Chicago Screening of "In the Land of the Free" with Robert King and Bernadine Dohrn, May 25 

Activist, writer, actress, and longtime A3 supporter Linda Carmichael first wrote SOUL ON FIRE seven years ago, based upon many years of writing Herman Wallace. Recently, Carmichael filmed a revised version to be released online. While the full version is being finalized, two short segments have been released. One video features Carmichael herself and the other features the eminent Shakespearian actor, Johnny Lee Davenport, who plays Herman Wallace. 

Carmichael would love the play to be used more as a tool for spreading the Angola Three story. If anyone wants to do a reading, please email her at this address: lindacarmichael13@gmail.com.  

Learn more here. 

On May 9, following an April 23 protest rally and a formal request by the NAACP Baltimore City Chapter, the Baltimore City Council passed a resolution, to be sent to the Maryland General Assembly, calling for the pardon of Marshall "Eddie" Conway.  

Conway's new book, Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther, has just been released. The books summary explains that when he was arrested in 1970, at the age of 24, Conway was Minister of Defense of the Baltimore Black Panther Party. "In 1969, he uncovered evidence of the FBI's infiltration of the Panthers as a part of the COINTELPRO initiative, and found himself locked away, just one year later, convicted of a murder he did not commit. Currently in his fortieth year of incarceration in a State of Maryland correctional facility, he has played a leading role in a variety of prisoner support initiatives, including the formation of the Maryland chapter of the United Prisoner's Labor Union, and the ACLU's Prison Committee to Correct Prison Conditions."

Learn more at www.freeeddieconway.org.

On April 26, the US Third Circuit Court upheld earlier rulings from 2001 and 2008 that overturned the death sentence and stated that if the DA wants to re-instate the death penalty, then death row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal must first be given a new sentencing phase jury trial where Mumia can present evidence of innocence but the jury can only decide between execution or life in prison without parole (View full ruling).  

The DA is asking the Supreme Court to review this decision, seeking to execute Mumia without having a new sentencing trial. Notably, despite his death sentence being overturned since 2001, Mumia remains on death row without general population 'privileges' like contact visits with family.

RELATED: NAACP LDF press release II Linn Washington Jr. II Jeff Mackler II Democracy Now interviews Judith Ritter and Linn Washington Jr. II Amy Goodman in Guardian UK II  FreeMumia.com

In our new interview, Laura Moye, director of the Amnesty International USA Death Penalty Abolition Campaign, talks about 42-year-old Troy Davis. An African American who has been on death row in Georgia for over 19 years-having already faced three execution dates, Davis is now closer than ever to being killed.

On March 28, 2011, the US Supreme Court's rejected his appeal against a federal district court's ruling that Davis did not prove his innocence in an evidentiary hearing held last year. This month Amnesty International released an email action alert, emphasizing that now, more than a month after the Supreme Court ruling, Davis' execution date can literally be scheduled any day. 

To take action, visit Amnesty International's page on Troy Davis, as well as the Color of Change petition, www.justicefortroy.org and www.troyanthonydavis.org.

The Real Cost of Prisons
--An interview with Lois Ahrens

Lois Ahrens is the Founder/Director of The Real Cost of Prisons Project (RCPP) and has been an activist/organizer for more than 40 years. First started in 2001, RCPP brings together justice activists, artists, justice policy researchers and people directly experiencing the impact of mass incarceration to work together to end the U.S. prison nation.

Towards the end of our interview, we asked:  

"In your opinion, what are the best forms of practical action that those of us living outside the prison walls can do to help to improve present conditions for those incarcerated, and to challenge the broader criminal 'justice' system, with abolition as the long-term goal?" We liked her answer so much that we decided to reprint it in full below:

Lois Ahrens:   As abolitionists we must find smaller and larger steps along the way to stay engaged and connected to activists inside and out. There's a lot of work to do:

--Connect to prisoners via books through bars projects and pen pal programs.

--Create true community-based alternatives programs that are not affiliated with sheriff's departments and other law enforcement, for people with non-violent convictions to stay at home, connected to family and communities, and not go to jail.

--Create bail reform programs so that jails are not debtors prisons- examples include unsecured appearance bonds, setting lower amounts of bail and lowering bail based on the circumstances of someone's life. For example, do they have children they are taking care of? Do they have a job that will be jeopardized? Many people plead guilty and then end up jail because they know they can't make bail.

--Create affirmative action campaigns for people with criminal records, based on models of other affirmative action categories, to begin a conversation with employers about the need for second chances. Expand the campaign to housing fairness.

--Talk about the growth of solitary confinement in the U.S. People will be disbelieving, but Solitary Watch is a great resource for information and activism.

--Work to expand parole, rather than restricting it! Attend parole hearings and write letters in behalf of people seeking parole

--Communicate with your governor to reinstate commutation. Most governors no longer commute sentences, although this used to be standard practice. Actively support people seeing commutation through letter writing campaigns and public events.

--Work to end the unnecessary and costly systems designed to send parolees back to prison based on minor violations. Strategically speaking, right now with state budget deficits, is a good time to focus attention on this.

--Challenge the drug laws that criminalize addiction and work with 

harm reductionists to provide needle exchange, safe injection sites, community education.

--Decriminalize sex work by joining forces with organizations of sex workers and make public the harassment from the police suffered by sex workers.

--Work with organizations such as Families Against Mandatory Minimums nationally and in your state to end mandatory minimum drug sentences.

--Begin a conversation with state legislators on the extreme length of sentences, not only for people convicted of non-violent offenses, but for those convicted of violent offenses as well. The new report by the Justice Policy Institute, Finding Direction: Expanding Criminal Justice Options by Considering Policies of Other Nations, provides models of what other countries are doing.

--Model the successful organizing strategies and legislation in NY State to end the shackling of women in labor and childbirth.

--Join with family groups and others organizing to end "life without the possibility of parole." Introduce parole review for everyone beginning at 15 years.

--Make compassionate release real for states where it is already a law. Work with faith-based groups and involve faith-based communities in organizing for compassionate release.

--Work with Families to Amend California's Three Strikes (FACTS) and other organizations to end three strikes and habitual offender sentences.

--Join forces with community-based mental health and addiction treatment centers to advocate for money needed for treatment in communities, rather than jails and prisons filled with people suffering from untreated mental illness and no drug treatment. Drug addiction is a mental illness.

--Question the propaganda about who is criminal and the unchanging nature of people who have committed crimes and how they are portrayed in the media.

--Finally, each of us must fight racism wherever we find it. Fighting racism is a blow to mass incarceration.