Hi all!

Our comrade Dena wanted me to pass this newsletter along to you. It lists
lots of excellent resources and upcoming events that you might be
interested in!

In solidarity,

Abby


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From: Center for Constitutional Rights <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, Feb 15, 2021 at 8:46 AM
Subject: News: People serving Death By Incarceration sentences in PA urge
court to allow claims to be heard
To: Dr. Dena Fisher <[email protected]>


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*In this issue:*
People serving Death By Incarceration sentences in PA urge court to allow
claims to be heard
<#m_3488106695869130280_m_-8120560267941354701_m_7685363260690759965_1>
Upcoming events! – “Agendas for Black Liberation” panel & “Nationtime – A
Freedom Flicks Screening”
<#m_3488106695869130280_m_-8120560267941354701_m_7685363260690759965_2>
Black History Month Week 3 – Abolition & the global fight against
anti-Blackness
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LISTEN: New episode of “The Activist Files”: The BREATHE Act – A love
letter via policy
<#m_3488106695869130280_m_-8120560267941354701_m_7685363260690759965_4>
People serving Death By Incarceration sentences in PA urge court to allow
claims to be heard

Death By Incarceration (also known as life without the possibility of
parole) is a term coined by a movement of advocates working to end the
practice, including many who are currently or formerly incarcerated. Under
Pennsylvania law, people convicted under the “felony murder” rule are
automatically sentenced to life imprisonment – even if they did not take a
life, or did not intend to take a life in the course of the crime – and, by
virtue of their life sentences, prohibited from eligibility for parole. A
lawsuit we filed with the Abolitionist Law Center and Amistad Law Project
says such mandatory sentences are unconstitutionally cruel under the
Pennsylvania constitution. Last Monday, our team argued in court against
the state’s attempt to dismiss the case.

“I can honestly say we no longer think or act as we once did before having
been sentenced to life without parole,” said plaintiff *Tyreem Rivers*
<[link removed]>, who has
served 24 years of a Death By Incarceration sentence for a robbery
committed when he was 18.

Learn more about this case *on our website*
<[link removed]>.

[image: text reads save the date february 18 & 19 agendas for Black
liberation Black History Month past, present, future(s) a two-part event
panel discussion & film screening] Upcoming events! – “Agendas for Black
Liberation” panel & “Nationtime – A Freedom Flicks Screening”

We are thrilled to be hosting two events this week as part of our Black
History Month 2021 programming. The first is “Agendas for Black Liberation:
Past, Present, Future(s),” a virtual panel conversation with organizers and
cultural workers.

The panel will elevate the powerful history of agendas for Black liberation
within the U.S. and globally, through art, dialogue, and uplifting our
movement partners. To honor Black history is to celebrate Black future(s).
Join us for an evening reflecting on the impact of Black
Liberation-oriented political agendas and policy platforms on the global
Black Freedom Struggle throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

RSVP *here*
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receive the link and password.

We are also excited to host a virtual screening of *Nationtime* as part of
our *Freedom Flicks series*
<[link removed]>.

*Nationtime*, the late William Greaves’s long-lost film, documents the 1972
National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Indiana. At the
convention, more than 10,000 Black people – including Fannie Lou Hamer,
Bobby Seale, Harry Belafonte, Jesse Jackson, Amiri Baraka, Dr. Betty
Shabazz, Coretta Scott King, and more – gathered in Gary, Indiana to
establish a self-determined Black political agenda.

Register to join the screening *on our website*
<[link removed]>.

To keep up with our full roster of upcoming events, head to *the Events
page on our website*
<[link removed]>.



[image: text reads Black History Month agendas for Black liberation] Black
History Month Week 3 – Abolition & the global fight against anti-Blackness

Latest in our Liberation Archive series, a part of our Black History Month
2021 programming, is a piece on the demands of the prison industrial
complex abolition movement. Abolition as a framework provides the starting
point for a vision of a revolutionary future, a vision that is liberatory.
In the words of Audre Lorde, “when we are silent, we are still afraid. So
it is better to speak, remembering we were never meant to survive.”

In the six years since Ferguson, calls for accountability for the
state-sanctioned murder of Black people have evolved to encompass demands
to defund and abolish *the prison-industrial complex*
<[link removed]>. To
understand how we came to this moment, we must examine the history of
prisons and policing and their central role in perpetuating the oppression
of Black people.

Continue reading the piece from week 3 of this series *on our website*
<[link removed]>.

In our weekly Creating Black Futures series, another piece of our weekly
Black History Month 2021 programming, we are highlighting partners and
organizations doing movement work today to create a better tomorrow. We
invite you all to continue to educate yourselves around the issues
confronting Black communities – in the United States and across the globe –
and to support the leaders who are creating community-based solutions to
these problems.

This week, we focus on organizations that transcend borders – including
pushing back against racist immigration and deportation policies – in
building a global community free from anti-Black racism grounded or linked
to colonial legacies, capitalism, and militarism.

To honor Black history is to celebrate Black futures. Learn more about
these movements and how to support them *on our website*
<[link removed]>.

LISTEN: New episode of “The Activist Files”: The BREATHE Act – A love
letter via policy

What happens when a response to the demands that come from the street lead
to radically reimagining public safety? Protest and policy merge, and “*The
BREATHE Act*
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born.

In “The BREATHE Act: A love letter via policy,” the 35th episode of “The
Activist Files,” *Nadia Ben-Youssef*
<[link removed]>,
advocacy director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, talked with *Ash-lee
Woodard Henderson*
<[link removed]>,
co-executive director of the *Highlander Research and Education Center*
<[link removed]>,
about the current political moment for “The BREATHE Act” to take shape in
relationship with the history and trajectory of the Black liberation
freedom struggle.

Listen to this brand new episode of “The Activist Files” *on our website*
<[link removed]>.

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__________________
Abigail Childs
Christian Kennedy
Co-Chairs, Executive Committee
Berkshires DSA
berkshiresdsa.org

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