TY10 CAMPAIGN NEWS

THE HEARINGS ABOUT TAMMS

We expect press and we expect legislators. Now we need you.

Sewing Rebellion

On Sunday, Marianne, Diana and Carole hosted a Sewing Rebellion and sewed and screen hoods and helped and advised with everything. Matthias screened armbands and patches. Jerome designed a banner based on what we agreed upon at the Saturday meeting--and he and Nadya and Hylda and others made it come true. In fact, each person sewed on a letter in a sewing circle. Gretchen and Nick made posters.

Meeting at People's Church--April 19

AREA magazine and Sewing Rebellion allies

AREA magazine has a brand new blog called "ReportBack" and the very first entry was written by Laurie Palmer about a Tamms Poetry Commitee event. She wrote it on the day of the ten-year anniversary of the opening of Tamms C-MAX. In other exciting art news, we have just gotten the endorsement of the Sewing Rebellion. They are hosting a special Sewing Rebellion + Tamms Year Ten event for us to make the hoods for the press event before the hearings.

Call Your Legislator

Uptown People's Law Petition

Please download, print and collect signatures for this petition circulated by the Uptown People's Law Center asking that the men at Tamms each be allowed to make a call home during the month of May for Mother’s Day. 

Hideout Video

Alternet

Conditions in Tamms made the front page of Alternet today.  Jessica Pupovac wrote a great story "How Prisons Got To Be So Cruel" which focuses on Tamms C-MAX and features interviews with Reginald Akkeem Berry, Jean Maclean Snyder, and Alan Mills.

Pilgrims to Tamms

For the past six years women from churches in the Belleville area have pilgrimaged to Tamms, Illinois to join members of St. Francis Xavier in Carbondale for a prayer vigil outside the supermax prison. The 270 held in that prison are kept in their cells 23 hours a day in spaces about 8' by 10' with no group activities. The feeling of being "buried alive is real" for many encased there. The pilgrims want to show their solidarity with those inmates, many of whom have been there since the prison opened ten years ago this March. All those who feel this solidarity are invited to join us between 2 and 3 pm, Good Friday.  Carpooling will be available from the Newman Center at 1 pm.  Call Elsie Speck if interested. Contact YearTen@riseup.net.

Reports Back from the Benefit

The experimental jazz trio Rupert (trumpeter Jaimie Branch, drummer Marc Riordan and guitarist Toby Summerfield) played a tonally complex and emotionally rich set of challenging and intensely rewarding music. Trumpeter Jaimie Branch introduced one of the tunes as being inspired by thinking about Tamms, and it was a devastating piece--the sound of rage and despair through cacophonous clattering and wailing, which eventually receded into a thin, ghostly, and deeply sorrowful trumpet melody. Elmore James Jr. and the Broomdusters followed with two sets of rousing, rollicking, old-fashioned blues, including their soulful take on the Calvin Leavy classic "Cummins Prison Farm." 

The incredible Mary L. Johnson spoke. As Jan said, "You could hear a pin drop" in that bar while she spoke about her son being in Tamms for ten years. We also had a special guest Johnny who just got out of Tamms C-MAX in September and spoke on behalf of the guys who are still there. He had written the Tamms Poetry Committee while he was inside.

Above, Mary L. Johnson. Below, Darby Tillis and James Elmore, Jr.

Many people who attended found out about Tamms for the first time and were moved to donate, take literature, and sign the phone call petition. CAFF made t-shirts and tank tops and some beautiful posters. No amount of Elmore James, Jr., sexy Jamie, and the Broomdusters Band felt like enough! Even the dance party patrons were demanding more.

Elmore James, Jr.--incredible bluesman and slide guitar player with rousing, soulful Broomdusters band.
www.elmorejamesjr.com/

Rupert--a trio of Chicago's finest experimental jazz musicians: trumpeter Jaimie Branch, drummer Marc Riordan, and guitarist Toby Summerfield.
www.myspace.com/rupertchicago

From "Must-See Music" at Center Stage Chicago:

James, the son of slide-guitar hero, Elmore James, carries on the "Broomduster" legend. All at once a country proverb for starting a new life, the name of Elmore Sr.'s supporting band and a nod to the song that carries one of blues' most infamous licks ("Dust My Broom"), the Broomdusters mean serious business. Elmore Jr. is on torch-carrying duty, sliding electric Mississippi Delta blues as if Pops were reliving his glory days. Newbie jazz trio Rupert opens. The evening is a benefit for the improvement of prisoner conditions at downstate, permanent-solitary-confinement facility, Tamms C-Max. (Gavin Paul)

Link to Center Stage Chicago review.

Link to Time Out Chicago review.
 

THE TRADESHOW Live performance installation by RATIO and Chicago Arts District organized by Sheelah Murthy and Erica Mott
1915 S. Halsted St, Chicago IL  FInd out about RATIO!

Guantanamo Bay prisoners will now be given phone calls:

Link to the Story

WBEZ RADIO STORY on Tamms C-MAX

Link to the Story

ARTICLE FROM THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

Link to the Article

PRESS CONFERENCE

Thanks and blessings to everyone who attended the press conference. There were 56 people and even some press (5 individuals). Afterwards, a TY10 spokesperson Stephen Eisenman (who has written about torture) was on the Cliff Kelley show on WVON for 30 minutes!

People discussed all aspects of this atrocity.  Stephen Eisenman, author of The Abu-Ghrab Effect, detailed the facts about Tamms, and why prolonged isolation is condemned as torture. There were powerful accounts from Larry, Jerome and Akkeem, three men who spent years in Tamms---and were among the first to arrive. As always, they are the most persuasive reason to stop this prison from operating. They even gave us insights that we hadn't heard before--and Akkeen held up awesome placards (he is always reminding us to be visual). Jean Maclean Snyder gave us a legal reality check about this place--and who said an attorney can't give a rousing speech? Mary L. Johnson spoke about her son who has been in Tamms for ten years--and what it has done to his family. She said it is like visiting a tomb to see him behind the glass wall, but when someone dies, at least you can touch the body. She called for everyone to use the love and higher power God has given them to help the sons of other people. Audience members spoke, and poets performed.

• Doris talked about her visit to Tamms with Rep. Lou Jones, and the scratch marks on the plexi-glass of a room where they keep mentally ill people when they first arrive
• Denise talked about prisoners not being allowed to use the bathroom if they need to in the middle of a visit (many prisoners have urinated while shackled on the concrete stool rather than end a visit with a loved one)
• A man spoke about the control-unit at Marion to put Tamms in a historical context nationally, and in Illinois
• Sharon spoke about inhumane visitation policies--searching cars and denying non-contact visits
• Jim Chapman said we give the IDOC too much credit. They are totally broke and don't know what they are doing
• After the press conference, Richard Wallace blew us away with his spoken word poems, accompanied by an incredible singer.
• Baba Griot got up to read, and first honored a man explaining that it is a Swahili practice to ask permission to read from an elder. He read in Swahili before he performed poetry about Tamms. It was a privilege to hear him!

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS

We need volunteers for upcoming Year Ten  events, and for the ones in April. Let us know if you are coming and want to help! Actually, we need volunteers for everyhing you can think of!  And Sheelah of our sponsoring group RATIO needs volunteers right now--people who can help them install (hammer, drill, saw, hold items) the work. And people who are not shy about performing.

YOUR CONNECTIONS

We need to encourage our elected officials in both houses of General Assembly to attend the House Prison Reform Committee Hearings on Tamms C-MAX.  This is what we want--for our representatives to come hear the facts about Tamms C-MAX.  We will be asking you to join us in calling your legislators, and if you have personal relations with them already, all the better. Teaching them about the issue long before we call for legislation is the way to gather support for this--no reason to take them by surprise. Plus, elected officials need "the protection" of knowing that there is public concern about it.  A little bit of your effort here will make a huge difference.

We are at the point in this campaign where we cannot grow without you. Please introduce this campaign to other individuals, groups and organizations--and help us figure out how we can work together on this. We need your solidarity and networking action

RECENT ENDORSERS

We are honored to have the endorsements of Men and Women in Prison Ministries, Illinois Prison Talk, and the Illinois Campaign for Telephone Justice--thank you. Please let us know of other groups who would like to endorse.