This has been a rough week for Asheville. Let the blues soothe your soul by tuning in Soul of the Blues this Thursday from noon til 2pm on 103.3fm or stream it live at ashevillefm.org and also for 1 week after it airs. This week the Blueshound will bring to you new music by Johnny Tucker, The Black Keys and tracks from the new Alligator Records release celebrating 50 years of genuine houserockin’ music! I’ve also got vintage tracks from ZZ Top’s debut album, SRV produced Lonnie Mack release, “Strike Like Lightning”, and Guy Davis. The Notcho’ Blues Artist this week is the legendary Emmylou Harris! Tune into Soul of the Blues and the Blueshound will soothe your drowning soul with two hours of mind strippin’, butt whippin’ blues!

Airing at 2pm eastern here on AshevilleFM.org & 103.3LPFM in Asheville, archived from 3am eastern on August 16th – August 22nd, podcasting soon at TFSR.WTF

Unity And Struggle Through The Bars with Mwalimu Shakur

This week on the show, you’ll hear our conversation with Mwalimu Shakur, a politicized, New Afrikan revolutionary prison organizer incarcerated at Corcoran prison in California. Mwalimu has been involved in organizing, including the cessations of hostilities among gangs and participation in the California and then wider hunger strikes against unending solitary confinement when he was at Pelican Bay Prison in 2013, helping to found the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, or IWOC, Liberation Schools of self-education and continues mentoring younger prisoners. He was in solitary confinement, including in the SHU, for 13 of the last 16 years of his incarceration.

For the hour, Mwalimu talks a bit about his politicization and organizing behind bars, his philosophy, Black August, the hunger strikes of 2013, the importance of organizing in our neighborhoods through the prison bars.

You can contact Mwalimu via JayPay by searching for his state name, Terrence White and the ID number AG8738, or write him letters, addressing the inside to Mwalimu Shakur and the envelope to:

Terrence White #AG8738
CSP Corcoran
PO Box 3461
Corcoran, CA 93212

Mwalimu’s sites:

• https://wireofhope.com/prison-penpal-terrance-white/
• https://ajamuwatu.wixsite.com/ajamuwatu

To hear an interview from way back in 2013 that William did former political prisoner and editor of CA Prison Focus, Ed Mead (before & after the strikes), search our website or check the show notes.

Other Groups Mwalimu Suggests:

• Initiate Justice: https://www.initiatejustice.org/
• Critical Resistance: http://criticalresistance.org/
• California Prison Focus: http://newest.prisons.org/
• Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC): https://incarceratedworkers.org/
• Malcolm X Grassroots Movement: https://freethelandmxgm.org/
• Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party: https://www.facebook.com/RIBPP
• Jailhouse Lawyers Speak: https://jailhouselawyerspeak.wordpress.com/
• San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper: https://sfbayview.com/
• True Leap Press: https://trueleappress.com/

Announcements

Shut ‘Em Down 2021

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of Jonathan Jackson at the Marin County Courthouse, the assassination of his brother George at San Quentin in California and the subsequent uprising and State massacre at Attica State Prison in New York. Black August has been celebrated at least since 1979 to mark these dates with study, exercise, community building, sharing and reflection by revolutionaries on both sides of the bars. In the last decade across Turtle Island, you’ve seen strikes and protests and educational events take place around this time of the year as we flex our muscles.

This year, as you’ve heard us mention, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak is calling for weeks of action for Abolitionism under the name “Shut ‘Em Down 2021”. You can find out more at JailhouseLawyersSpeak.Wordpress.Com and follow them on twitter and instagram, linked in our show notes, alongside links relating to this weeks chat. You can hear our interview with a member of JLS from earlier this year about the “Shut ‘Em Down” initiative, or read the interview, at our site and in these show notes. Also, check out our interview with the remaining member of the Marin Courthouse Uprising, possibly the oldest living political prisoner in the US, Ruchell Cinque Magee.

Swift Justice Interview

The middle of this week, we’ll be releasing an interview with Alabaman incarcerated organizer, Swift Justice from Unheard Voices OTCJ, so keep an ear out! You can hear our past interview with Swift at our website and find a blog publishing his writings at SwiftJustice4FreedomFighter.Wordpress.Com.

Shaka Shakur Hunger Strike

New Afrikan prison rebel, co-founder of the New Afrikan Liberation Collective and IDOCWatch organizer, Shaka Shakur has been interstate transferred hundreds of miles away from his support network to Buckingham Correctional Center in Virginia (recognize that name?). There was a call-in campaign this week focused on VA Governor Northam, director of VADOC Harold Clark, VADOC central regional director Henry Ponton and Warden Woodson at BKCC. This was in support of Shakur’s hunger strike in protest of the transfer, his time in solitary prior in Indiana for having his prescription medication, being moved into solitary at BKCC with minimal hygiene and no personal materials. As noted in the transcript about his hunger strike at IDOCWatch’s website, the transfer interrupts civil and criminal litigation Shaka Shakur had pending in Indiana and has caused him to be halfway across the country after his own surgeries, the loss of his family matriarch and another aunt, the hospitalization of mother and other health hardships.

You can find ways to support via

• VA Prison Abolition
  • twitter and fakebook
• IDOCWatch
  • twitter and instagram
• New Afrikan Liberation Collective
  • twitter and fakebook

. … . ..

Featured Tracks:

• Blues For Brother George Jackson by Archie Shepp from Attica Blues
• George Jackson by Dicks from These People