There were 12 people on the call:  Carl Dix and Steve from NYC; Robin from Connecticut; Tim from the Univ of MD; Mike (Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund-PRLF) from Chicago; Ron Ahnen of California Prison Focus, Ceephus, Joey and Deandre from the Berkeley/Oakland/SF area; Keith, Ever and Oscar from the LA area.

Carl opened by conference call by stepping back to look at what we were setting out to do with this effort: mobilizing resistance powerful enough to give us a real shot at winning justice for Trayvon and to, in combination with other developments, force the authorities to agree to meet the demands of the people locked down in the segregation units of California’s prisons.  And thru doing this, we aim to make a big leap in the level of resistance to mass incarceration.  He laid out that it will take forging a plan and methods for carrying it out that will give our efforts society wide impact.  We have laid out some plans for a hoodie day coinciding with the June 10th opening of George Zimmerman’s trial and for Days of Solidarity with the struggle to end torture in the prisons on June 21-23.  Carl put before this conference call the task of reassessing those plans to determine if they’re commensurate with the need for society wide impact.

Carl also gave a brief report on his Dialogue with Cornel West – Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide; Act to Stop It Now! He and Cornel gave substantial and dynamic talks laying out the horrific reality of mass incarceration and its consequences, and each of them, from their different perspectives, called on the 500 + people in attendance to join the fight to stop these horrors. Many, many people left the church that night with materials to use to spread the Call for the June 10th hoodie and for the fight to stop torture in prison.  A DVD of this event is planned to be available on the web sites of both Revolution Books (www.revolutionbooksnyc.org) and the Stop Mass Incarceration Network (www.stopmassincarceration.org).

The discussion began with reviewing and reassessing the plans around the opening of the trial of George Zimmerman, the vigilante murderer of Trayvon Martin.  We decided that the key to having society wide impact around this would be to project the call for a hoodie day and the slogan “We Are All Trayvon; The Whole Damned System Is Guilty!” way out there thru social media.  Tim raised that the most effective way to do this would be to not just spread a message, but to be putting out there what people should do.  This would mean tweeting about and posting on Facebook the call for a hoodie day on June 10th, together with the slogan we’re using.  Tim also raised that the social media effort should include getting video clips of spoken word artists and others and spreading them on line.  Deandre raised that we should collect pictures of prominent people, groups of youth and others wearing hoodies to promo the hoodie day.  Tim and Jamel are going to be further working thru what our social media campaign around June 10th, and following that around the battle to stop torture in prison will be.  They will circulate their thinking soon on this.

We also spoke some to the need for the effort re June 10th, not to just be a one day thing.  We will need to promote people being ready to respond to developments as the Zimmerman trial proceeds.  If it gets delayed for any reason, or if the judge throws out the charges, we will need to take to the streets and have others ready to do that too.  And whatever the outcome of the case, good or bad, there will need to be a response.  If Zimmerman walks again, people will need to hit the streets in protest, and if he gets convicted, there will need to be a celebratory response.

We reviewed the importance of gathering a delegation of people from different parts of the country to go to Sanford, Florida, to attend the opening of the trial of George Zimmerman.  Keith raised that it could project what we were doing-raising resistance to this racist murder around the country-out there thru the media attention focused on the trial.  Ceephus, who has agreed to be on the delegation, spoke to how it could let Trayvon’s parents know that they weren’t alone in striving for justice for their murdered son.  We determined that this delegation could play an important role in impacting society thru our actions around the trial.

Mike reported that there was a meeting Chicago on Monday, 5/20, to launch SMIN in that area.  Plans were developed for a hoodie day in Chicago on June 10th.  Mike raised that the SMIN web site needs to have somewhere that Chicago and other areas could post info about their activities.

Ceephus gave a brief report on plans for Oct 22, 2013, the 18th annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.  He spoke of a statewide conference of family members of police murder victims and others held recently in California.  Ceephus felt that there needed to be more powerful outpourings than have occurred on recent Oct 22nd’s because the issue of police brutality and police murder have intensified and call for a more powerful response.  1 thing that came out of that conference were a decision to hold a statewide action on Oct 22nd this year, most likely at the State Capitol, and follow that up with an outpouring around police murder on April 23rd, 2014, during the state’s crime victim’s week.  In the Oakland area, there will be a Stolen Lives Induction Ceremony on July 6th as part of the build up to Oct 22nd.  July 6th is verdict day in that area because it’s the day the court gave the cop who murdered Oscar Grant a sentence that amounted to a slap on the wrist.

Then we moved to reviewing and reassessing our plans for the struggle to end torture in prison and in support of the plans of the people in the segregation units in California prisons to restart their suspended hunger strike.  Robin suggested we add an art project to our plans.  Her vision for this project is setting up an installation that approximates the cells (3 or 4 of them) people are held in under long term solitary confinement and having artists occupy each of the cells for 30 days.  They could create art in them.  The space where the cells are located could be a location where we have speakers and performers come and where we do programs around torture in prison.  These projects could be promoted in the media and thru our social media campaign.  (Robin has written up her vision, and it will be available on the Stop Mass Incarceration Network (SMIN) web site.)  Other people talked of ways they could adapt her vision and do something like it in their areas and how they could contribute to the art projects.

We discussed a proposal from Keith that we take a more strategic approach to the Emergency Statement to Stop Torture in Prisons.  This proposal was to set a goal of collecting 1000’s of signatories for this statement and publish it as an ad in a major newspaper.  These signatories should include many prominent people, as well as many, many people from different sections of society – high school students, people in the projects, church groups, attorneys, family members of people held in long term solitary confinement, etc.  It was raised in light of looking at the need to have society wide impact in exposing this torture and challenging people to join the fight to stop it.  He felt we needed to develop approaches that put this before many more people. Additionally, an ad like this that was broadly signed onto would have the impact of influencing public opinion against torture nationwide and internationally.

People reflected on how much work it would take to gather 1000’s of signatories and especially to raise the money needed to publish it as an ad in a major newspaper.  (A full page in the NY Times costs $52,000.  The LA Times costs even more for a full page ad.)  This is a daunting thing to undertake, but, looked at in the context of aiming to change what broad sections of people know about what goes on in and prison and how they look at the horrors being perpetrated there, we need to reach out to, and involve, many, many people to accomplish this.  If we succeed in doing that, we have every basis to gather 1000’s of signatories and the money needed to publish it as an ad.  It was felt that the 2 papers to consider were the NY Times because of its national and international stature and the LA Times because it’s the major paper in California.  Because an important part of forcing the authorities to end torture will be to further expose to the world the torture the US inflicts on those it imprisons, there was a strong argument for going for the NY Times.

 

Carl briefly reviewed a report sent to SMIN by World Can’t Wait on their successful effort to publish a statement calling for the closing of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.  (This statement was published in the NY Times on May 23rd.)  Key points from that report include: *Doing this required thinking big, deciding that WCW needed to reach millions of people with its message and seeing the ad as an important part of doing that.  *The key to doing this successfully was reaching out to and connecting with people and win them to take this up as their own.  To get prominent people to sign on and get people to donate money, including large amounts, required them hearing about it from people well outside the WCW core of organizers.  *The ad caught on because the hunger strike by the prisoners at Guantanamo had been going on for a long time and had put the issue into the news.  (This has implications for when the publication of this ad should be timed.)  *Contacting people and urging them to sign and donate thru social media, especially thru Twitter was an important way that the ad was gotten to the attention of a number of the prominent people who ended up signing it and donating.

 

Keith and Deandre volunteered to spearhead looking at how to do this-gather the signatories and raise the money needed to publish the ad.  Robin raised that we clarify what our demand is around prison torture; is it specific to the hunger strike or a general demand to end torture?  We clarified that the demand SMIN is raising in this effort is that the authorities agree to the demands of the people carrying out the hunger strike and that they actually change the conditions in the prisons in California.

 

The next conference call will be Tuesday, May 28th at 7 PM east coast time.

NOTE--Some people reported difficulties in getting onto the call.  If you tried to get on the conference call this week, or any previous week, and were blocked from doing so, please contact us and let us know about this.

9 people were on the call, including people from the Los Angeles area, Oakland/Berkeley/San Francisco, NYC, North Carolina and Chicago.  Carl began the call by reviewing what we were setting out to do.  In the face of a situation of mass incarceration, torture in prison, racial profiling that has put a bulls-eye on the backs of Black and Latino youth and more-a situation that amounts to a slow genocide; we have set out to take the resistance to all this to a much higher level.  To contribute to unleashing resistance from among those targeted by these horrors and rally people from other sections of society to join them in this fight.  A focus of this effort is to build opposition to the widespread torture in prison that can, together with other developments, force the authorities in California to meet the demands of the prisoners in segregation units there even before the prisoners begin the hunger strike they have planned for July 8th, or falling short of that, to contribute to winning this struggle soon after the hunger strike is launched.

Carl laid out an assessment of where we are at in accomplishing all that.  We have made a start on it, much more needed to be done.  We have a growing list of endorsers to the Emergency Call to End Torture in US Prisons, including some prominent and notable people.  We have called for a hoodie day on June 10th, the opening of the trial of George Zimmerman, the vigilante murderer of Trayvon Martin.  A slogan has been developed for that effort – “We Are All Trayvon, The Whole Damned System Is Guilty!”  But we have to do much, much more.  We have to strategize with the people who are signing onto the Emergency Call, figuring out together with them what role they can play in making this effort more powerful, who can they reach out to and enlist in it, how can they make more people aware of both the horrors we’re up against and the movement of resistance we’re building to take those horrors on.

There is a basis to take this on.  These horrors have been devastating the lives of countless millions of people, and people have begun to stand up against them—from the 2011 hunger strike in the prisons in California to the nationwide outpourings that forced the authorities to re-arrest Zimmerman and put him on trial and more.  We have to tap into this desire to resist and give it expression, we have to let people who hate the shit being done to them know that there is a nationwide movement that’s fighting it they can hook up.  And we have to challenge people of conscience to not leave those facing these horrors alone in the fight against them.

We briefly discussed this.  Keith (LA area) felt the need for nationwide resistance was real and we needed to bring much more forward to meet that need.  He reviewed the array of people who have endorsed the Emergency Call and added that we needed to zero in on key endorsers and have more in depth discussion with them, getting into what they can do to spread the Emergency Call and the We Say No More statement.  Ever (LA area) spoke to how we did indeed need to do this because the system was continuing to target us.

We moved on to discuss mobilizing for Oct 22nd the 18th annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.  Carl spoke to how this day has become the day for people to take to the streets in outrage over the intensifying nationwide epidemic of police brutality and police murder.  He reviewed some of the recent outrages along these lines from Bakersfield, CA, to Baltimore, MD.  He also addressed the reality that police murder and police brutality is part of the slow genocide of mass incarceration and all its consequences.  He noted that it is bound up with the racial profiling we see in how police across the country come down on Black and Latino communities across the country, racial profiling that led to the murder of Trayvon Martin.

Deandre (Oakland) reported on the statewide conference of family members of police murder victims held in California recently. Oscar Grant's Uncle, Ceephus, who has been on previous calls, said at this conference that Oct 22nd this year needed to be huge.  He proposed that there be both local Oct 22nd events throughout California and the following day there be a statewide action, perhaps at the state capital in Sacramento.  Deandre also said some Oct 22nd veterans wanted to update the Stolen Lives Data Base in some form.  He had talked to people involved in the effort to document killings of Black people by the police which the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement recently did.  They found that every 28 hours police in this country kill a Black person.  It would be possible to connect an update effort with them and build off their work to encompass everyone killed by police.  He suggested encouraging family members and others in this effort to assemble a national data base.

ZIMMERMAN TRIAL-We have a slogan which will be distributed as a sticker and could be made into a poster too.  The key will be spreading this slogan and the need to take to the streets across the country far and wide, especially thru social media.  Clyde pointed out that what was needed was much more than just calling for a hoodie day.  What’s needed is bringing large numbers of people out into the streets saying “We Are All Trayvon.”  He also noted that we are behind in spreading a call that can bring forth that kind of resistance, and we need to start right now getting the word on the hoodie day out nationwide thru social media, outreach to people in various sections of society and thru getting it into print and electronic media.  Tim (Univ of MD) and Jamel (NYC) have taken responsibility to forge a plan for this needed social media campaign, which we will get a report on soon.  On the conference call, we selected a provisional hash tag of #wearealltrayvon, which we can use as we start to spread materials around Trayvon via Twitter.

In the Oakland area the plans are to spread stickers and posters in high schools and neighborhoods in the lead up to the opening of the Zimmerman trial.  On June 9th there will be a rally in a park, and on the 10th there will be rallies at high schools across the areas with possible convergences.  They plan to take getting involved in these activities to many different groups and individuals.  In NY, there is a plan for an afternoon convergence on June 10th in Union square.

Carl raised having a delegation of people from different areas go to Sanford for the opening of the trial.  This delegation doesn’t have to be large.  Even a small group of people who came down there, spreading the slogan and synergizing their activity with what people around the country were doing could have a big impact.  People in other areas could promote its activity thru social media and regular media.  This could build the sense of a growing nationwide movement of resistance that people could connect with.  People liked this proposal, and we decided that this should be something we raise as we strategize with people and enlist them in this effort to determine who could be part of this delegation.  We would need to raise serious money to do this, meaning we need to develop materials to use in raising this money.

We discussed making use of the statement, “WE SAY NO MORE” which sharply condemns the racial profiling that led to the murder of Trayvon and is a feature of how police nationwide treat Black and Latino youth.  This statement has an impressive array of signatories, including quite a few prominent people.  Getting this statement out there more would have a major impact.  Keith said he’s getting someone from LA to research contact info for every Black paper in the country.  We should ask them ALL to publish the statement with its signatories as a public service announcement.  This person would also explore getting the statement published in the Sanford area as a paid ad., which will also require raising a significant amount of money.

ENDING PRISON TORTURE—Deandre reported that he had strategized with a supporter of the prison hunger strike movement.  He agreed with building support for this fight now and the plan for a rolling fast (people taking shifts not eating during the 3 days) during the days of solidarity.  He told Deandre there was a statewide network of supporters of the hunger strike prepared to act on July 8th.  He also said prisoners from one or 2 other areas plan to join the July 8th hunger strike.  California Prison authorities have begun to answer the phone when people call about long term solitary confinement, but what they say is that they have improved the situation.  Some of the improvements they claim are refuted by the facts.  Also people inside the prisons report that the agreement to end hostilities among prisoners is holding.

The Oakland area has developed some plans for the days of solidarity.  On June 21st, they plan a protest, and on June 22nd, they plan an evening of Conscience involving prominent and notable people.  California governor Brown will be a commencement speaker at UC Berkeley, and people will be there to protest, focusing on the torturous conditions in long term solitary confinement.  A hunger strike in a public place (with the hunger strikers being on display in animal cages to symbolize how people in prison are being treated like animals) is planned for those 3 days, perhaps with different people rolling thru it to strike for varying periods of time is planned.  On or around July 4th, they plan to use a container box about the size of the cells people in solitary confinement are held in to dramatize what people are being subjected to.  And they plan to do this under the theme of, “What to the prisoner is your 4th of July?”

Mike from the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund told us that they have 8 letters on their site (www.prlf.org) on the theme of what to a prisoner is your 4th of July, and he expects they will get more by again calling on people in prison who receive Revolution Newspaper to write on this theme.  He also said they have received word from one person in the Pelican Bay prison that his sub to Revolution was censored recently.  This is an ominous development because during the last hunger strike in 2011, prisoners receiving the paper reported on how important it was to be receiving its reports on what was happening in other prisons during the strike, in addition to its national and international coverage.  Mike also pointed to a recent Atlantic Monthly article that cited a Supreme Court order that California must significantly reduce its prison population, and Governor Brown is refusing to act on it.  This amounts to a looming constitutional crisis which could create favorable conditions for doing broad exposure of the horrific conditions in prison.  Joe (LA area?) added that state mandated services for mental health for prisoners don’t really function.  He volunteered to gather some material on this and make it available to people.

The next conference call will be on Tuesday, May 21st, at 7 PM.  (To get onto the call, dial (832) 551-5100 and dial the pass code 249283 when prompted).  

There were 13 people on the call, including people from Southern California, from the Oakland/Berkeley/San Francisco area, from Univ of Maryland, and from NYC.  The agenda and discussion is below.

Carl opened the call by reviewing what we were setting out to do and what we had accomplished so far.  We are setting out to, in response to the way the continuing slow genocide of mass incarceration and all its consequences is breaking the bodies and crushing the spirits of countless millions of people, take the resistance on this front to a much higher level.  As part of that, we are focusing on building awareness of, and resistance to, the widespread torture that is being inflicted on 10,000’s of those locked down in prisons across the US.  Our aim is to build resistance powerful enough to, together with other developments, force the authorities to agree to the demands of the prisoners in California’s Special Housing Units for humane treatment even before they are forced to begin their hunger strike on July 8th.  And if we are unable to achieve that goal, to be in position to contribute powerfully to forcing the authorities to feel they have to give in and agree to the demands soon after the hunger strike is begun.

In the week since our initial conference call, we have issued a CALL TO END TORTURE IN US PRISONS and gathered an impressive beginning list of endorsers to it.  This Call can be accessed at www.stopmassincarceration.org, and you can add your name to it there.  But we have much more to do to even approach our aims of ending torture in the prisons.

Carl also announced that he was having a Dialogue with Cornel West in NYC on May 20th over the theme, “Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide; Act to Stop It Now!”  He laid out that the aim of this Dialogue was to gather an audience of 100’s of people, expose them to the horrors mass incarceration inflicts on millions of people, with a focus on the torture in prisons, and challenge them to join the effort to stop it.  This could have the effect of rocketing the effort to stop torture in the prison to a much higher level.  He also laid out that the possibility of making this Dialogue available nationwide thru live streaming or some other way was being explored, so people could use it in other areas.  (Clyde added that people outside NYC could aid in making this Dialogue a success by letting people in NYC they’re in contact with know about it thru Facebook and Twitter.)

1) In discussing the launching of the effort to end torture, and the issuing of the Call to End Torture, Belinda, Ever and Yvonne talked about their experience with this torture-being placed in the Special Housing Units (SHU’s) because another inmate lied about you and not being able to get out, being violently extracted from your cell, being kept in a sound proof cell so long that you can no longer stand to hear normal sounds, having your son dragged out of a visit from you and shackled on “potty watch” for 7 days because a guard thought he had swallowed contraband, seeing your son gradually lose his skin color because he’s denied exposure to sun light, and more.  In short, being treated like they were less than human.

We discussed the need to make many others aware of these kinds of conditions.  Mike from the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) noted that they have letters from people imprisoned in Pelican Bay who were involved in the 2011 hunger strike describing the conditions there.  This letter is accessible on the PRLF web site at www.prlf.org and on the Stop Mass Incarceration Network web site at www.stopmassincarceration.org.  We felt it would be important to use this letter and other materials like that as tools to help make people aware.  We also needed to produce flyers and brochures to help do that.

We also discussed the need to develop plans for the Days of Solidarity in June.  Deandre laid out that people in the Oakland/Berkeley/SF area will be meeting on Saturday to develop such plans.  People in other areas need to do the same.  Ideas raised including reaching out to and involving student groups, including trying to connect with statewide or citywide student groups.  Tim for the Univ of MD suggested contacting conscious hip hop artists to get them involved, developing wrist bands with slogans like, “End Mass Incarceration; Stop the Torture!”  Mike spoke of plans to try to involve a spoken word group in Chicago.  Clyde suggested we do an online petition to gather more signatories on the Call, as supporters of the Guantanamo hunger strike did to amass 65,000 signatories.

2) In relation to this effort and the opening of the trial of George Zimmerman, the vigilante who murdered Trayvon Martin, we discussed reaching out to and involving many more people thru social media.  Tim said we could spread the effort thru Facebook, twitter and YouTube, and we could make and distribute short PSA’s that could be spread in all those mediums.  He volunteered to work with people from other areas in further developing this campaign.  Deandre suggested we put a QR code on all flyers that people with smart phones could use to go to a web site.  Clyde suggested that we look at how the outpourings following Trayvon Martin’s murder spread to look for lessons in how to spread our efforts nationwide.

Specifically on the Zimmerman trial, we decided we should call for outpourings across the country on or just before June 10thwhen the trial opens.  It took outpourings like this to even force them to put him on trial, and it will take renewed actions to have a shot at getting justice in this case.  The activities we decided to issue calls for included, a hoodies day, protests and rallies in communities and walkouts in high schools.  Tying all this together will be very wide promotion of the slogan, “We Are All Trayvon – The Whole Damned System Is Guilty!”  Thru social media and in other ways we have to make this slogan, and the call to act around the opening of the Zimmerman trial accessible to people, especially young people, all across the country. These calls and the master of a sticker with the slogans need to be developed and put up on the SMIN site.

3) Keith presented where things were at in reference to the Tribunal about torture in prisons that we discussed in the last conference call.  He said we were still in the stage of conceiving what its scope and character needed to be.  Its charge would be making the case that this torture exists and in widespread.  It should be something like a commission of inquiry with a Jury of Conscience made up of people who have prominence and respect.  A prosecution team would have to be assembled to draw up preliminary indictments and to assemble witnesses from various backgrounds (people who have experienced the torture, legal experts, academics, journalists, psychologists, etc.) who can comprehensively and persuasively testify to this torture.  The authorities responsible for this torture would be notified of this tribunal and given an opportunity to explain their actions.  And then hearings would be held.

Keith felt that to do this on the level required to have society wide impact would mean our timeline should be to aim to publicly announce the preliminary indictment before July 8th, but to look to have the hearings begin after that.  And that right now we needed to assemble a working group to spearhead this effort, which would develop a statement of purpose and work on involving the forces who could do the preliminary indictment.  Joe added that there is an International Committee on Human Rights that held such hearings 10 years ago and that there were other groups that have done similar hearings.  We should look into what those hearings have produced and explore involving people who did those hearings in this effort.

4) We ran low on time and didn’t get to discuss looking ahead to the upcoming 18th annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation on Oct 22, 2013.  Deandre noted that there was a recent statewide conference of family members of police murder victims that mapped out ambitious plans for California this year on Oct 22nd.  Carl mentioned the Stolen Lives Induction Ceremony being held on 5/18 in NYC.  Oct 22nd will be discussed on the next conference call.

5) Steve volunteered to confer with someone from California on how to develop better ways to communicate in this effort.  Right now every time something gets sent out it goes to a few people who then have to send it to others.  We need to develop one list that can make things accessible to everyone.  We also need to figure out how to keep the page on the hunger strike effort up to date as plans are developed for the Days of Solidarity and other things.  And we need to develop ways that different areas could use the tax free status of SMIN where needed in this effort, since this is a project of SMIN.  These and other organizational questions will be discussed before the next conference call.

The next conference call will be Tuesday, May 14th, at 7 PM.  An agenda for the call will be sent out several days in advance.  To get onto the call, dial (832) 551-5100 and enter the pass code (249283) when prompted.

[Note: An important conference call was held in response to the action proposal made by Carl Dix.]

There were 18 people on the call, including people from Southern California, Northern California, Chicago, North Carolina, the Washington DC area, Connecticut and NYC.  In opening the conference call, Carl Dix spoke to the urgency of acting in a more powerful and determined way against the slow genocide of mass incarceration and all its consequences.  He also underscored what was at stake in this fight, that if we stepped out boldly now and built support for the struggle to end torture in the prison, we could tap into the desire of many people who suffer under this genocide to resist it, and the sense of people from other sections of society that they don’t want to live in a world where people suffer this kind of abuse.  And through doing that, we could build a fight that could win.  But if we failed to seize the opportunity to do this, it would leave those bearing the brunt of all this alone in the fight and leave people to surrender to the conventional wisdom that there’s nothing we can do to about the abuse the authorities inflict on so many.  Finally, Carl set out an orientation we needed to take of striving to build the kind of resistance that could contribute to forcing the authorities to accept the 5 core demands advanced by the people imprisoned in long term solitary confinement in prison in California.  And if we fell short of that, it would put us in the best possible position to continue to build broader support to end torture in prison.

People felt the need to spread as widely as possible the inhumanity of the very real torture that is being inflicted on tens of thousands of people in US prisons.  And to spread widely the humanity of the people being subjected to these conditions and challenging people to find their own humanity by opposing this torture.  People talked about the heroic example the people in prison were making by putting their lives on the line to say no more to the injustice they face.  The inspiring example of them issuing a call for racial unity in the prisons and outside the prisons was also noted.  The people held in long term segregation in prison, who are condemned as the worst of the worst, are standing up to resist injustice and, in this society which is sharply divided by race, are calling for racial unity.  As part of doing this, it was noted that the Stop Mass Incarceration Network web site had added a page on developments around the hunger strike and that this page will need to be further developed so that people looking for news on this effort and materials to enlist in it can go to that site and find what they need.

It was recognized that in doing this we will have to overcome negative sentiment towards incarcerated people that is widely held in US society.  It was felt that a key to doing this was to use the voices of those incarcerated, speaking about the conditions they face and how they are asserting their humanity in standing up to resist.

We set “National Days of Solidarity to Stop Torture in US Prisons” on June 21st and 22nd.  On these days, we will work to involve people in many different parts of the country in holding many different kinds of activities to highlight the reality that this torture is being inflicted on tens of thousands of people imprisoned in this country and to build broader opposition to it.  These activities would include protests, cultural events, saturation of both social media and other kinds of media, evenings of conscience, etc.  Carl and Jim from NYC volunteered to work on a call for the National Days of Solidarity.

We also discussed holding a “Tribunal on Torture in US Prisons” in California. This Tribunal would bring feature testimony from people with direct experience of this torture (formerly incarcerated people, family members of currently incarcerated people, letters from prison) and from people from different backgrounds who have researched and exposed this torture (attorneys, academics, religious people, mental health professionals, etc.).  This Tribunal could make the case that this torture is widespread.  It would need to be done in a way to have impact throughout US society, through getting the Tribunal into the media in the lead up to it and in its aftermath.  It was also suggested that it be recorded and live streamed to maximize its impact.

It was acknowledged that an effort like this would be a major challenge to pull off on the level needed to have impact society wide.  It was decided that the area to do it in would be Southern California.  Keith and Deletha from Los Angeles and D’Andre from the San Francisco/Oakland are volunteered to be on a working group.  This group would explore what was necessary to pull this kind of Tribunal off and begin right away doing the outreach necessary to assemble the forces it will require.  We didn’t set a date for it, but we did launch the work to make it happen.

The other things that came up in the part of the call focused on fighting torture in the prisons were ideas from Carl about drafting up a “Pledge of Resistance to Torture in Prison” and a possible “Statement of Conscience Condemning Torture in US Prisons.” Neither of these was decided on.

We also discussed the upcoming trial of George Zimmerman, the vigilante who murdered Trayvon Martin.  This trial is scheduled to begin on June 10th, and, given that it took national outpourings to force Florida to even put Zimmerman on trial, it was felt that continued national outpourings would be a key part of having even a chance to get justice for this murder.  The ideas discussed were to call for protests and other actions on the opening of the trial and coming up with a form that youth could take up to express their outrage at the way Black youth are targeted in this society.

Keith said that they got a good response to a sticker that read: “We Are All Trayvon!  The Whole Dammed System Is Guilty!”  At all the high schools in LA where they took it, youth grabbed up the stickers and wore them prominently.  The problem was they could only physically get to a few schools.  The key obstacle we have to figure out how to get over is how to make something like this, a sticker or a button with a slogan that captures people’s imagination, widely accessible.  This will require an on line campaign with an emphasis on social media.  Solomon is going to enlist a student he works with in trying to conceive of what this campaign should look like.  [Anyone who has ideas on this—what the slogan should be or how to spread it on line — or wants to be part of this effort to saturate social media around Trayvon’s case, should contact the Stop Mass Incarceration Network at: [email protected].]

Carl posed the need to figure out how to give the movement to stop mass incarceration a cultural expression, thru having a recognizable symbol or logo, similar to how the Stop “Stop-and-Frisk” button has symbolized the work around that issue in NYC.  And to look to involve artists in contributing ideas for this symbol and to encourage them to address mass incarceration in their art, including doing concerts to support this struggle.  He also posed the need to explore having a major hip-hop concert around mass incarceration in the Fall.  But we didn’t have time on the call to discuss this.  We also didn’t get to talk about looking to mount more massive outpourings in the 1000’s on Oct 22, 2013, the 18th annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation!

The next conference call was set for Tuesday, May 7th, at 7 PM east coast time, which will be 4 PM on the west coast.