The cold-blooded murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police incited one of the largest mass uprisings in US history. As Black youth and their allies take to the streets to build a world where Black lives matter, the disproportionately Black and brown population of California prisons is still fighting for their lives against state sponsored medical neglect. The dangers of the COVID-19 virus are exacerbated by unsanitary conditions and crowded cells. The state still refuses to make necessary population reductions after 73 deaths in California state facilities alone and 1288 deaths nationally. Organizers foresaw the tragic death toll and urged public officials to release their friends and loved ones from the early days of the pandemic. As a student of history, I believed them and began a digital project in February with my colleague Jake Tompkins to amplify their voices while weaving together incarcerated people’s past and present struggles for liberation.

Memory is a tool that can help dismantle the prison industrial complex (PIC). It fuels struggles to free loved ones and community members over decades and also challenges the assumptions that prisons are necessary. At the height of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s, incarcerated people and their allies exposed the brutal conditions of California prisons and documented their struggles in prison newspapers, letters, and testimonies. Historian and interim director of the Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA Kelly Lytle Hernández argued these documents make up a “rebel archive.”

The project writing, ephemera, art, and film from the incarcerated people’s movements of the 1970s through the present to inspire viewers to join the urgent movement for mass releases during the COVID-19 crisis. Many of the historic documents are from the Freedom Archives’ California Prison Struggles collection. The archives works closely with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners  (CCWP) which formed in 1995 when incarcerated survivor and sickle cell anemia patient Charise Shumate led a lawsuit charging the Department of Corrections and Governor Pete Wilson with medical neglect that amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment.” 

As a privileged white library student, I attempted to work in solidarity and equal partnership with these organizations. Yet, even when students share the visions of community based organizations, efforts at solidarity within a short time frame are imperfect by nature. I found that centering the narratives of impacted communities and building relationships can be steps towards equitable partnerships. 

Artist and community archivist Josh MacPhee let us adopt his “Free them all” graphic into a logo. We used numerous graphics from radical artist collective Justseeds to augment historical documents.

The San Francisco- based Freedom Archives epitomizes memory-based struggle- both its origins and collections stem from emancipatory social movements themselves. As co-director Nathaniel Moore told me, “We see ourselves as a part of movement, as a part of struggle.” The archives grew from the progressive movements of the Bay Area and the over 30 years of radical news and radio programs many of the founders had produced on stations like Berkeley’s KPFA during the 1960s and 1970s. They make these materials accessible to wide audiences including youth and create documentaries on subjugated histories like the impact of COINTELPRO. 

Incarcerated people and their loved ones have always led the movement to abolish the PIC. Abolitionist organizations like Survived and Punished emphasize participatory action research (PAR), which empowers impacted communities to identify research questions and methods and wield knowledge as a weapon in the struggle for liberation. We faced a four month time frame due to our digital development grant funding from the Department of Information Studies. This prevented PAR, which necessitates long term relationship building and ensuring safety for incarcerated participants.  Furthermore, the digital nature of our project makes it inaccessible to incarcerated people, who lack internet access and rely on print media like zines. While being honest about these limitations, we attempted to combat the historical erasure of incarcerated people's history. 

Fassler, Marty, Soledad Brothers Newsletter November 1970, 1970-11-01 Courtesy of the Freedom Archives

Soledad Brothers Defense Committee, “Medical Conditions Treatment of Prisoners on O and X Wings Correctional Training Facility, Soledad California”, 1970. Courtesy of the Freedom Archives

Santa Cruz Women's Prison Project, “No title at all is better than a title like that!” 1974. Courtesy of the Freedom Archives

This screenshot shows a page of the exhibit about the CCWP including a clip of the oral history with Mary Shields and a portrait of her by photographer Dana Ullman. 

Julia Tanenbaum is a second year MLIS student at UCLA who works at Young Research Library and as an intern at the June L Mazer Lesbian Archives.