[News] You can support the Freedom Archives!

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Fall 2012

Dear Friends,

Your support has made this an international breakthrough year for the 
Freedom Archives!

Our film, Cointelpro 101, made its way to England, Hawaii, South Africa 
and Puerto Rico as well as many communities and film festivals across 
the US. We're also being viewed on LINK TV and Free Speech TV.

In January we will launch a major multifaceted project that highlights 
the history of activism to close Control Unit prisons. At least 80,000 
people are held under conditions of prolonged isolation in the US. Many 
are in solitary confinement or in prisons like Pelican Bay in 
California, ADX Florence federal prison, or in so-called Communication 
Management Units (CMUs) where the federal government encages a majority 
Muslim population.

The origin of this type of torturous imprisonment began in 1985 when the 
US Bureau of Prisons permanently locked down USP Marion in Illinois. The 
Freedom Archives has teamed with Nancy Kurshan, one of the founders of 
the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown (CEML) to publish a book Out of 
Control: A Fifteen Year Battle Against Control Unit Prisons. At the same 
time, we are launching a website with as complete documentation as 
possible on the campaigns against Marion and Lexington prisons. This 
history becomes even more important in light of the hunger strikes in 
Georgia, Ohio, and California over the last many months.

You can order this new book by following the links at 
www.FreedomArchives.org/CEML.html
The book will ship in January 2013.

The content on the website, which also launches in January, includes 
audio and video materials and numerous scanned documents that can be 
downloaded and are not available anywhere else; they are a result of 
countless staff and volunteer hours, relentless work by Nancy Kurshan 
and Steve Whitman, and the generosity of many others who scoured 
basements and old files to unearth these crucial and illuminating 
documents and tapes. We are confident this will amount to a significant 
resource for the current---and growing---movement to end mass 
imprisonment and prolonged isolation.

    The Freedom Archives is taking a stand against the control unit
    prison system, and it's important to me to be part of this protest.
    We are creating a website that will contain crucial information and
    videos from inside the control units, as well as rare interviews
    with prisoners from Marion Prison. It's fulfilling to be able to
    learn from the lessons of history by preserving the past and acting
    upon immediate issues in our community. Michael Rozynski, USF Intern
    -- November 2012

We also recently completed a short, 12-minute video about long-time 
political prisoner, Herman Bell. Herman was a member of the Black 
Panther Party who went underground for several years, until his arrest 
in New Orleans in September, 1973. He and four others then stood trial 
in New York for the murder of two New York policemen. Their first trial 
ended in a hung jury and their second trial, based on the coerced 
testimony of another former Black Panther Party member who had been 
repeatedly tortured in New Orleans, resulted in the unjust conviction of 
Herman, Nuh Washington, and Jalil Muntaqim.

Over nearly four decades in prison, Herman has maintained his commitment 
to social transformation and demonstrated his care and compassion for 
the Black community behind and outside of the walls. We've been working 
on this video with Herman, his family, and one of his many 
supporters---Danny Glover. We will have the video available on the web 
in the near future and expect it will also be seen at meetings and 
gatherings to build support, not only for Herman's return home, but as 
one powerful example of the many aging political and other prisoners who 
should be released to rejoin their communities.

On the video, Herman Bell's two granddaughters say it so much more 
eloquently and beautifully than we ever could. They, and their 
generation, as well as our interns from high school and college, and the 
youth on our staff, are, in the deepest sense, exactly who the work of 
the Freedom Archives is for.

/*Preserve the past -- illuminate the present -- shape the future*/

It is your encouragement and support that keep us moving forward. Please 
contribute what you can.

*You can click here to give on line! 
<https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=33005> (if 
everyone gave $5 or $10, we'd be set for 2013)*

Thank you!

    I have been able to listen to cassette recordings that date back to
    the 1970s. I would NOT have heard this amazing history elsewhere.
    This internship has given me the opportunity to access material
    otherwise hidden from me as a history major at the University of San
    Francisco. The Freedom Archives has given me access to previously
    hidden social movement history, something that I greatly value as an
    African American Studies minor. Ilima Peterson, USF Intern --
    November 2012

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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