Proposal and Program of the Black Autonomy Prison Federation

Proposal and Program of the Black Autonomy Prison Federation

The following is an excerpt from the proposal to form the Black Autonomy Prison Federation.

Originally Published on July 8, 2013.

Meeting during the June 2013 annual conference, we created the organizational framework for the Black Autonomy Prison Federation, because of mass imprisonment of Black youth and mindless violence in the Black community. We are taking responsibility to deal with this, because of the failure or refusal of so many others. Many do not care, are traitors, or feel that we are just inferior people. Only Black people: prisoners and revolutionary community activists, can resolve this
problem, nobody can do it for us, whether it is the government, police, church, or other institutions.

Black prisoners, street gangsters, and revolutionary community activists must take care of their own communities and youth, so that this does not continue. Violence, which does not lead to freedom of our whole people can be tolerated. No foolish taking of the lives of children, women, and innocent Black civilians can be any longer tolerated; we must unite and resolve our differences in a gang truce, and begin to build revolutionary movements, Black unity, and leave the gangster mentality for the revolutionary mentality of community reconstruction. If we do this, we will change not just ourselves, but the entire world for our children, families, and communities, and win the demands of the people for liberation, freedom, and a decent quality of life.

The proposed Black Autonomy Prison Federation (BAPF) is a Black prisoner revolutionary anti-authoritarian tendency, with true revolutionary commitment, as well as discipline for the struggle for the masses of our people. The number one goal and intent is to build a solid base of prison revolutionary cadre, raising their consciousness and developing cadre from a fatalistic and individualist “Gangsta” mentality into a revolutionary or ”people’s soldier” with a guerrilla mentality.

We have created the Black Autonomy Prison Federation to deal with mass imprisonment of Black youth, the continuing war on drugs and gang warfare in the Black community. We want to create a program of re-education for prisoners to transform gang activity to revolutionary activity, so that when BAPF members are released they will clean-up crimes, oppression, and terrorism against the people by the state. If we are destroying each other, we cannot concentrate on freeing ourselves and our people. We want to mold a new man and woman, who can change everything that exists today. We will not be slaves, or crawl on our knees. We will not sell out and leave our people to die.


Ten point program of BAPF (June 2013 draft)

1. We want an end to prisons as a tool of confinement and oppression of the masses of Black people, and abolition of the prison system entirely.
   
2. We want an end to gang warfare in our communities to end all feuds, and stop any foolish violence not directed towards Black liberation, and we need a revolutionary gang truce, which can begin to rebuild our communities and build a Black Autonomy commune, and we want to make Black prisoners into revolutionary community organizers to address our own social problems with our own social programs.
   
3. We want an end to imperialist wars of conquest, and the use of Blacks and other poor people as either mercenaries or cannon fodder. We will join no army other than the Black Partisan militia for our own liberation.
   
4. We want full employment for our people outside in our communities, and to end targeted unemployment and poverty by the capitalists. We want the right of prisoners to create or join labor unions and to be paid for all work at outside union scale.
   
5. We want the right to decent medical care throughout the period of our confinement.
   
6. We want full rights for female prisoners, including the right to privacy, right to prevention of rape by male guards, rights of pregnancy care, full medical care, visitation with children, right to educational and cultural activities.
   
7. We want an end to behavior modification and forced drugging by guards in prison, closure of SHU, Control Units, and other such facilities.
   
8. We want an end to the government-created drug trade in our communities, and an end to CIA drug smuggling and chemical warfare against the Black community.
   
9. We want unity with all prisoners, regardless of race, culture or ethnicity.
   
10. We want an end to the barbaric and racist death penalty in the USA, which has been disproportionately been used against poor Blacks and other peoples of color.