Boston Anarchist Black Cross
The Boston Anarchist Black Cross is still defending radical movements and supporting prisoners! We continue to correspond with, do research for, and send free literature to prisoners, and we're keeping up our monthly contribution to Jericho Boston's commissary fund, which goes toward meeting the material needs of political prisoners. Our medium-term literature project is progressing nicely; we’re cleaning up old titles and adding new titles to the literature we both table with and send to prisoners for free. And that Know Your Rights presentation we did at Emerson College in February earned us $200 worth of photocopies!
March saw our most spectacular, not to mention most lucrative, fundraiser to date! The Self-Styled Anarchist Fashion and Craft Show on March 13 exhibited and sold fashionable and functional designs made and modeled by local radicals. Some friends from elsewhere in the Northeast joined the dance-tastic fabulosity to thrill our audience and keep funds pumping into our war chest. We later hosted an Easter Sundae Vegan Ice Cream Social for people to hang with us, learn about our work and find ways to plug in. We could still use more humans, though, particularly since much of the core of our collective is relocating elsewhere this summer—although we do have a few new people who have taken on many tasks.
At our introspective mini-retreat in January, we resolved to be more vocal and explicit about our intersectional analysis. We are finding ways to more actively combat the stereotype of heterosexist, masculinist prisoner support work. Beyond revising our selection of literature, a frightening local case quickly arose when one of our friends inside a prison in Boston asked us to advocate for her and the other women in the South Bay House of Corrections. Faced with flooded cells, outrageously inadequate healthcare, and food contaminated with maggots and rat shit, the women in the Tower are organizing and resisting. Though these are not uncommon conditions in any punitive facility, the proximity to home and the resistance inside led us into the field of advocacy. We organized a call-in campaign and participated in a solidarity demo outside the facility, demanding improvements with the women’s input. Later that month, we teamed up with TransCEND Boston (Transgender Care and Education Needs Diversity) to present the documentary Cruel and Unusual at the Lucy Parsons Center. The film follows the lives and struggles of trans women in men’s prisons throughout the country, highlighting the violent intersections of systemic oppressions.
On a lighter note, a friend of ABC works with children at an after-school art program and invited us to talk to the kids about movement prisoners! Trying to explain to 8 to 10-year-olds why the state imprisons us for fighting for a better world does much to reveal the absurdity of it all. Together we drew pictures and sent messages of encouragement to incarcerated comrades. And they invited us to return!
Several years ago, cops arrested and severely beat our Providence comrade Alex Svoboda at an IWW rally. Courts initially found her guilty last month of her three simple assault charges and resisting arrest (the assault charges had been lowered from assault and battery on a police officer). However, shortly afterward, the judge declared that he did not agree with the guilty finding (based on bogus police testimony) and ordered a retrial for the assault charges. Alex was required to pay a court fee of $100, which Boston ABC and BAAM teamed up to send her.
If you do not regularly come in contact with our fine collective members, we are pleased to announce that we can now electronically accept your money via PayPal at bostonabc@riseup.net. Needless to say, we still accept cash and blank checks (Boston ABC does not have a bank account, though we’re closer to setting one up since last you heard from us) at
Boston ABC
P.O. Box 230182
Boston, MA 02123