project of the Alliance for Global Justice, a 501c3 tax-exempt organization.  Tax-deductible contributions accepted, and checks should be made payable to the "Alliance for Global Justice, with "Mass Incarceration Network" in the memo line.  Other forms of contributions also accepted.

"Stop Mass Incarceration: We’re Better Than That!" Network
c/o P.O. Box 941 Knickerbocker Station
New York City, New York 10002-0900
Phone: 973-756-7666 or 866-841-9139 x2670 * Email: stopmassincarceration@ymail.com
Web: www.stopmassincarceration.org