Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

236 | #CagingCOVID

This week, we share audio in support of Dan Baker and Loren Reed, and from Panagioti Tsolkas, who tells us about the important #CagingCOVID campaign and their upcoming February 1st day of action. As we’ve previously documented on Kite Line, facilities across the country have systematically failed to protect prisoners from COVID-19 and its uncontrolled spread. …

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221 | Isolation as Retaliation

This week on Kite Line, we share a call from a prisoner located in Seattle, who exposes his facility’s careless treatment of prisoners in the face of COVID-19, and how medical isolation and punitive isolation function similarly. Afterwards, we finish our conversation with Keith Malik Washington. Malik was recently released from prison after many years,…

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220 | Are Incarcerated People Disposable?

We begin this week with a short piece by WFHB reporter Aaron Comforty, who reports on an alleged instance of attempted suicide in the local jail, and one mother’s attempts to find out the status of her son. We also speak with Ted Smith, an Associate Professor of Environmental Medicine at the University of Louisville…

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219 | Keith Malik Washington is Free

After this week’s news and updates, Kite Line sits down with Keith Malik Washington, who was released from prison last month. We’ve shared many of Washington’s essays and audio dispatches over the years, as he exposed the ongoing injustices and hazards he faced alongside others behind the prison walls.  Even though Washington is now on…

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215 | “If They Kill Me in the Hole, I’ll Go Out Satisfied” – ICE Detainees Protest Conditions at Winn

This week, we share important news from around the Midwest and more updates from the struggles in Louisiana’s immigrant detention centers.  Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson is facing threats on his life inside the Indiana Department of Corrections.  An abolitionist in Madison, Wisconsin has chosen to enter solitary confinement rather than violate his ethics and testify against…

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117 | Voices of the Formerly Incarcerated, Part Three

This week, we share the final story from the Voices of the Formerly Incarcerated panel that took place during the Fight Toxic Prisons conference in Pittsburgh. After we hear updates on Kevin Rashid Johnson and Keith Malik Washington, we close with anecdotes from Wendell Caldwell. Caldwell speaks on his time inside, its impact on his…

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106 | Strike Season

As we approach the August 21st launch of the national prison strike, Kite Line is focusing on the historic and recent precedents for the current prisoners’ movement.  This strike, called by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak along with a growing coalition of grassroots prisoners’ groups, is grounded in four decades of organizing, symbolized by George Jackson’s state…

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