The Green Party of the United States National Black Caucus has voted to endorse the National Prison Strike beginning on August 21st, 2018 and ending on September 9th, 2018.

Background: Incarcerated persons in prisons across the nation are declaring a nationwide strike in response to the riot in Lee Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison in South Carolina. Seven comrades were killed during an uprising that could have been prevented had the prison not been so overcrowded from the greed wrought by mass incarceration, and a lack of respect for human life that is embedded in our nation's penal ideology. These incarcerated persons are demanding humane living conditions, access to rehabilitation services and programs, sentencing reform, and the end of modern day slavery.

The Harris County Green Party People of Color Caucus has endorsed the Nationwide Prison Strike beginning August 21, 2018. This is also a very important date in history. On that date in 1831, Nat Turner led a revolt against slavery and today Incarcerated persons around the nation are leading their own revolt against modern slavery.

The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution bans slavery and involuntary servitude, except “as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” This explicit reference to forced labor for prisoners in an amendment banning slavery has led advocates to feel justified in arguing the criminal justice system relies heavily on slave labor.

Hundreds to gather in New Haven to urge humane reform of Connecticut's and US Prison policy

August 20, 2018 — On Saturday August 25th, residents from across Connecticut will mobilize in New Haven to voice their support for prisoners around the United States who will be participating in strike actions, calling for an end to inhumane conditions of confinement, including overcrowding, lack of rehabilitation services, labor at a fraction of the minimum wage, and the absence of any meaningful process by which prisoners may voice grievances.