After some delay, it’s finally here. We’ve included the zines we’ve been making and some zines authored by prisoners over the last year. We’re especially looking to get these into prisons around the midwest/great lakes region…
According to someone incarcerated at the Crossroad Correctional Center in Missouri, the prison “only allows parcels of five loose papers per envelope. But one zine stapled in the form of a book counts as one paper.” They wanted Newton’s “Intercommunalism”, so we made a zine for them.
Delio Vásquez introduces Newton’s piece thus:
On September 5, 1970, Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party (BPP), introduced his theory of intercommunalism at the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. He later expanded on this theory before an audience at Boston College in November of that year, and then again In February 1971 during a joint talk he gave with psychologist Erik Erikson across several days at Yale University and later in Oakland. Newton’s opening remarks at Yale lasted over an hour but were reduced to about ten pages in the subsequently published In Search of Common Ground. As a philosophical foundation for his remarks on intercommunalism, that introductory speech included an engagement with the work of Hegel, Marx, Freud, Jung, Kant, Pierce, and James, among others. Portions of the material of this main speech, the subsequent Q&A, and other writings of Newton’s were later combined, recomposed, and expanded upon under the title of “Intercommunalism” in 1974, the same year that he completed his bachelor’s degree and fled temporarily to Cuba. This text had until now been available only through access to the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation Inc. Collection (1968-1994), held in archive in Stanford University’s Special Collections.
We made a rough version of this zine back in the Spring for John Bramble, one of the Vaughn 17. It features Brown’s last speech, a testimony by one of his Black comrades who survived the raid, Thoreau’s defense of Brown, and a sampling of letters that Brown received in jail while awaiting trial.
Strangely, I’m most excited about the letters to Brown. At our ABC letter writing nights, we’re often asked by newcomers what to write to people locked in cages far away whom they’ve never met. It’s curious to think of Brown receiving these sometimes plain and brief messages of care and support. Reading them reminds me of my first letters to prisoners and how hard it is sometimes to just commit to writing what is necessary and what one feels to be true. If you’ve never written to a prisoner before and you would like to, perhaps these will help.
For Printing
John Brown and the Raid on Harper’s Ferry
For E-reading
John Brown and the Raid on Harper’s Ferry
With their trials underway, now is a critical time to support The Vaughn 17. Come learn about their cases and write letters to them. 11.8.18, 7:30 @ 2424 s. western ave.., 1R (behind the barber shop).
A Mother’s Tale continue the themes of the intolerable, truth, and revolt from The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Agee’s beautiful short story centers on a mother cow who tells her son and his friends a tale about what awaits the cattle who leave the range every year. Agee’s use of ambivalence indicates how little we know about our own role in the systems that capture and dominate us.
I made this zine in honor of Le Guinn’s passing back in January and finally got around to updating it. It contains two related short stories. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” has inspired so many to pursue other worlds that aren’t founded upon and structured around suffering. It leaves us to meditate upon the gesture of desertion as a response to an intolerable world. “The Day Before the Revolution,” a Prologue to Le Guinn’s famous The Dispossessed, sketches a brief image of a revolutionary life at its end.
To the Man-Child, tall, evil, graceful, bright- eyed, black man-child — Jonathan Peter Jackson — who died on August 7, 1970, courage in one hand, assault rifle in the other; my brother, comrade, friend — the true revolutionary, the black communist guerrilla in the highest state of development, he died on the trigger, scourge of the unrighteous, soldier of the people; to this terrible man-child and his wonderful mother Georgia Bea, to Angela Y. Davis, my tender experience, I dedicate this collection of letters; to the destruction of their enemies I dedicate my life.
One of the most requested titles from people on the inside who write to our distro, Soledad Brother needs no introduction. The content of the letters range from the minutiae of a prisoners’ everyday concerns to autobiography to revolutionary political theory. Due to the size of this work, we’ve split Soledad Brother into two parts, available below.
“James T. Vaughn Correction Center is located at 1181 Paddock Road. For those unfamiliar with the word ‘paddock,’ it’s defined as: an enclosed area for pasturing or excercising animals. Their method of operation is evinced before one steps foot inside the facility. Fortunately, there are some who refrain from acclimating to domestication…”
Live from the Trenches presents raw, honest thoughts from some of the 17 prisoners charged in connection with the prison uprising at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in early February, 2017. These prisoners still need our support – now more than ever with their trials approaching this fall.
If you know anyone near Delaware who is able to support these comrades in any way, let us know. Or better yet, read the zine and write to them! They need the Delaware DOC to know that people are watching their cases as the state has considered re-instating the death penalty for their cases. The addresses of all 17 are listed inside. Some of them are looking for pro bono legal aid. Many have been hunger striking off and on as they have been subject to beatings with the use of electrified shields.
Note: The zine below has the current addresses of The Vaughn 17 as of November 10th. All are currently being held at Sussex Correctional Institution, P.O. Box 500, Georgetown, DE 19947.
Like I always said, if you’re asked to make a commitment at the age of 20, and you say I don’t want to make no commitment only because of the simple reason that I’m too young to die, I want to live a little bit longer–what you did is … you’re dead already.
You have to understand that people have to pay the price for peace. You dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle, then goddammit you don’t deserve to win.
As a start to the Chicago Anarchist Black Cross zine project, we’re
releasing a zine series in honor of Black August. Each one will feature
the words of a key figure in the Black revolutionary tradition. Many of
these are an attempt to respond to frequent requests we receive from
prisoners who write to our zine distro. For our very first release, we
present four speeches by Chicago’s own Fred Hampton.
This publication was requested by one of the Vaughn 17 who are currently being charged in connection with the uprising that took place at Delaware’s James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in February of 2017. We published and circulated a zine of their writings, which will be featured here in a separate post.