Raleigh Stages Anti-Prison Demo

August 16, 2011 by prisonbookscollective



At 2:30pm on Sunday August 14th, over 30 people gathered in front of the

huge max-security men’s Central Prison in Raleigh, NC to stand in

solidarity with the the thousands of California prisoners on hunger

strike. We we were also there to express our continued support for our

brutalized and arrested comrades in Seattle, the victims of the recent

spate of killings by police in California, local prison resisters such as

the 10-15 death row inmates who staged a cafeteria protest on July 14th

inside Central Prison to condemn the beating of fellow death row inmate

William Bowie by prison guard Sergeant Soucier, and James Graham, a

Lanesboro, NC prisoner who succeeded in getting most of his demands met

after a week-long hunger strike last month. We timed this demonstration to

coincide with the latest block of visiting-hours for that day, so that

prisoners’ friends and loved ones might see us and relay our messages to

the inside.



A number of passing motorists honked, waved, yelled in support and shot us

thumbs-up as we held banners, banged on drums, chanted and darted into the

street to distribute handbills through open car windows. After about 45

minutes we migrated to a side of the property that lay a bit closer and

within clearer sight of the prison’s housing units, came up to the metal

fence and for about 2 minutes yelled and beat on drums and cookware as

loud as we could while facing our banners and signs toward the prison’s

windows, hoping that prisoners could briefly see or at least hear us in

those last few moments.



Out of all the locations in NC’s capital city that sustain the functioning

of the prison-industrial complex, we chose this particular correctional

facility to demonstrate in front of for its proximity to a major boulevard

and thus, high visibility to passing traffic, and its particularly

loathsome status as the state of North Carolina’s “execution prison,”

currently housing over 150 death row inmates set to be murdered by the

State within those very walls.



This demonstration followed on the heels of similar events held in front

of the Guilford County Jail in downtown Greensboro on Sunday July 24th,

and Sunday August 7th in front of the downtown Durham jail.



As a climate of nationwide and international resistance against

correctional systems and law enforcement continues to develop, we will

maintain our support for all prisoners and victims of police violence and

harassment, to demonstrate affinity with those trapped behind bars, and to

lend solidarity to those who disrupt business-as-usual in the prison

system.



-some NC anarchists against prisons