Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality

Click here to view and download the handout "BILLS TO FOLLOW IN THE 2019 VIRGINIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY" Thank you for attending the 2nd Annual Virginia Prison Reform Rally   sponsored by the Virginia Prison Justice Network Saturday, January 12, 2019 at 2 PM – 3 PM Bell Tower on Capitol Square, Richmond, VA 23219 This flier was created for the Jan. 12 Virginia Prison Justice Network rally by Virginia prisoner R. Fentress . Please share it - and remember that those behind bars are much more than numbers. They are our sisters and brothers, with hopes and dreams and challenges just like the rest of us. They are artists and poets and thinkers and leaders. And if this were a just and humane system that didn't grind up humanity in the gristmill of profit making, they would be out here on the streets helping to make this a better world. The prisoner-led Virginia Prison Justice Network (VAPJN) was founded after the very successful Rally for Prison Reform held Jan. 2

RICHMOND, VA, Dec. 8 -- Around 800 parents, students and Richmond Public School employees braved a cold morning today to march and rally, demanding the Virginia General Assembly allocate more money for Richmond Public Schools. The protest, organized by Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney and RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras, began with a rally at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in the East End, followed by a march across the King Bridge to the State Capitol, where more speakers addressed the crowd. The 2019 session of the General Assembly opens Jan. 9. A teacher-led “Red for Ed” march on the State Capitol has been called for Jan. 28. Prominent in the crowd today were signs demanding money for education and not for the controversial, public-private Coliseum project, which many feel would siphon tax dollars away from public schools and into the pockets of wealthy developers. That project is led by Thomas F. Farrell II, the president, chairman and CEO of Dominion Energy,

The Autumn 2018 edition of The Virginia Defender newspaper is now on the streets and online: Click "The Virginia Defender" above. INSIDE THIS ISSUE: This issue features four pages of antiwar and international news. Most people know us for our work around Shockoe Bottom, fighting to reclaim and properly memorialize the Richmond district that was once the epicenter of the U.S. domestic slave trade. Or our work against Confederate monuments, in support of labor unions, opposing police abuse or any of the other domestic issues we struggle around. But the Defenders also play a leading role in the antiwar movement, participating in the leadership of the United National Antiwar Coalition. This summer we represented UNAC at protests at the U.S. Ramstein Air Base on Germany, which plays a key role in the drone warfare that has killed so many innocent people in the Middle East and North Africa; and at the march and conferences held to oppose the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza

RICHMOND, VA, Nov. 4 -- More than 50 antiracists from Charlottesville, Durham and Richmond gathered today outside the headquarters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy on the Boulevard in Richmond to demand that the organization stop defending monuments that glorify the slavery-defending Confederate States of America. More than any other organization, the UDC has been responsible for promoting the myth that the Confederacy represented a noble cause, that slavery was not the cause of the Civil War and that slavery itself was a benign institution in which enslaved Black people happily toiled for benevolent white masters. While best known for its work in promoting the building of Confederate monuments throughout the South - and in most states in the country - it was the work of the UDC in policing history textbooks that had the greatest effect in promoting the organization’s distorted views. Generations of white Southerners grew up believing in the nobility of the Confederate

The Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality is an organization of Virginia residents working for the survival of our communities through education and social justice projects. The Defenders recently celebrated 15 years of community organizing and activism! We began in June 2002. Many of us had relatives in the Richmond City Jail or state prisons and were concerned about the physical conditions of these institutions. As we worked around these issues, we learned more and more about the connections between jails, jobs, poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, class, political representation, and war. We began organize and hold public forums on these issues, so we could develop more to show the connections between local and international events. We have The Virginia Defender , a statewide, quarterly newspaper; two websites ( www.DefendersFJE.blogspot.com and www.SacredGroundProject.net ); and three Facebook pages, for the Defenders organization, newspaper and radio pro

The Virginia Defenders held a public forum on what the U.S. is doing in Zimbabwe. ​Our guest presenter was​ Netfa Freeman , former program coordinator of an agricultural project in Zimbabwe. He works for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. but was not speaking on their behalf. He also produces  Voices With Vision: Not for the Politically Faint of Heart, a radio program on WPFW 89.3 FM and podcast via iTunes and Google Play Music. The forum took place Monday, April 2, 6:30-8 pm at Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church, 1720 Mechanicsville Turnpike in Richmond’s East End. ​As Che once put it, we here in the U.S. live in the Belly of the Beast. That being so, we have a responsibility to know about and oppose what the 1% and its government is doing in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Europe. It’s not enough to only work on bettering our own lives, if we  ignore what our tax dollars and our young people in uniform are forced to do in

The Virginia Defender Staff Report RICHMOND, VA -- In the largest show of support for Virginia prisoners in memory, more than 300 people turned out Jan. 20 for the Virginia Rally for Prison Reform on Richmond’s Capitol Square. They came by chartered buses and carpools from Blacksburg and Roanoke, Prince William County and Fredericksburg, Suffolk and Hampton Roads, as well as from the Richmond area. One of the largest contingents was from the NAACP chapter at Norfolk State University. Many were former prisoners or relatives of prisoners. Some represented prisoner advocacy groups. Others were individuals drawn to the event by the crying need for reform in the Virginia prison system. Several newly seated state legislators were in attendance. One especially unique feature was that the rally was initiated by a prisoner organization, Virginia Prisoner of Conscience (VAPOC), whose members spread the word among their relatives and friends on the outside. Logistics were handled b