When we arrived on the scene, vehicles lined the cross-street in both directions. We struggled to find parking as police cars block the entry onto Bermis road, so we couldn’t quite see where the rally was taking place, but we knew that it was in well attendance. As we walked toward the prison grounds, joining others who arrived around the same time, it didn’t take long to spot hundreds of people surrounding a single microphone as a Illinois based group of Nation brothers shared their deep sentiments with the crowd, “After hearing what was happening we had to be here!” they’d driven hours north from Chicago to support today’s action. As the afternoon went on advocates, family members and those formerlly incarcerated shared the mic, alternating between women calling from inside of the prison to express their sincere gratitude for our presence and persistence. With every word I heard I was deeply touched, I couldn’t help but weave through the crowd taking photos of my favorite signs and organizers which you can find in the gallery below.
The woman held at Huron Valley Correctional Complex, Michigan’s only prison for women, are facing some of the most severly inhumane conditions of any group forced to reconcile with the conditions of this pandemic in Amerikkka. In addition to being held in a massively overcrowded, shared space; the women have been on lockdown for nearly two years straight, banned from communical activities like classes, recreational programs or simply eating in the cafeteria. Along with the extreme lack of movement, the women have very limited access to outside communication. With many holding the role as main caregivers to their families, the lack of communication with loved ones in the midst of global unrest feels even more oppressive. The vast majority, more than 80%, being mothers with children, young children who they’re forced to raise from behind bars.
While these combined issues of overcrowding and neglect are inhumane in themselves, that’s not what pushed the more than two hundred people to the point of protesting outside of the prison in the middle of a freezing Michigan winter. It’s the daily threat of retaliation by those who are placed in the position to care for them, that forced the masses to take a stand at the facility. Along with retaliation the women are met with ongoing threats of physical assault and sexual violence, often being seen by no more than the flesh they carry by those whose authority they’re being held under. This narrative is one that hit too close to home my dear sister-in-the-struggle Kimberly Woodson, founder of Redeeming Kimberly, a former juvenile lifer who earned her freedom through the recent passage of legislation by the Supreme Court that now forbids Michigan lawmakers from serving minors with life sentences. Woodson shared words from her own experience that shifted the atmosphere in the most impactful way, “It’s because of my love for my sisters that I’m breaking a promise to myself today,” she shouted, “I told myself I would never step foot on these grounds again” she continued in impassioned anger noting how disturbed it is for this to be happening under the authority of female governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and female department head, Heidi E. Washington. Woodson reminded the crowd that in all of the 30 years that she spent living behind the walls of the complex that she’d never seen a turn out anywhere as large as this in support of women incarcerated in Michigan’s Department of Corrections.
We chanted so that the women and their captors could hear us loud and clear, “No place to pump milk for our newborn babies – That ain’t right. Being taken away from our newborn babies – That ain’t right. Overcrowding- That ain’t right! Staffing issues- That ain’t right!! Rape and Molestation- That Shxt Ain’t Right!!!” It’s extreamly difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that these are the conditions we’ve allowed women to face behind the wall for decades. This prison has become a warehouse for women massively impacted by trauma that we cannot allow to continue to exist in its current condition. It baffles me that any person would refuse to grant women at Huron Valley the right to a safe and healing space to serve their time.
The event ended with a walk around the “yard” of the complex. I ran in excitement as I spotted woman on the opposite side of the fence with their orange hats and navy blue jumpsuits waving in the distance. While I couldn’t identify a single face, I waved back envisioning some of the subscribers who receive my Right2Vote newsletter inside of that facility.
They are our sisters, mothers, aunties and daughters who are simply pleading for more space to live, to heal and to be without the threat of assult or retailiation. Who are we to deny them? Regardless of what they were sentenced to serve in prison, not one of those women stood before a judge that stated that they were sentenced to death by COVID.
“Get your knee of their necks, WE can’t breathe!”
Images above captured by Amani Sawari
