Monday, July 30th!
Noise demonstration!
Meet in Woodruff Park @ 5pm
Bring noise-makers!
We will be marching to Atlanta City Detention Center at 254 Peachtree Street SE.
Spread the word! In solidarity with Georgia and North Carolina hunger strikers!
From Atlanta Black Cross,
On Monday, July 16th, 2012 there was a rally held in Forsyth, Georgia to show solidarity with Hunger Strikers in the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center (also known as GDC or Jackson State Prison). About 80 people attended the event, which was organized and coordinated by many local radical organizations and members of the Hunger Strikers’ families. Some of the groups involved included Project South, The Ordinary People’s Society, Prodigal Child Project, Take Back the Block, Industrial Workers of the World – Atlanta Chapter, and the Atlanta Black Cross to name a few.
The rally began with demonstrators on the public sidewalk dancing, chanting, and drumming right in front of Georgia’s Department of Corrections. After about a half an hour or so the crowd became emboldened by the lack of response by the police and enraged by the lack of concern shown by the on looking Department of Corrections officials. The crowd then proceeded to move onto the private grounds and right in front of the building where Commissioner Brian Owens’s office is located in order to show their lack of fear and their passion and solidarity for the strikers who have led this fight.
Delma Jackson, Wife of Miguel Jackson (currently on Hunger Strike) speaking to the crowd.
At the rally’s peak, about 80 people rallied for the prisoners in a successful display of inter-racial solidarity that is often not seen in Atlanta.
The rally allowed us to make connections with organizations and members of the Atlanta community with whom our bonds have often been weak. It also allowed us all to see that the struggle against prisons is struggle we do not have to fight alone. We are able to work together and organize against the oppressive prison system and the State.
There were many groups there with many different perspectives and this diversity of approaches will allow us to fight the battle against prisons on multiple fronts.
We acknowledge the shortcomings of the rally as a tactic and even debate amongst ourselves the effectiveness of such demonstrations and appeals to the power structure that we fight against. However, we also realize the necessity of showing solidarity with other individuals and organizations that have a similar passion for justice and freedom. As well as sending strong messages of support to those currently kept away from us behind bars.
As the Atlanta Black Cross, we stand in solidarity with all prisoners. We envision a world without prisons, free from oppression- and work to create that world.
As long as a soul remains behind bars, no one can be free.
Atlanta Black Cross
Photo Credit: Bruce A. Dixon, Black Agenda Report
From the MSM,
About 80 supporters of hunger-striking prison inmates took their complaints directly to the Department of Corrections Monday, staging a protest outside the agency’s Forysth headquarters and demanding a meeting with Commissioner Brian Owens.
The demonstration came as the hunger strike by as many as 14 inmates at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison entered what protesters said was its 36th day. The Department of Corrections, however, disputes that claim and told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that the strike ended on July 6.
“I personally spoke to [inmates] Miguel Jackson and Kelvin Stevenson on Wednesday, July 11, and they are still on the hunger strike, along with other inmates,” said attorney Mario Williams, who represents Jackson, an inmate at the prison in Jackson.
Part of the confusion may have arisen because two of the original hunger strikers did stop on July 6, Williams said. But supporters insisted that the other inmates, led by Jackson, have been “starving for change” continuously since June 10.
John Eric Berry, an activist and friend of inmate Dexter Shaw, also said the hunger strike was ongoing as of July 12.
“I last spoke to Shaw on Thursday,” Berry said. “He told me that he was still on the hunger strike, and that [the prison] had separated all the inmates so they couldn’t easly communicate with each other.”
Delma Jackson, Jackson’s wife and the leader of a protest at the State Capitol last Monday, said she received a letter from inmate Kelvin Stevenson dated July 12 in which he wrote that the hunger strike was ongoing, and that four new inmates had joined the strike.
In an interview with the AJC, Jackson accused the prison system of attempting to conceal the hunger strike.
“I think they’re being deceptive,” she said. “I think they’re trying to get people thrown off track. They know it’s in full force.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has contacted the Department of Corrections, which said it would look into claims that the hunger strike is ongoing.
The inmates — at least 12 and as many as 14, according to the family and supporters — are refusing to eat until prison officials meet their demands.
“Adequate medical care, 30-day review [of their imprisonment in the Special Management Unit], access to the commissary and personal hygiene items, restored visitation, being able to call home more than once a month, exercise once per day,” Jackson said, listing the demands.
She added, “All the things he’s asking for are in their standard procedure. He’s not asking for anything out of the unusual.”
Protesters also say that Jackson, in particular, needs “medical treatment for … numerous and severe injuries, many of which were inflicted 18 months ago.”
Jackson’s family alleges that he was wrongfully beaten by prison guards in December 2010 at Smith State Prison, his home before being transferred to the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in 2011.
But the Department of Corrections denied that claim.
“[The Georgia Bureau of Investigation] investigated the claim filed by inmate Miguel Jackson regarding the 2010 Smith State Prison incident and found no validity to the inmate’s complaint,” said spokesman Dabney Weems.
Protesters at the DOC headquarters Monday called on Commissioner Owens to meet with inmate representatives.
“He needs to sit down and discuss this, and come to some sort of reasonable agreement,” Jackson said. “If he has their best interests at heart, he needs to…call the warden, and tell him to follow its prison regualations by the book. All we’re asking is that he make the warden enforce standard operating procedure and we want it in writing.”
Earlier reports that Dexter Shaw has ended his participation in the hunger strike are not correct. According to family members, Shaw has been moved away from the other hunger strikers, but is still on hunger strike.
It is unacceptable for the prison officials to move Dexter in his present condition.
Although he may not receive letters you send him, please feel free to send him encouraging words:
Dexter Shaw
GDC 0000429768
Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center
HWY 36 West – P.O. Box 3877
Jackson, GA 30233
Delma Jackson is the spouse of Miguel Jackson, who is currently on hunger strike.
From AFSC,
My husband Miguel and nine other inmates declared a hunger Strike on Sunday, June 10, 2012 and they are now entering their 29th day. Miguel, has been seeking medical treatment for the injuries he sustained due to being beaten with hammers by prison officials. He has been suffering for over 18 months and hasn’t had the proper medical treatment. Miguel and other inmates at Georgia Diagnostics have been denied access to proper hygiene, medical treatment for their numerous and severe injuries, many of which were inflicted 18 months ago, status reviews every 30 days as stated in the SOP, restoration of their visiting and communications rights, and access to their meager personal property. They have filed numerous grievances and their requests have been ignored.
Today, roughly 40 people rallied at the Georgia State Capitol in solidarity with the hunger strikers, who approach one month without food. Brandishing a large banner proclaiming support and home-made signs, the group staged on the plaza in front of the Capitol building and listened to Delma Jackson, wife of striker Miguel Jackson, give background and updates to the present situation.
According to Mrs. Jackson, one of the protestors has been in solitary confinement for 10 years, and another for 5 years. Her husband, Miguel, was beaten by guards with hammers 18 months ago, and was subsequently thrown into solitary. He has still not received medical attention for this. Mrs. Jackson also spoke about the solidarity hunger strikes that have broken out in prisons in Macon and Augusta. The prison officials refuse to release information about how many are striking or what their names are. If you have any information, please contact us at georgiahungerstrike@yahoo.com.
Following the speech, the majority of the rally marched into the Capitol to deliver a letter to Gov. Nathan Deal’s office demanding that he respond to this hunger strike favorably. On the way out, demonstrators chanted “Our Passion for Freedom is Stronger Than Their Prisons”, before dispersing with no arrests.
Separately, graffiti has appeared in Decatur in solidarity with the hunger striking prisoners, according to an article on Atlanta Indymedia.
The next demonstration will be on Monday the 16th at the Department of Corrections.
Please take initiative to coordinate solidarity demonstrations, actions, or letters with the hunger striking prisoners.
UPDATE: EVENT MOVED TO GEORGIA STATE CAPITOL
UPDATE: EVENT MOVED TO 11AM!
from Black Agenda Report,
The ongoing hunger strikers in Georgia’s Jackson State prison have reportedly been joined by others in Augusta and Macon. But the 37 rounded up as alleged leaders of the December 2010 strike are still officially not named by the state are believed to have been on 24 hour lockdown the last 18 months, with many suffering brutal beatings and denied medical attention. Why has the state not revealed their identities? Why are there still thousands of children and illiterates in Georgia’s prisons? Why do prisoners still work without wages, and why does Bank of America still extract monthly tolls from their accounts? Why has so little changed?
Hunger Strikes Reportedly Continue in Multiple Georgia Prisons, Prisoners Await A Movement Outside Prison Walls
A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
As we’ve told the story over the months in Black Agenda Report, in the wake of the peaceful December 2010 strike by black, brown and white inmates in several Georgia prisons, corrections officials first cut off heat and hot water to prisoners in the dead of winter. After meeting with citizens on the outside who publicly backed prisoner demands for decent food, medical care, educational opportunities, humane visiting policies, transparency in proceedings against inmates and wages for work, the state briefly allowed citizen access to Macon and Smith Prisons, before adopting a systematic and apparently statewide policy of rounding up and brutally assaulting those prisoners it imagined might have been leaders of the strike.
A small number of low-ranking corrections personnel have been fired, indicted or pled guilty to various offenses in the wave of beatings, but in an apparent endorsement of the beatings as state policy, Department of Corrections, local judges, prosecutors and state officials have refused to investigate most of them.
State authorities claim to have rounded up 37 from around the state and placed them in close confinement at its massive Jackson State Prison, where it murdered Troy Davis last year. Those 37, as far as anyone outside the prison administration knows, have been in solitary confinement ever since, sometimes for weeks without showers and months without being allowed visits. They have received little or no medical care for the vicious beatings they sustained eighteen months ago.
“The current wave of hunger strikes in Georgia’s prisons must be un”derstood in the light of the failure so far of communities outside the walls to effectively organize in solidarity with those inside. “
When the prisoners went on strike in December 2010 they told us out here they’d done all that they could do. It was now in the hands, they declared, of those outside prison walls to build an effective movement and bring pressure to bear on the minions of Georgia’s and the nation’s prison state. Eighteen months later, any honest assessment of progress toward that goal must conclude that that is yet to happen.
The current wave of hunger strikes in Georgia’s prisons must be understood in the light of the failure so far of communities outside the walls to effectively organize in solidarity with those inside. When you do all you can do, and you are singled out and brutalized, deprived of access to family, communications, medical care and even showers for months on end, you have nothing left to put on the table to trade for your dignity but life itself. For the hunger striking prisoners in Georgia, as for those in California’s Pelican Bay a few months ago, who insist on their human rights and human dignity, these are matters of life itself. That’s what they mean when they say they are “starving for change.”
They aren’t starving till the warden or the governor or the president or Congress or state legislatures do this or that. They are starving till all of us, their extended families, their neighbors, along with the neighbors and families of past and following waves of prisoners, till all those suffering the collateral damage of the prison state find the will and the way to organize, to make their presence known, and to stand with them against the prison state. We can’t continue to let them down. It’s a matter of human dignity, and life itself. To find out what you can do, visit us on the web at www.endmassincarceration.org. Sign the petition and sign up. Someone will be in touch with you.
from the Black Agenda Report
18 months ago, black, brown and white Georgia prisoners staged a courageous protest demanding wages for work, educational opportunities, transparency in probation reviews and more. State officials unleashed a wave of exemplary brutality that continues to this day, away from the eyes of the public. It’s time to turn our eyes where they belong — at the crimes committed with our money and in our name, in our prisons and jails. And think about a fast on the outside, July 2, in solidarity with the hunter strikers inside Georgia’s prisons.
Starving For Change: Hunger Strike Underway In Georgia’s Jackson State Prison, Day 15
by BAR manging editor Bruce A. Dixon
Since June 10, according to accounts from prisoners and their families and Rev. Kenneth Glasgow of The Ordinary Peoples Society and the Prodigal Child Project, an undetermined number of prisoners at Georgia’s massive Diagnostic and Classification Prison near the city of Jackson have been on a hunger strike.
Back in December 2010, black, brown and white inmates in several Georgia prisons staged a peaceful protest remaining in their dorms and cells rather than go to meals or work assignments. Their reasonable demands included wages for work, speedier and more transparent status reviews, decent food, real medical care, a more sane visitation policy and the availability of educational and vocational programs behind the walls. State corrections officials responded with temporary cutoffs of heat, water and electricity in some buildings, along with an orgy of savage assaults and beatings across multiple institutions statewide. In one instance, corrections officials apparently conspired to conceal the whereabouts and condition of one prisoner who lingered near death in a coma for most of a week while they shuffled him hundreds of miles between prisons and hospitals.
State corrections say they rounded up 37 whom they believed were the strike leaders and put them under close confinement at Jackson, the same prison where Troy Davis was executed last year. Most of these prisoners have remained there in close confinement, with severely restricted access to visits, communication and their attorneys, and without medical attention for the past 18 months.
Some of these men are the Jackson State prison hunger strikers. After two weeks, according to the families of Miguel Jackson and Preston Whiting, they are weak from hunger and subject to fainting spells. But they seem to believe they have little to lose. They are, a letter from one of them asserts, “starving for change.” There were originally ten of them, but some may have been transferred out, and some other prisoners joined the strike. We hope to have clearer information tomorrow.
They are demanding access to proper hygiene, medical treatment for their numerous and severe injuries, many of which were inflicted 18 months ago, the restoration of their visiting and communications rights, and access to their meager personal property. They and their attorneys insist that the Georgia Department of Corrections follow its own published procedures requiring a status review of every inmate in punitive isolation every 30 days. They further insist that such evaluations be public and transparent so as to preclude the possibility of prejudicial conduct on the party of prison officials.
One of the strikers is Miguel Jackson, who was taken in handcuffs from his cell at Smith State Prison 18 months ago, removed to a secluded area out of range of the video cameras that monitor almost every inch of most Georgia prisons, and beaten with a hammer-like object. Jackson is one of several brutalized prisoners whose injuries have been untreated since. Despite a blizzard of demands by his attorney, prison officials have refused Jackson and other prisoners medical attention for months. And although they have not eaten in two weeks, Jackson’s wife said, at the nine-day mark when medical necessity usually demands prisoners be removed to the infimary, prison officials simply told Jackson “You’re going to die,” and left it at that.
“Most of civilized humanity regards extended solitary confinement as a crime,” said Rev. Kennieth Glasgow. “No less an establishment figure than Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) convened an extraordinary public hearing on the subject less than a week ago. We are calling on the governor to ensure proper medical treatment for the hunger strikers, to restore their visitation other rights and to end their punitive confinement without delay.
“We hope that people around the state and around the country will call the prison, the Department of Corrections and Georgia’s governor to express their concern for the well-being of the prisoners on hunger strike, and we further hope that they will join us on Monday July 2 for a day-long fast in solidarity with the Georgia prisoners who are only insisting upon their dignity, their humanity, their legal and human rights.”
We at BAR and the Georgia Green Party hope that you will take the time today and tomorrow to do four things:
- Call, email and/or fax the numbers below. Politely convey your deep concern for the welfare of the prison hunger strikers at Georgia Diagnostic Prison, especially Mr. Jackson. We believe there are about ten of them, and will publish their names and ID numbers on Wednesday.
- Sign the petition to Georgia’s governor demanding an end to the torture of solitary confinement and punitive isolation in its state prisons.
- Forward this article and the link to it all your friends, family and co-workers and ask them to do the same. Send or carry a copy to your pastor and ask him to mention the fast on Sunday, and invite him to fast that day as well.
- Participate in the July 2 solidarity fast with Georgia’s prisoners who are standing up for their human rights across lines of race and religion. The prisoners, like the rest of us, are black, brown and white and of varying religious beliefs.
Black Agenda Report will contain, in its regular Wednesday issue tomorrow an update on the strikers and their condition, and more information about the July 2 solidarity fast and other local activities in support of Georgia’s prisoners on hunger strike.
Who to Call Voice phone Fax phone Warden, GA Diagnostic & Classification Prison, Butts County GA 770-504-2000 770-504-2006 GA Department of Corrections Ombudsman 478-992-5367 or 478-992-5358 No fax, but you can email them at Ombudsman@dcor.state.ga.us. Please add a cc to the email, info@georgiagreenparty.org. Brian Owens, Commissioner, GA Department of Corrections, ask for his administrative assistant Peggy Chapman 478-992-5258 Georgia governor Nathan Deal 404-656-1776 Fax the governor at 404-657-7332. You can also send the Governor a letter online by clicking here.
On Strike Since June 10th 
