Blackbird Collective: Solidarity Beyond Walls and Borders
By Paul McCarrier
Recently, the Black Bird Collective organized a state-wide conference of groups, churches and individuals in Maine interested in working for concrete change to the state's incarceration system. The meeting was a great success, and now there is a state-wide group known as the Maine Prison Advocacy Coalition.
We have decided that at this time it is best for the Black Bird Collective to focus only on prisons, jails and the conditions inside of them. This is due to many factors, one being the amount of work that is required to make changes within these institutions. We still work with individuals and groups in the community and are actively working to engage more of the conventional community in Portland in taking a critical look at the Prison Industrial Complex that is ruining millions of lives in this country.