Building workers' power in Roanoke, VA
(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 →
Over the past couple months we've bailed out our 2nd person from Roanoke City Jail using our Roanoke Community Bail Fund, launched a "Rehab, Housing, & Jobs Not Jails" campaign to make city council divest our tax money from RCJ, have sent care packages to a couple incarcerated workers, and have also received a couple... Continue Reading →
The State of Housing in the U.S. What is the general state of housing in the so-called U.S., the nation with possibly the most stolen wealth on the planet? In 2018, there were more than half a million people "counted" as homeless across this country (40% of them were Black). At the same time, there... Continue Reading →
"Who came first? There have been people living in what we today call Virginia for many thousands of years. There is mounting evidence from archaeological data ascertained from the Cactus Hill site, in SE Virginia, that pre-Clovis culture existed in what is today Virginia over 16,000 years ago. People lived in small units or bands... Continue Reading →
For those who don’t know: there’s a new giant fracked gas pipeline, the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), that was proposed by a private corporation (EQT) in 2014, “approved” by government regulators in 2018, and since then has been in the process of being forced through the Appalachian mountains & rivers stretching from WVa through VA,... Continue Reading →
Building the Revolving Fund After organizing a Mama's Day Bail Out in May 2018, Roanoke Jail Solidarity decided to launch a wider-ranging and continuous project: the Roanoke Community Bail Fund (RCBF). The idea with this project is to raise a large fund open to anyone locked up in a local jail who can't afford to... Continue Reading →
Since the last inmate testimony we published on 7.4.19 regarding the inhumane conditions in Roanoke City Jail (RCJ), we've received updates from 2 incarcerated workers there, and it sounds like we got a win *even if temporary*! However; it is worth reminding ourselves that humane conditions (including the basic means of sanitation) are minimum requirements... Continue Reading →
As the White House desperately tried to stoke patriotism by parading U.S. tanks in the streets of D.C., and we were encouraged by conservatives, liberals and capitalists alike to celebrate another year of a nation built on slavery, genocide, and colonization... and as even pediatricians and Congresspersons are affirming details of the continued crimes against... Continue Reading →