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This week, you’ll hear a conversation with Bam and Row, two residents of so-called Durham, NC to talk about that city and industries and their experience of solidarity with houseless neighbors, particularly in the Oakwood Park encampment which the city has already attempted to evict once this year. The guests give a long term and detailed view of the development of the city and the role of Duke University and adjacent, co-constitutive businesses and the city’s research park play in the day to day grind of living in that triangle city.

• GoFundMe to support mutual aid with the Oakwood community

Also, after the interview the guests reached out wanting to uplift Traingle Anarchist Black Cross as one group involved in community support for the Oakwood Park encampment. They meet 4th Sunday (that’s today!!!) from 2-4pm for letter writing at The Burrow in Durham. More at linktr.ee/triangleabc

Finally, many of the people listed as inspirational by Row at the end of the interview have been either guests on this show in the past or the subject of episodes, which you can find under the tag of Black Anarchism.

Announcements

Recent Repression Updates

Federal Indictments have come down against people alleged to have taken part in anti-ICE protests (accused of being Antifa) in so-called Minneapolis. We plan to cover this in an upcoming episode, but meanwhile would direct listeners to recent episodes of It Could Happen Here, Outlaw Podcast and Live Like The World is Dying on the topic (the latter two are pending but should pop up at those links)

Also, sentencing has begun in the Prairieland “Antifa” case, with decades being handed out to make a political point (in the words of one judge). You can follow the updates at PrairielandDefendants.com (and we should be sharing an interview on the sentencing next week, once it’s complete for the Federal case).

Request for call-in to support mentally ill prisoner at the Joe Corley Detention Center in Texas

The prescribed collective action I believe will solve this issue here at the Joe Corley Detention centers RHU cellblock is:

1) A phone zap to warden Dickey’s office, the commissary office and the US Marshals office. The Marshals pay these inmates $1 a day and are responsible for their work ethics while awaiting transfer to a BOP.

Joe Corley Detention Center phone number: (936) 521-4000

US Marshals Office Southern District of Texas phone number: (713) 718-4800

2) Request that these individuals review surveillance cameras in the RHU cellblock where the incident involving a mentally ill prisoner name Brandon that live in cell 243 took place on the morning of 6-25-26 while he was forced to go to rec. This is to verify that he just purchased nearly $100 worth of commissary, a T-shirt- batteries, boxers, etc yesterday.

3) Demand that all of his items be returned to him.

4) Disciplinary for the officers involved in allowing the inmate worker to enter Brandon’s cell wholly unsupervised, take his items and refuse to investigate his valid complaint because he’s mentally ill and can’t comprehend what happened.

Background

On the morning of June 25 2026 officer Henley and a male white or Hispanic looking officer approached Brandon’s cell (243). They told him he was going to rec whether he liked it or not. Brandon complied with their order and was handcuffed and taken to the rec cage outside. I note Brandon wasn’t wearing a commissary T-shirt, nor was he carrying anything when he left the cell.

Moments later a Black inmate worker with a yellow skin tone entered the cellblock with a cart used to carry cleaning materials. They say he is amongst the most despised for his interest in stealing from other inmates.

This inmate worker was ordered to clean Brandon’s cell. Not only did he clean the cell, he cleaned him out. As both guards left him to his own device, taking their eyes off of him to tend to less important things. The inmate worker took a large plastic bag full of Brandon’s commissary that he’d just bought yesterday, two bags of coffee and a few things laying around and tossed them in the cart’s trash compartment like it was trash.

Soon after Brandon was placed back into an empty cell and to his dissatisfaction, he protested that Henley had set him up to be robbed.

Henley blew his concern off to a female mailroom employee as a hallucination, but what happened was reality.

Around 10:20am the inmate worker returned to sweep and mop the cellblock wearing, what looked like, Brandons brand new T-shirt under his own jail issued prison garb.

The officer who helped Henley take Brandon to rec halfheartedly asked the inmate worker if he stole Brandon’s commissary, implying he wasn’t present while the worker was in Brandon’s cell. Of course the worker denied taking anything, merely suggesting that the only thing in the cell was trash on the floor. Though he did admit to the officer to taking Brandon’s shampoo to use as he wanted. And his other inmate co worker gritted at Brandon that that’s what gets done to psych patients.

From what transpired both officers not only knew what happened but they created the incident as they already dislike Brandon because of his mental illness, forced him to leave his cell so that an inmate that openly despised him could clean it up unsupervised and stock piled with goodies.

If such acts against the mentally ill are perceived as heroic deeds in the eyes of this inmate worker and guards who condone it. What does that say about observers on standby that cheer them on, or an administration that chooses to assist by covering it up?

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Featured Track:

• TFSR by The Willows Whisper

More Posts for Show: The Final Straw Radio

This week, Ian spoke with G. Flint Taylor of People’s Law Office in Chicago and his new book, The Conviction Machine: Prosecutors, Politicians, and Police Violence in Chicago, out now from Haymarket Books.

The conversation vacillates between the past and the present as Taylor talks about the misconduct and cover-up by the FBI and Chicago PD in the assassination of Chicago Black Panther’s Leader Fred Hampton, the forty year effort to free Andrew and Jackie Wilson, the tradition of movement lawyering, and the legacy of the People’s Law Office.

. … . ..

Featured Track:

• TFSR by The Willows Whisper

More Posts for Show: The Final Straw Radio

After nearly nine years on 103.3 Asheville FM, Life Out of Tunes will be coming to an end next month. The show began back in the fall of 2017 as a one-hour Monday afternoon experiment nestled between Kat’s Live Transmission and Sarah B’s Songs for Friends. A few months later it expanded to two hours, eventually stretched to three during the pandemic, and finally landed on Friday evenings. Including today Friday, June 12th, there are four shows left. Over the remaining weeks I might be revisiting some of my favorite moments. Thanks for sticking with me and never fear… I’ll sub for other hosts whenever I can.

More Posts for Show: Life Out of Tunes