The American Corrections Association, an umbrella group o f all state and business interest involved in the prison system, met in Philadelphia August 10 - 15. The Coalition Against the ACA, a diverse coalition of grassroots resistance, called on all those concerned with the exponential growth of this country's racist prison system to protest. Josh from the NY October 22nd Coalition sent us this report on the demonstration on Monday, August 13. -- eds.
On Monday August 13th, 200 people took to the streets to demand a stop the the growth of the ever expanding prison system. A two hour long march snaked through downtown Philadelphia finding its start at the infamous Roundhouse where just a year earlier hundreds of RNC protestors were held and forced to undergo inhumane conditions for exposing the true history of Philadelphia that is far from the city's image as the birth place of liberty.
The march was preceeded by a conference that was organized to teach people what is really going on inside of America's fastest growing community and to provide an opposing image of the role of prisons in America to the one presented by the ACA.
The march was lead by a flatbed truck which was host to speakers from CACA and AWOL and a sound system which sent Dead Prez's shouts of "cop shot" through the crowd and into the convention center where the ACA is holding its convention, the hotels where members of the ACA are staying, and into city prisons where all aspects of people's lives are decided by what is going on just a few blocks away. People chanted "books not bars", "education not incarceration", "no more prisons" among other slogans as they steadily moved along the pre-determined route. However, when the protestors marched to one of the city's holding facilities, the march was halted and the chants reached a fevered pitch as prisoners crowded the windows to show their support of the efforts being done outside to give voice to people silenced by the system. The march continued through Chinatown, past City Hall, and arrived at the District Attorney's office. From there many marched down to the FOP headquarters to keep the spirit of the march alive even though there was no permit to do so. However, heavy rain forced the gathering to disperse, but not before people had time to talk about what it is going to take to do away with the bars imprisoning convicts in jails and pupils in schools.
[posted 8/17/01]
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