@rattlingthebars
Rattling the Bars is a web series about prisoners' rights on TRNN and hosted by former political prisoner turned reporter Mansa Musa, who spent decades in the US carceral system organizing for liberation. 🏠 therealnews.com 📺 youtube.com/@therealnews
The situation in Cuba is dire. It hasn’t been this bad decades. And it’s on purpose. This is a humanitarian crisis, made in the United States, with the goal of overthrowing the Cuban gov. Latest episode @undertheshadow.bsky.social @nacla-report.bsky.social
A close-up, chest-up portrait of Marshall 'Eddie' Conway, an older Black man with a thoughtful expression, looking off-camera. He is wearing a black t-shirt with the logo for 'The Real News Network' (TRNN). The background is a warm, slightly blurred outdoor setting with cars and a building under a golden-hour light.
On March 4, 2014, former Black Panther Eddie Conway was freed after 44 years. The landmark Unger v. Maryland case released roughly 200 elderly prisoners; Eddie used an Alford plea to maintain his innocence and became a renowned TRNN journalist. #ExonerateEddieConway
The Kenyan government’s failures are deeply felt by families who have lost loved ones in Saudi Arabia.
“The masses are not being policed, targeted, and incarcerated,” Distinguished Professor and author @dylanrodriguez.bsky.social says; “it’s a targeted war with asymmetrical casualties.”
Text reads Black History Month: Black Women Abolitionists, with pictures of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Sarah Parker Remond, Ida B. Wells, & Angela Davis
A photo of Sojourner Truth labeled with her name. Reads: After freeing herself in 1826, she became a traveling speaker linking abolition & women’s rights. She confronted white audiences, including Abraham Lincoln, about Black liberation.
A photo of Harriet Tubman labeled with her name. Reads: Escaped slavery in 1849, then returned repeatedly to lead dozens of people to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Led a raid on the Combahee River, freeing hundreds of enslaved Africans. Later worked as a scout, spy, & nurse for the Union Army.
A photo of Sarah Parker Remond labeled with her name. Reads: A free Black lecturer & American Anti-Slavery Society agent, she spoke across the North & in Britain to build transatlantic support for US abolition. Later became a physician in Italy.
Today is the last day of #BlackHistoryMonth, and we want to honor some inspirational Black women abolitionists from the last 200+ years. Swipe through to read! #AbolitionNow 1/2
A photo of Ida B. Wells labeled with her name. Reads: Documented lynching as a tool of racial terror in the wake of the legal abolition of slavery & campaigned internationally to end it, carrying the abolitionist tradition into struggles against Jim Crow & racist violence.
A photo of Angela Davis labeled with her name. Reads: A communist, feminist, scholar, & author, her own imprisonment helped lead her to a radical critique of prisons. Later, she was instrumental in developing the concept the concept of the prison-industrial complex & called for its abolition—not reform.
2/2
D.C. elites siphoned $57 million—worth $1.5 billion today—from the Freedman’s Savings Bank to enrich themselves and fund the development of the District at the expense of formerly enslaved depositors.
🚨 HERE'S ICE'S GIANT WAREHOUSE/CONCENTRATION CAMP IN WESTERN MARYLAND
I went to the massive warehouse near Hagerstown, MD, that DHS purchased for over $100million to turn into an ICE concentration camp...
@therealnews.com
@projectsaltbox.bsky.social
@austinkocher.com
Screenshot of Al Jazeera report: Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim News Agency reported that explosions also occurred in Tehran’s northern Seyyed Khandan area. Other Iranian media reported attacks nationwide, including in the western Ilam province, while Israel’s military confirmed carrying out attacks in western Iran. An Israeli strike hit an elementary girl’s school in Minab, a city in the Hormozgan province of southern Iran, killing at least 40 people, according to according to the state-run IRNA news agency.. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the attacks targeted a range of military and defence sites, as well as civilian infrastructure, in various cities
The US/Israel have dragged us into an obscenely dangerous war w/ Iran. Trump said "Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime"—Do Americans feel "defended" by the fact that one of the sites bombed this morning was reportedly a girls school?
The 'War on Drugs' and 'War on Terror' are facets of an internal colonialism informing U.S. foreign policy. In this week's Rattling the Bars, @dylanrodriguez.bsky.social discusses the roots of state violence, white reconstruction, and the struggle for their abolition.
Tune in: youtu.be/bopIHKHy7gY
As #BlackHistoryMonth comes to an end, we reflect on how deeply racism is entrenched within the criminal legal system here in Louisiana, specifically the state's death penalty system.
The modern death penalty is a racist relic of the lynching that terrorized Black people in the South throughout the 19th and 20th century with the rates of Black lynching victims (72%) being very similar to those executed "in the South between... 1910 and 1950" (75%).*
This system is overwhelmingly imposed on people of color with 74% of those under a death sentence in Louisiana being people of color. 67% are Black, including men sentenced to death by all-white juries who openly discussed race during their deliberations.
Nine people sentenced to death have been found innocent since 1999 – six of the innocent were Black. Despite LA.'s obsession w/the criminalization, incarceration, and physical control of Black bodies, it is long overdue for our state to join the 23 others who no longer have the death penalty.
PJI continues its commitment to ending the racist and violent practice of state sanctioned killing. Learn more about our fight to end Louisiana's use of the death penalty by clicking here: promiseofjustice.org/deathpenalty
Tune in today at 12pm EST for an insightful conversation on Rattling the Bars. Prof. Justene Hill Edwards joins me to discuss her book, Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman's Bank.
Watch here: youtu.be/VhNc-3IZwRc?...
#BlackHistoryMonth #BHM
Tune in to the latest episode of Rattling the Bars premiering tomorrow at 12 p.m. EST, where I'll be in conversation with Professor Justene Hill Edwards about her latest book, Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman's Bank.
#BlackHistoryMonth, #BHM
youtu.be/VhNc-3IZwRc?...
Epstein Files Fallout: Survivors Question Redactions, Exclusive interview w/Annie Farmer as she speaks out on the lack of criminal charges against conspirators and and predators. If they had listened to her sister in 1996 when she reported his crimes to the FBI perhaps many lives could've been saved
Listen to my conversation with @jeremyscahill.com on @therealnews.com podcast feed anywhere you get your podcasts:
open.spotify.com/episode/1ZWF...
For Black History Month, Black contributors share the movies, music and books that have shaped their writing.
After months of relentless rapid response in Minneapolis, members of Defend the 612 had a moment to breathe and reflect on the lessons they’ve learned, the grief they carry, and the citywide fellowship they hope will endure. The crisis is not over, and I’m grateful they made time to speak with me.
Over 31,000 Kaiser health care workers in California & Hawaii are still on strike—fighting for safe staffing, manageable workloads, and patient care over burnout.
Frontline union members speak from the picket line with @maximillianalvarez.bsky.social.
The US operates in a perpetual state of internal war, and the white supremacist legacy of domestic warfare has reached terrifying new heights in the Trump era, says scholar and author Dylan Rodriguez.
Listen to our conversation on @therealnews.com podcast feed anywhere you listen to podcasts:
open.spotify.com/episode/2Cvu...
COP WATCHERS TAKE ON ICE & BORDER PATROL. YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS THIS.
Tune in tonight at 9pm ET👇🏽
Former political prisoner Mansa Musa takes you inside the growing coalition, including @legaldefensefund.bsky.social and @lbsbaltimore.bsky.social, that is uniting to stop Maryland’s proposed $1 billion “therapeutic” jail in this blockbuster documentary report.
curbprisonspending.org/tools/stop-a...
Here’s a great starter toolkit for those new to this work. We could use an update on tactics specific to the Feds buying warehouses.
“This has always been about getting a fair contract. We never wanted to go on strike… We want to do our jobs, we love our jobs, but we can only return when our patients are being cared for safely… with more staffing and job security.” @nynurses.bsky.social
"Each state has approached the situation differently. Illinois, for example, has the strongest policy to prevent ICE from gaining access to people while they are in local jails."
States must stop willingly handing over residents to the feds and instead double down on sanctuary policies.
Take a look at Illinois, where the state AG has issued guidance thoroughly restricting ICE collaborations:
And, to be clear, even the people in jail accused of more serious offenses still shouldn’t be deported to countries they’ve never known.
So, yes, federal agents don't belong on Minnesota's streets. They also don't belong in its jails or prisons. ICE out means ICE out completely.
