Building workers' power in Roanoke, VA
An incarcerated worker who's been in contact with us regarding the inhumane conditions in Roanoke City Jail for the past year, and has filed a lawsuit against RCJ was transferred to Western Virginia Regional Jail a few months ago. He sent us this letter from WVRJ (written on 2.15.20) highlighting that the inhumane conditions in... Continue Reading →
(photo: The Roanoke Times) We received a number of messages from an incarcerated worker in Roanoke City Jail in the past couple months thanking Roanoke Jail Solidarity organizers for our work and also confirming that unfortunately many of the inhumane conditions at RCJ, which a different incarcerated worker brought to public light in April 2019,... Continue Reading →
(photo: James Rucker, Langston Hughes in Madrid | credit: Langston Hughes Estate) Here is James Bernard “Bunny” Rucker (1912-1992), born in Roanoke, Virginia, raised in Columbus, Ohio, veteran of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Spanish Civil War (as a volunteer with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade), and World War II (three bronze stars and a purple heart), one-time Communist... Continue Reading →
The United States, like most western industrial democratic experiments, underwent an iteration of the intensive land redevelopment process often known as “urban renewal” in the postwar period. Under the auspices of liberal progress, massive amounts of civic space were reconfigured to address “urban blight,” facilitate the growth of highway systems, and to enable faster connective... Continue Reading →