Kite Line

We start off this week with a statement, released today, by Alabama Confined Citizens, speaking for people striking behind the walls of the Alabama prison system. We then speak with Elizabeth, who is one of many supporting the strike because they have an imprisoned loved one. In contrast to official narratives from the Governor and …

We start off this episode with our monthly round up of prison disturbances, as compiled by Perilous Chronicle. As we have covered, Alabama prisoners have been striking since September 26th. Prisoners at all 13 prisons in the Alabama department of corrections system went on labor strike, demanding improvement to conditions. We spoke with an inside …

This past week, we spoke to Swift Justice, who is an incarcerated organizer in Alabama. Thousands of Alabama prisoners began a strike last week to protest poor prison conditions across the state, where prisons are overcrowded, understaffed and notoriously dangerous. Today, Swift Justice speaks about the recent retaliation the strikers have faced. He updates us …

This week, we share the second part of a recorded discussion hosted by the Civil Liberties Defense Center.  CLDC has been at the forefront of anti-repression legal work for decades now, working on many of the Green Scare cases, in which the FBI infamously hounded and smashed radical environmental organizing between 2000 and 2008.  In …

This week, we share a recorded discussion hosted by the Civil Liberties Defense Center.  CLDC has been at the forefront of anti-repression legal work for decades now, working on many of the Green Scare cases, in which the FBI infamously hounded and smashed radical environmental organizing between 2000 and 2008.  In this discussion, Chava and …

Shawn Sutton is from Greenville, North Carolina, and she participated in the George Floyd Uprising when it spread there in late May 2020.  Shawn was imprisoned due to her participation and has been recently released.  Today, she discusses the incident surrounding her arrest and the overall way recent years have shaped her politics. You can …

Up first, we have our monthly round up of prison disturbances, as compiled by Perilous Chronicle. In celebration of over 300 consecutive weekly episodes of Kite Line, we are revisiting some features from our archive of shows. In this clip from Episode 58, which aired in 2017, we return to the topic of incarceration’s impact …

This week, Zolo Azania returns to Kite Line. He recently visited Indiana University’s campus, and gave a talk that we began airing last week. On that episode, he reflects on that visit and talks about his history, focusing on how learning to use the law improved his life. The efforts of Azania, his lawyers and …

This week, Zolo Azania returns to the show. Azania was on the Kite Line back in 2019, shortly after he was released after surviving decades on Indiana’s death row.  He speaks with Jok Huerta, who has been on the show previously, moderating discussion with various Indiana prisoners. Zolo will be on upcoming episodes of the …

Keith LaMar, also known as Bomani Shakur, is a prisoner on Ohio’s Death Row.  He is facing execution in autumn 2023 after being framed in prison due to his advocacy for other prisoners and his refusal to snitch on others in the aftermath of the 1993 Lucasville Uprising.  He has consistently expressed solidarity with other …

We launch into this episode with our monthly roundup of prison disturbances, as compiled by Perilous Chronicle.  Afterwards, we have audio from a prisoner, Paul Lee, reporting on a massive transfer of inmates back in February from Pontiac, Illinois correctional facility to Centralia Correctional Center due to an ongoing black mold problem, which had been …

We are again sticking close to home this week. We share the second part of a panel on the effects of incarceration on families. Max E. Smith, Becky Harris, Stacy Flynn, and Ashley C. Ford speak on their experiences of having incarcerated loved ones or how their time inside affected their family members. All Indiana …

We are sticking close to home this week. We share the first part of a panel on the effects of incarceration on families. Max E. Smith, Becky Harris, Stacy Flynn, and Ashley C. Ford speak on their experiences of having incarcerated loved ones or how their time inside affected their family members. All Indiana residents, …

We recently marked our 300th consecutive episode, and in honor of that we have been airing our favorite selections from previous shows. As we approach the upcoming 4 year anniversary of the most recent National Prison Strike, we wanted to air these calls from two prisoners inside South Carolina, who risked their own safety to …

This week on Kite Line, we return to Atlanta’s proposed “Cop City”- a police training facility set to be built over a vast urban forest. People from across the city and the country have been organizing against its construction, which would make it the largest police training facility in the United States.  People have been …

This week, we share the final part of a conversation about Rikers Island between Bella Bravo and Jarrod Shanahan. Shanahan is a writer, activist, and professor of Criminal Justice based in Chicago. He has previously appeared on Kite Line to discuss mass incarceration and the George Floyd rebellion. We are speaking again today about his …

This week, Bella Bravo speaks with Jarrod Shanahan, a writer, activist, and professor of Criminal Justice based in Chicago. Shanahan has been on previous episodes, discussing mass incarceration and the George Floyd rebellion. We are speaking today about his new book Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage. Captives recounts the last seventy …

Interview with Maru Moro Villalpando of La Resistencia, a project that organizes against the Northwest Detention Center. In this conversation, Maru passes a kite along on behalf of immigrants housed in the facility. As they point out, facilities like this are “black boxes” where extra effort must be taken to shed light on conditions inside. …

This week we return to our conversation between Baye Sylvester and Focus Initiatives’ Jok Huerta. Both formerly incarcerated in Indiana, they described the circumstances that brought them to prison in a previous episode. In this segment, they talk about the way the prison system strips people of their humanity- and the struggle to retain one’s …

For this week’s episode,Bella Bravo spoke with Johana Bhuiyan, a journalist and author of a powerful series of articles about immigrant surveillance. She covers the vast program called “intensive supervision appearance program” which purports to be “humane alternative” to immigration detention. Managing the program on behalf of ICE is BI Inc, a subsidiary of the …

This week we return to our conversation between Baye Sylvester and Focus Initiatives’ Jok Huerta. Both formerly incarcerated in Indiana, they described the circumstances that brought them to prison in a previous episode. In this segment, they talk about the way the prison system responds to politically-engaged prisoners. When prisoners become conscious and organized, the …

This week on Kite Line, we return to  Atlanta’s proposed “Cop City”- a police training facility set to be built over a vast urban forest. People from across the city and the country have been organizing against its construction, which would make it the largest police training facility in the United States.  People have been …

This week, we hear the first part of the recent webinar ‘USA vs. Jessica Reznicek: fighting the criminalization of Water Protectors’.  The webinar description reads: “Since the No-DAPL movement, dozens of states have passed critical infrastructure laws that increase criminal penalties for anyone taking action against destructive fossil fuel projects. In 2017, 80 Republicans and 4 …

In celebration of recently completing 300 consecutive episodes, we are airing some of our Kite Line crew’s favorite clips from our archive of hundreds of episodes. After we hear a round up of prison disturbances as compiled by Perilous Chronicle, we play a clip from episode 119, in which Talila Lewis (TL) describes some of …

Last week, marked our 300th episode! Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing clips of our favorite moments from our archive of shows. The following story is from Mark Cook, one of our all-time favorite guests on Kite Line. In this gem, Cook, a founding member of the Walla Walla Black Panther Party, …