As Black August comes to a close, we uplift freedom fighters and political prisoners past and present to commemorate their lives + struggle, study + assess the systems of oppression that we are up against, and utilize teachings in our ongoing fight for liberation.

We continue to build on generations of work to free our people, close more prisons, and shift funds away from a wasteful prison system and to our communities, in the midst of attempts to roll back our progress.

While Black August began in California state prisons in the 1970s and honors the Black Liberation Movement, we also recognize our work to dismantle the prison industrial complex (PIC) in California is part of a larger movement to end all forms of state violence targeting Black, Indigenous, brown and disenfranchised communities nationally and internationally. Gaza is the world’s largest open air prison and a site of settler-colonial occupation, mass surveillance and unfolding genocide. For decades, Black leaders advocating for transformative social change have consistently emphasized that the Palestinians’ struggle is integral to our collective liberation. Freedom fighters like Afro-Palestinian activist, Fatima Bernawi, remind us of this.

Learn more about Palestinian women political prisoners in this resource shared by our partners at the California Coalition for Women Prisoners: https://www.freedomarchives.org/Pal/womenprisoners.pdf