What happens to a predominantly Black community when its government officials prioritize profit over health and legacy? On the 49th episode of “The Activist Files", legal worker Sadé Evans speaks with Dr. Joy Banner and Jo Banner of “The Descendants project”, a non-profit organization that advocates for descendants of people who were enslaved in Louisiana’s River Parishes. In honor of Earth Day, this discussion centers the founders of the Descendants Project as they speak out against corporate greed and environmental racism in Wallace, Louisiana, largely known as Cancer Alley.  This episode will highlight the formation of the Descendant’s project; how the founders’ community is being affected by petrochemical companies; and their current lawsuit against St. John the Baptist Parish which challenges an old corrupt zoning ordinance that would allow the construction of a massive grain terminal on their land. 

Resources:

CCR Website - Case Page

Descendant's Project Press Release

Follow the Descendant’s Project work here:

Website:http://thedescendantsproject.org/

Instagram: @thedecendantsproject

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/descendantsproject/

How has Black feminism ushered in our current understanding and practice of abolition? On the 48th episode of the Activist Files, advocacy associate maya finoh speaks with Andrea Ritchie, an attorney, author, organizer, and co-founder of Interrupting Criminalization and In Our Names Network, who has been documenting, organizing, advocating, litigating, and agitating around policing and criminalization of Black cis/trans women and girls and trans and gender non-conforming people for the past three decades. maya and Andrea discuss what it’s like being ahead of the curve on these concepts; why it’s critical to center Black women, girls, and queer and trans people; the experience of working with survivors on abolitionist projects; and the impact of previous feminist organizations and formations on creating the Black feminist and abolitionist futures being actualized today. Andrea's newest book, No More Police: A Case for Abolition, which is co-authored with Mariame Kaba, will be released this summer. This episode is part of the Center for Constitutional Rights' programming honoring Women's History Month.

On the Black History Month episode of the Activist Files, Center for Constitutional Rights board member Meena Jagannath speaks with Rob Robinson, a formerly homeless community organizer and housing activist who has worked with social movements all over the world. Rob discusses how his personal experiences have shaped his political outlook, how he hopes to change people’s fundamental relationship to land and housing, and how, throughout American history, housing has been a primary means of oppressing Black, brown, and low-income communities. He also discusses efforts to fight back, including the Take Back the Land movement that he helped organize, and the connection of the housing movement both to the broader struggle for Black liberation and to other emancipatory movements. Finally, in keeping with our theme for Black History Month, Rob touches on the rage he has felt – and channeled – in the face of oppression. 

Resources:

Max Rameau Papers

Picture the Homeless

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25

Center for Constitutional Rights Advocacy Program Manager Aliya Hussain, Senior Managing Attorney Shayana Kadidal, and Senior Attorney Wells Dixon answer questions about the state of Guantánamo after 20 years operating as an offshore prison for Muslim men and boys in the so-called war on terror. We marked the 20th anniversary with a virtual rally, op-eds, media interviews, and an event that we organized, Guantánamo, Off the Record: 20 Years in the Fight. For that event, we collected questions to find out what people really wanted to know. In this episode, the three delve into  those topics, from indefinite detention and torture to the ultimate question about Guantánamo: What will it take to finally shut it down?

Resources:

Guantánamo, Off the Record: 20 Years in the Fight, Video of FB live here.

Twenty Years Later, Guantánamo Is Everywhere, an essay in The Boston Review by Legal Director Baher Azmy

Cutting Edge Issues in Year 20 of the Guantánamo Habeas Litigation, an analysis in Just Security by Shayana Kadidal

Guantánamo Isn’t Ancient History. It Has Become a “Forever Prison,”  an oped by Wells Dixon in Truthout

The Center for Constitutional Rights Guantánamo issue page, which has links to cases, profiles, articles, videos, fact sheets, and more.

Joseph Thompson, a green card holder from Jamaica, came to the United States in 1985. After an encounter with police in Dalton, Georgia, Joseph was transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  So began his nearly three years in ICE captivity. 

Joseph is one of the people featured in “Cruel by Design: Voices of Resistance from Immigration Detention,” a forthcoming report from the Immigrant Defense Project and the Center for Constitutional Rights. In this episode of the Activist Files, Joseph speaks with the report’s authors, Samah Sisay, and Mizue Aizeki, about his harrowing experiences in six immigration detention centers in the south. Guards once tased and beat him after he refused to eat, and ICE put his life in danger by denying him heart surgery. Joseph also details more routine forms of cruelty, from spoiled food to retaliatory transfers to the separating of friends. Joseph’s story makes clear that the cruelty is no accident but the goal of a system designed to inflict harm and break people’s spirits in order to facilitate mass deportation. But it is also a testament to the tremendous capacity of people to resist oppression: released from ICE custody earlier this year, Joseph is fighting to change the system. “I hope I’m some kind of shining beacon to others, I try to be anyway…,” he says “If I can help anybody, I’m willing to. Even when I was in there, I was helping people.”

For further information:

The Center for Constitutional Rights’ work opposing ICE 

The Immigrant Defense Project’s work fighting back against ICE policing 

The third Thursday in November is a National Day of Mourning, where we mourn the genocide of millions of Native people and the theft of Native land, and where we honor the ongoing struggle for Native liberation and Land Back across Turtle Island.

In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day last month — and in support of the Indigenous-led week of action People v. Fossil Fuels — the Indigenous Environmental Network, The Red Nation, and the Center for Constitutional Rights held an online discussion with frontline Indigenous Water Protectors: Water Is Our Critical Infrastructure — Lawfare by Oil and Gas Won’t Stop Us from Winning. Activists Anne White Hat (Sicangu Lakota Oyate) and Sungmanitu Bluebird (Oglala Sioux) joined Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Attorney Pamela Spees and moderator Advocacy Director Nadia Ben-Yousef to discuss the increasingly desperate tactics by the oil and gas industry to draft and pass laws that target Indigenous people and threaten all those who take an unflinching stance against capitalist violence and the destruction of the Earth. They highlighted the important legal victory by Anne White Hat and other Water Protectors who fought back against Louisiana’s industry-developed “critical infrastructure” law—and won! 

This podcast is taken from that event, with a new introduction from Nadia Ben-Youssef situating the discussion in the context of the National Day of Mourning. 

Resources:

Report from the Indigenous Environmental Network: Indigenous Resistance Against Carbon

The Red Nation and The Red Deal 

White Hat v. Landry

ALEC Attacks: How evangelicals and corporations captured state lawmaking to safeguard white supremacy and corporate power, a report from the Center for Constitutional Rights, Dream Defenders, Palestine Legal, The Red Nation, and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

Bail funds for Line 3 protesters

How do organizers and advocates use art to promote and demystify the struggle for disability justice and its connections to other liberation movements? On the 43rd episode of the Activist Files, Senior Legal Worker Leah Todd speaks with Britney Wilson, a poet and writer who was featured in the Brave New Voices documentary series, attorney, and Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Civil Rights and Disability Justice Clinic at New York Law School, and Lucy Trieshmann, an educator and writer, third year law student at New York University School of Law, co-founder of the Breaking Point Project, and treasurer of the National Disabled Law Students Association, about using art, storytelling, advocacy, and litigation as tools to move towards a world beyond ableism, criminalization, and other forms of discrimination. Both members of the extended Center for Constitutional Rights family, Britney is a former Bertha Justice fellow, and Lucy is a former Ella Baker summer intern. The podcast coincides with the observation of National Disability Employment Awareness Month in October.

Britney and Lucy discuss the ways that art can help to share important narratives and open up space for difficult conversations on controversial issues, how disability justice is situated within a larger liberation politic that includes racial, economic, LGBTQIA+ and gender justice and abolitionist frameworks, the necessity of moving beyond concepts of access and compliance towards understanding everyone's role in interdependence in order to get towards freedom, and lessons those working for justice must commit to learning in order to move beyond an ableist conception of "normalcy."

For further information:

Britney Wilson's article on Access-A-Ride: https://longreads.com/2017/09/01/on-nycs-paratransit-fighting-for-safety-respect-and-human-dignity/

Lucy Trieshmann speaks on accommodations in schools and the impact of the pandemic: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/disabled-students-school-covid

Lucy Trieshmann speaks on where she finds joy: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/07/21/wheelchair-users-talk-disturbing-questions-what-they-wish-you-knew/8017662002/

As we look back on the past 20 years since 9/11, certain issues come to the forefront – the toll of the war in Afghanistan; the torture of detainees in CIA custody; the worldwide drone program; the ongoing 19-year detention of detainees at Guantanamo. The list goes on. Less visible and examined are the hundreds of “terrorism” prosecutions brought in federal courts since 9/11 and their associated harms: the preying on vulnerable defendants by aggressive government informants to concoct charges; the criminalization of First Amendment activity as “material support” for terrorism; the denials of fair criminal process despite the promise of due process; the cruelty of special conditions of confinement disproportionately used in these cases; the impact on the communities, families, and individuals targeted, many of whom are still in prison. We dedicate this month’s podcast to surfacing this slice of the “war on terror,” with our staff attorney Pardiss Kebriaei interviewing three guests who have been at the forefront of advocacy, organizing, and reporting on these cases for more than a decade – Faisal Hashmi, Jeanne Theoharis, professor of political science at Brooklyn College, and Murtaza Hussain, reporter at The Intercept.

As its on-going celebration of the updated sixth edition of the Jailhouse Lawyer’s Handbook, Center for Constitutional Rights Co-author and Senior Legal Worker Ian Head speaks with a number of people who have influenced and been influenced by the handbook for the 41st episode: “Jailhouse Lawyer’s Handbook: Exploring the legacy of inside-outside organizing.” 

Ian spoke with:

●      Brian Glick, a lawyer, Fordham Law School professor, writer and activist, and original author of the handbook;

●      Jenipher Jones Bonio, lead counsel, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak International Law Project and program manager for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice Initiatives at Sturm College of Law;

●      Lisa Drapkin, director of membership for the National Lawyers Guild, which helps with the distribution of the handbook; and

●       Chinyere Ezie, senior staff attorney and co-author of the updated edition of the Jailhouse Lawyer’s Handbook.

●      Ian wraps up the episode by playing a recording by Mumia Abu Jamal, political activist, journalist and jailhouse lawyer.

In this episode, Ian goes back to 1973 with Brian, when the first Jailhouse Lawyer’s Handbook which was published as a manual to demystify the complexities of the law for non-lawyers. Brian provides the history of how the manual came to be. Jenipher discusses the mission of the Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, a group of anonymous incarcerated activists working to abolish prisons and their current advocacy action, the Shut’em Down demonstrations. Lisa talks about the impact—the number of requests for the handbook and how people on the inside use the handbook. And Chinyere highlights what's new in the handbook regarding LGBTQIA+ law, including new case law about transgender healthcare, visitation, and equal protection, and an appendix that provides state-by-state policies.

Ian closes with a powerful recording by Mumia, who lifts up some of the self-taught litigators who have successfully used the handbook.

Hard copies of the sixth edition of the Jailhouse Lawyer’s Handbook are being distributed widely to prisoners and prisoners’ rights groups. The accompanying Jailhouse Lawyer’s website makes a searchable version available to family and friends of prisoners that allows users to browse the lengthy resource and quickly identify the most pertinent information.

“The Activist Files” is excited to cross-promote our 40th episode with “The Artivists’ Room,” Donkeysaddle Projects’ podcast, which features conversations with artists, organizers, and activists, whose art serves as a tool for movement building. For this co-branded episode, Center for Constitutional Rights Advocacy Director Nadia Ben-Youssef sat down for an interview with Donkeysaddle Projects’ podcast host, cultural organizer, artist, actor, and writer BK King. Nadia and BK talked about what it means to reconfigure advocacy work in this moment and how to push beyond reactive work to move activism to a place where we are demanding the world we want. The two artists answered the question “What does freedom look like through art?” by highlighting the importance of art in activism and discussing how creatives transform their radical imaginations to dream of a world where we are liberated. BK closes all of her episodes by asking “If you could talk with anyone in your room, who would it be?” Listen to this episode to find out Nadia’s answer. 

Resources

Donkeysaddle.org

Thereisafield.movie