We were so excited to table at Survived & Punished’s Mass Commutations Convening “Free Them All” in NY this past weekend at Barnard! Got to connect with comrades who are doing crucial grassroots defense campaign work and building toward mass commutation efforts in California and New York. We spoke with folx about dangerous new criminalizing anti-sex worker legislation (FOSTA/SESTA) and about the case of our comrade Alisha Walker.
Among the presenters, we heard from were: Julia Shaw (Steps to End Family Violence and Survived & Punished NYC), Andrea Bible (Legal Aid), Andrea James (Families for Justice as Healing and National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls), Mariame Kaba (Survived & Punished NYC, Project NIA, Chi Taskforce) and amazing journalist Victoria Law.
The key note speaker, Valerie Seeley, a domestic violence and 17 year prison survivor is only DV survivor granted clemency by Cuomo, gave us a call to action: “I don’t want people to feel sorry for me… I’ve seen a lot and want this to change, for Cuomo to really see women’s cases and free them. I want to help women. Help me help these women!”
We were able to raise funds for Alisha’s commissary needs as well as gather petition signatures and letters to the IL gov demanding clemency for her immediately. Thank you @survivepunish for bringing so many folx together to build community, support survivors and strategize to get people free from prisons, jails, detention centers; incarceration.
Follow the MCC efforts here: http://freethemny.com
Follow Survived & Punished’s efforts here: http://www.survivedandpunished.org