Well over 100 people descended on Howard University on April 19 and 20 for the first national conference of Students Against Mass Incarceration. SAMI, a Black radical student organization started at Howard in 2011, brought together a wide range of high school and college students, as well as a significant number of activists, organizers, professors, cultural workers and others from around the D.C. community and country. SAMI chapters mobilized from Howard, Columbia University, Mount Holyoke, and several other institutions including some as far away as Minnesota.
In the call for the conference, SAMI listed its purpose as follows: “1) educate students and the community about the prison industrial complex and political prisoners, 2) form a network of Black student organizers, 3) provide students with a skill set to organize grassroots campaigns related to prison issues, 4) give Black students access to veteran organizers of Human rights struggles.”
A range of panels
These goals were met and exceeded in the two days of the conference. A range of panels provided a wide array of information. This author spoke on a panel discussing the “War on Drugs.” Other participants included Nkechi Taifa, Esq. of the Open Society Institute; Dr. Joe Richardson of the University of Maryland; Dr. Anthony Monteiro of Temple University; Yusef Shakur, a Detroit community activist and bookstore owner; and Wahid Shakur of the Friend of a Friend program, an educational program in Maryland prisons run by prisoners themselves.
Other panels included historical discussions of the Black Power movement; the international dimensions of mass incarceration and its connection with immigration; sexism and mass incarceration; discussions with former prisoners on prison conditions; and many more. Some of the vast range of panelists included Yango Sawyer of the Movement for Love and Unity; Bob Brown of the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party–GC; community organizer and journalist Rosa Clemente; Ramona Africa of the MOVE Organization; Pacifica Radio host Nkenge Toure, Howard University professor Dr. Quito Swan; Opal Tometi of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration; and Dr. Iyelli Ichile of Temple University, among others.
The conference also featured several spirited cultural performances, including an inspiring children’s play, “Maintaining Resistance Behind the Bars.” The young actors represented various political prisoners and explained their struggle, with the emphasis on the inability of the capitalist state to crush the spirit of the revolutionary forces currently locked down.
On the first night, the conference heard a rousing keynote by Pam Africa of the MOVE Organization, whose message was greeted with a standing ovation. Mumia Abu Jamal, still unjustly imprisoned after over 30 years inside, persecuted for being an enemy of imperialism, called into the conference the same evening and gave both encouragement and inspiration to the many young people in attendance. Mumia noted that “students make great rebels,” and implored attendees at the conference to continue their fight against oppression and exploitation.
Importance of internationalism
The second day’s keynote featured M1, cultural worker and member of the hip-hop group Dead Prez. M1 also reinforced the need to continue the struggle in the streets, and underlined the importance of an internationalist orientation. His presentation was followed by an excellent performance by hip-hop artist Jasiri X.
The conference also had several workshops and brainstorming sessions where attendees could discuss the various aspects of their organizing around broad strategies and goals, political points of unity and practical organizing techniques, ways to sustain momentum on campus, building an inclusive movement, and the relationship between the Black national struggle (as well as other nations and ethnicities) to the broader class struggle.
Discussions and debate were both principled and extensive, with no confusion amongst attendees that the struggle against mass incarceration is truly a struggle against the capitalist socio-economic system of which it is a part.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation salutes Students Against Mass Incarceration for carrying out its highly successful first national conference! The broader significance of the conference is clear. With mass incarceration and police brutality menacing Black working-class communities around the nation, the SAMI conference represents the crucial emergence of a student and youth-oriented wing of the existing movement against these scourges. Like SNCC during the Civil Rights movement, SAMI is oriented towards building links between students and the broader oppressed and exploited communities. These are the bonds and linkages that can help break the chains and rip out the bars!
End Mass Incarceration Now!!!
