Dear Friend,
Mumia Abu-Jamal reminds us that, while disbelief and despair are natural, the next step is to “dry your tears, blow your noses, and join movements of resistance to this madness.”
Prison Radio welcomes you to the resistance. Celebrating our work and our relationships offers hope in grim times. We must turn to each other to build this crucial movement for a better world. Here at Prison Radio our work continues; and your support means everything.
Here are just a few of our accomplishments.
We have broadcast over 250 commentaries this year with 13 new correspondents, all sharing a glimpse into a life otherwise sequestered. We amplified the story about the Red Onion State Prison in VA Hunger Strike and the self-immolation. We broadcast Krystal Clark and her supporters who are demanding health care at Women’s Huron Valley, MI.
“Prison Radio has impacted me in profound ways. They allowed me to add my voice to the voices of comrades like Kevin “Rashid” Johnson and others in exposing the culture of violence and inhumane treatment in the Virginia prison system. I was granted clemency in 2022, the support I found through Prison Radio literally helped to save me from a lifetime in a Virginia prison.” Uhuru Rowe, Prison Radio correspondent
We visit and/or record Mumia Abu-Jamal every single week. We are making sure he has access to health care and nutritious food. Thank you for all of your postcards and letters to the PA DOC!
We build relationships and share ideas across the prison walls and we know our future depends on incarcerated intellectual leadership. Our 2024 term of Prison Radio University connected 73 folks – inside and outside to study and discuss pressing questions in movement building. Our “99+ Incarcerated Intellectuals” project sends abolition texts inside for study and discussion behind the walls.
This year we worked with 150 volunteers. They published over 1,500 archival essays, (we have 1100 left to post.) and transcribed 300 commentaries. Interns coordinated station outreach to introduce journalists and programmers to Prison Radio voices on multi-media platforms. Our interns created two Bandcamp albums – one on Palestine, and one in production on Red Onion supermax in VA.
We have held events all over the country sharing Mumia’s new book Beneath the Mountain: An Anti Prison Reader, as well as Joy James’ groundbreaking abolitionist thinking in the three works of collaboration with front line organizers: Beyond Cop Cities, In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love, and New Bones Abolition. In August we worked with the Abolitionist Law Center to produce a critical update/webinar “Overcoming Death By Incarceration: The Path To Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal”.
This work is exhilarating, and takes material support. We have no large foundation support and rely on our committed supporters to help us keep our phone lines open and our rent paid. Please make a gift today of $150, $35, $500 or a gift of stock or a part of your estate.
Please stand with Prison Radio, as we listen, heal, and resolve to move beyond incarceration. The first step is freedom. The next step is abolition. You make this journey possible.
Thank you for working with us towards these critical goals. Our collective efforts are the only way forward.
Towards justice and freedom,
Jennifer Beach & Noelle Hanrahan, Esq. PI.
Co-Directors Prison Radio