By Esther Hernández— For several years, I have met weekly with a remarkable group of mothers and one father who, like me, are fighting for the release of their adult children from Chicago-area prisons. We call ourselves the Mothers of the Kidnapped. My new sisters and brother, all in a group no parent wants to join, speak powerfully to the loss of their children and to the agony of being caught up…
By Ella Sogomonian— SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – “This is a time for us to run and save our people intellectually, economically, socially, spiritually, culturally,” Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown, president of the NAACP San Francisco, said. The NAACP President of the San Francisco chapter referring to the reparations that the county plans to pay descendants of African American slaves. The next step in the process is forming an advisory…
By Nkechi Taifa, Esq.— The godsend of the granting of compassionate release to William Underwood today is a matter of preparation and persistence meeting opportunity. The blessing is the story of a family that never gave up. Lawyers who were relentless. The power of strange bedfellows. And it is a story of the constant demand for justice. William Underwood is a devoted father of four, a grandfather and a former…
By Marcus Harrison Green— There is no resolution I crave more than for us to stop binging on lies. Like most opiates, they are as lethal to progress as they are numbing to awareness. My desire catalyzed nearly four years ago as I moderated a panel discussion of “I Am Not Your Negro” in Columbia City. A multiracial audience packed the Ark Lodge Cinemas to watch the James Baldwin documentary….
By Anakwa Dwamena, The New Yorker — Several months before the coronavirus first arrived in Brazil, this spring, a series of man-made tragedies befell Maria Marques Martins dos Santos. On November 12th, dos Santos, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of three, whose five-foot frame is crowned by curly brown hair, was at her home, in Favela do Amor, in São Paulo. Just after midnight, her fourteen-year-old son, Lucas, went out to buy soda and…
By Kim Hjelmgaard, USA Today — Editor’s Note: If interested in this article, you may also be interested to know that The Right of Repatriation is included in NAARC’s 10 Point Reparations Program. “Africans in America who choose to exercise the right to return will be provided with sufficient monetary resources to become productive citizens in their new home..” – Read it here. Okunini Ọbádélé Kambon knew: He was arrested in Chicago…
The National Council For Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls will be hosting a virtual conference October 2-3, 2020.
By Rebekah Barber, Facing South — During this time of pandemic-related social distancing, phone conversations are helping people stay sane and connected. But incarcerated people, who are among the most vulnerable to the novel coronavirus, face significant barriers when it comes to accessing phone calls, which are more vital than ever given restrictions on in-person visits. Prison telecommunications is a $1.2 billion industry dominated by Securus Technologies, headquartered in Carrolton, Texas, and Global Tel…
By Dr. Julianne Malveaux — There were 4623 incarcerated people over 65 in federal prisons during the first week of May. Until May 12, Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s one-time campaign manager, was one of them. The 71-year-old petitioned the court for release to home confinement because of his age, heart condition, and “fear of coronavirus.” Yet the federal correctional institution that housed Manafort had no coronavirus cases, and Manafort had…
Prisoners have made furniture, license plates and government uniforms during the pandemic. In a factory, social distancing is almost impossible. By Cary Aspinwall, Keri Blakinger and Joseph Neff, The Marshall Project — As the coronavirus spread across the country, Patrick Jones kept reporting to his job in the textile factory at the federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana. He’d worked there for years, sewing tidy buttonholes on government uniforms. Though the highly contagious virus…
No other state is thought to have taken such sweeping action to reduce its jail population in response to the pandemic. By Tracey Tully, NYT — New Jersey will release as many as 1,000 people from its jails in what is believed to be the nation’s broadest effort to address the risks of the highly contagious coronavirus spreading among the incarcerated. New Jersey’s chief justice, Stuart Rabner, signed an order late Sunday authorizing the…
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA — Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Chair Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) held an emergency telephone town hall on Friday, March 20, to discuss the coronavirus and its impact on the Black Community. The discussion also included the coronavirus’ impact on the prison population and the homeless. “Even though we’re in a crisis, we can’t lose momentum,” Bass stated in kicking off the one-hour discussion. Led by…
Here are some quick links to NAARC’s website to help you get involved and stay informed:
• Donate
• What is NAARC?
• What is NAARC’s 10 Point Plan?
• Forums & Conferences
• NAARC News
• Reparations Advocate Sign Up
Also visit the Reparations Resource Center here on ibw21.org →
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The Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW21) is committed to enhancing the capacity of Black communities in the U.S. and globally to achieve cultural, social, economic and political equality and an enhanced quality of life for all marginalized people. – Learn more here
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