This year's commemoration is in two parts:
Part One--People's Tribunal for Virgina's Prisons, Jail's and Detention Centers--takes place on Sat. Oct. 7 from 10 am to 4 pm and features testimony of current and formerly incarcerated men and women and organizations working for criminal justice transformation. A report from the event will be published in advance of the November 7 election. Find details here: https://fb.me/e/74f1sB7Ie).
Part Two--Breaking the Chains in Virginia--borrows its title from artist Melvin Edwards' depiction of Gabriel the blacksmith transforming iron objects into tools of liberation. Join us on the African Burial Ground in Shockoe Bottom as we
* Honor the memory of the peopel interred in the first municipal burial ground for Black people of early 19th century Richmond, Virginia, who made up 50% of the population, and* Remember Richmond's role as a slave trading epicenter made it an early site of mass incarceration for the distribution of Black people as captives used for labor.* Understand slave labor's evolution to prison labor as a particular tool of US capitalism: the exploitation of Black labor following the end of slavery and the ongoing use of racism as a tool to prevent the unification of workers.