submitted anonymously
To keep it short – it was a huge success!
We had around 30 people come through – about half of which participated in the run and raised $604 that we are splitting between the Anarchist Black Cross Federation War Chest Program and regional prisoners. There were supplies for writing letters to prisoners which people used and people had fun hand screen printing shirts for the event on site. Before running, someone spoke a little bit about the warchest and the anarchist black cross and someone else shared snippets of writing from a zine a formerly incarcerated friend had written during incarceration. A few people came up during and at the after party grilling at Yauger Park and asked what was going on and we had really refreshing and receptive conversations about the destruction of prisons.
On Running Down The Walls & The ABCF Warchest
For those unfamiliar, the ABCF Warchest is a program(https://www.abcf.net/warchest-program/) started in 1994 “to send monthly donations to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War who have been receiving insufficient, little, or no financial support during their imprisonment. Its purpose is to collect funds from groups and individual supporters and send that money directly to commissary accounts of vetted Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War (PP/POW) monthly.”
Running Down the Walls is a non-competitive 5K started in 1999(https://www.abcf.net/rdtw/) to raise money for the Warchest and to raise awareness about political prisoners and prisoners of war, as a way to constantly affirm that we have not forgotten our comrades and fighters captured by our enemies. These runs happen both inside and outside prisons, and this year saw runs in Chicago, Eugene, Portland, LA, Lowell MA, Mexico City, NYC, Philadelphia, and Bristol.
This year also saw statements from various prisoners:
Toby Shone – https://www.abcf.net/blog/toby-shones-2024-running-down-the-walls-2024-statement/
Jesse Cannon – https://www.abcf.net/blog/jesse-cannons-2024-running-down-the-walls-statement/
Marius Mason – https://www.abcf.net/blog/marius-masons-2024-running-down-the-walls-statement/
Xinchtli – https://www.abcf.net/blog/xinachtlis-2024-running-down-the-walls-statement/
Oso Blanco – https://www.abcf.net/blog/oso-blancos-2024-running-down-the-walls-statement/
Prisoner Solidarity Means Attack
“Revolutionary solidarity that doesn’t see the prisoner as an inactive individual with whom you should unquestioningly show solidarity, but rather as a comrade who continues being part of the struggle and who, therefore, is active in exchanging visions of the different initiatives that are carried out.
I send an embrace charged with complicity to all the groups and individuals who carry revolutionary solidarity embedded in their daily struggles. Those who, each and every moment, persistently and obstinately confront this society that needs prisons, control, degradation and exploitation to perpetuate itself. Who are conspiring and devising new forms of spreading anarchist propaganda, carrying out attacks and acting in solidarity with prisoner comrades. A strong hug for all of them.”
-Francisco Solar (https://actforfree.noblogs.org/2024/09/11/chile-words-of-anarchist-comrade-francisco-solar-for-the-week-of-international-agitation-against-isolation/#more-1345)
Prisoner solidarity cannot be the specialized role of particular crews or organizations, it’s a project we must all take up. If anarchism isn’t just a social scene, if we are true to our revolutionary ideals we must understand that at some point we are probably going to do some time. Beyond that even, the degree to which our collective practice of prisoner support is strong is the degree to which people will feel empowered to take the risks that need to be taken and know that if something goes wrong, people will have their back.
It goes beyond this even, because to be an anarchist is to be at war with all forms of domination, and prison is the most direct form of domination – a core site of reproduction of hierarchies and the projection of state power – behind the power of the boss, the power of the landlord, behind the hoarding of the necessities of life and self actualization by the few, behind the impunity of racist and anti-queer vigilantes stands concrete walls, armed guards and locked doors for those of us who strike back.
Prison is the shock absorber for changes in social and economic domination, a continual site of capital accumulation via prison slavery. The United States is the largest incarcerator in the history of humanity and large swaths of the population – particular black and indigenous people – in one way or another are swept up into the machine as the raw materials for the ever expanding policing, corrections and border enforcement industries.
The prison industry and all its connected forms are a bi-partisan project of white supremacist terror on a scale the most extreme and well organized of fascist cadres could only dream of. Look at the bringing back of drug war era policies in Seattle via the SODA/SOAP ordinances, the broad criminalization of homelessness, the expansion of police training facilities all over the country.
Looking clearly at all of this, if we are true to our revolutionary ideals each and every one of us will take on the responsibility of attacking prison in some way – for some this may be of a more social nature of breaking the isolation between inside and out by writing letters and connecting to prisoners, getting their voices to the outside world, raising the issue of prison so it cannot be ignored, connecting the struggle against prisons to all other struggles. For others, this may be more combative by physically freeing captives, attacking jails and prisons, bringing the fight directly to the homes of the jailers and those who profit off it, preparing the groundwork and networks to support people on the run and escapees, preparing the tools and networks to help turn prison riots into full blown insurrection that opens the gates and reduces those human warehouses to rubble.
Don’t wait for someone else to tell you to write a letter, don’t wait for someone else to go physically look at the jails in prisons in your areas, don’t wait for someone else to study and analyze the process, flow and economy if the justice and corrections industries in your area to find where to best attack, don’t wait until it’s too late to factor the possibility of capture and jail/prison into everything you do, don’t wait to take up the project of the destruction of prisons.
See you next year,
FIRE TO THE PRISONS
LONG LIVE ANARCHY
submitted anonymously
To keep it short – it was a huge success!
We had around 30 people come through – about half of which participated in the run and raised $604 that we are splitting between the Anarchist Black Cross Federation War Chest Program and regional prisoners. There were supplies for writing letters to prisoners which people used and people had fun hand screen printing shirts for the event on site. Before running, someone spoke a little bit about the warchest and the anarchist black cross and someone else shared snippets of writing from a zine a formerly incarcerated friend had written during incarceration. A few people came up during and at the after party grilling at Yauger Park and asked what was going on and we had really refreshing and receptive conversations about the destruction of prisons.
On Running Down The Walls & The ABCF Warchest
For those unfamiliar, the ABCF Warchest is a program(https://www.abcf.net/warchest-program/) started in 1994 “to send monthly donations to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War who have been receiving insufficient, little, or no financial support during their imprisonment. Its purpose is to collect funds from groups and individual supporters and send that money directly to commissary accounts of vetted Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War (PP/POW) monthly.”
Running Down the Walls is a non-competitive 5K started in 1999(https://www.abcf.net/rdtw/) to raise money for the Warchest and to raise awareness about political prisoners and prisoners of war, as a way to constantly affirm that we have not forgotten our comrades and fighters captured by our enemies. These runs happen both inside and outside prisons, and this year saw runs in Chicago, Eugene, Portland, LA, Lowell MA, Mexico City, NYC, Philadelphia, and Bristol.
This year also saw statements from various prisoners:
Toby Shone – https://www.abcf.net/blog/toby-shones-2024-running-down-the-walls-2024-statement/
Jesse Cannon – https://www.abcf.net/blog/jesse-cannons-2024-running-down-the-walls-statement/
Marius Mason – https://www.abcf.net/blog/marius-masons-2024-running-down-the-walls-statement/
Xinchtli – https://www.abcf.net/blog/xinachtlis-2024-running-down-the-walls-statement/
Oso Blanco – https://www.abcf.net/blog/oso-blancos-2024-running-down-the-walls-statement/
Prisoner Solidarity Means Attack
“Revolutionary solidarity that doesn’t see the prisoner as an inactive individual with whom you should unquestioningly show solidarity, but rather as a comrade who continues being part of the struggle and who, therefore, is active in exchanging visions of the different initiatives that are carried out.
I send an embrace charged with complicity to all the groups and individuals who carry revolutionary solidarity embedded in their daily struggles. Those who, each and every moment, persistently and obstinately confront this society that needs prisons, control, degradation and exploitation to perpetuate itself. Who are conspiring and devising new forms of spreading anarchist propaganda, carrying out attacks and acting in solidarity with prisoner comrades. A strong hug for all of them.”
-Francisco Solar (https://actforfree.noblogs.org/2024/09/11/chile-words-of-anarchist-comrade-francisco-solar-for-the-week-of-international-agitation-against-isolation/#more-1345)
Prisoner solidarity cannot be the specialized role of particular crews or organizations, it’s a project we must all take up. If anarchism isn’t just a social scene, if we are true to our revolutionary ideals we must understand that at some point we are probably going to do some time. Beyond that even, the degree to which our collective practice of prisoner support is strong is the degree to which people will feel empowered to take the risks that need to be taken and know that if something goes wrong, people will have their back.
It goes beyond this even, because to be an anarchist is to be at war with all forms of domination, and prison is the most direct form of domination – a core site of reproduction of hierarchies and the projection of state power – behind the power of the boss, the power of the landlord, behind the hoarding of the necessities of life and self actualization by the few, behind the impunity of racist and anti-queer vigilantes stands concrete walls, armed guards and locked doors for those of us who strike back.
Prison is the shock absorber for changes in social and economic domination, a continual site of capital accumulation via prison slavery. The United States is the largest incarcerator in the history of humanity and large swaths of the population – particular black and indigenous people – in one way or another are swept up into the machine as the raw materials for the ever expanding policing, corrections and border enforcement industries.
The prison industry and all its connected forms are a bi-partisan project of white supremacist terror on a scale the most extreme and well organized of fascist cadres could only dream of. Look at the bringing back of drug war era policies in Seattle via the SODA/SOAP ordinances, the broad criminalization of homelessness, the expansion of police training facilities all over the country.
Looking clearly at all of this, if we are true to our revolutionary ideals each and every one of us will take on the responsibility of attacking prison in some way – for some this may be of a more social nature of breaking the isolation between inside and out by writing letters and connecting to prisoners, getting their voices to the outside world, raising the issue of prison so it cannot be ignored, connecting the struggle against prisons to all other struggles. For others, this may be more combative by physically freeing captives, attacking jails and prisons, bringing the fight directly to the homes of the jailers and those who profit off it, preparing the groundwork and networks to support people on the run and escapees, preparing the tools and networks to help turn prison riots into full blown insurrection that opens the gates and reduces those human warehouses to rubble.
Don’t wait for someone else to tell you to write a letter, don’t wait for someone else to go physically look at the jails in prisons in your areas, don’t wait for someone else to study and analyze the process, flow and economy if the justice and corrections industries in your area to find where to best attack, don’t wait until it’s too late to factor the possibility of capture and jail/prison into everything you do, don’t wait to take up the project of the destruction of prisons.
See you next year,
FIRE TO THE PRISONS
LONG LIVE ANARCHY