 Hi everybody, hello. Thank you so much for coming today. My name is Rebecca Taffel. I am the director of programs at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation and it's a pleasure to welcome you all here for the Struggle to Close Attica Voices from the March for Justice. This program is the first of three this spring that the foundation is producing as part of its series, States of Denial, the Illegal Encarnation of Women, Children and People of Color. You can see all of our previous programs online at the Sackler Center's website, which for videos is www.brooklynmuseum.org slash e-a-s-c-f-a slash video. Just a little bit of housekeeping. I hope you'll come back here in April on the 29th for the next program in our series, which will be hosted by Dara Lind. She is a senior reporter at Vox and she'll be moderating a discussion, investigating the intersection of immigration, ICE, sanctuary cities and mass incarceration. And our final program this spring will be on May 20th, so please join us. Elizabeth Sackler, who is normally here to introduce and welcome everyone, was unable to be here today, but she left me with a few words that she'd asked me to share with all of you. Good afternoon to all. I'm sorry I'm unable to be with you today. Sophia Elijah and I have shared a passion for justice and the desire to dissemble an unjust penal system that systematically destroys lives and whole communities. This is the final season of States of Denial, the illegal incarceration of women, children and people of color that my foundation has produced for the past four years at the Sackler Center. I'm grateful to the NOVO Foundation for its support for this series over the past year. Last year in the era of Trump, the NOVO Foundation has initiated its Radical Hope Initiative. I urge you to check it out. It's fitting for the first of our last spring series to be moderated by Sophia. We are colleagues, friends and sisters in arms. Sophia has more energy to take on the world than anyone else I know and with more energy to spare as you all shall see and hear in this program today. You will hear the extraordinary feat of one woman's vision to not only speak truth to power, but through her organization, The Alliance of Families for Justice, which is a mere two years old, to galvanize hundreds to march for 19 days from Harlem to Albany to protest and demand and end the human rights abuses in prisons in New York State, indeed across the country. Sophia, I'm sorry I'm not able to be present with you today on this stage, which we have shared on so many occasions. I thank you for all you do, all you stand for and the ways in which you support and assist families of the incarcerated and their loved ones. You give hope to those who are without power or voice that they may gain a reprieve from the human rights abuses that they endure. Thank you Sophia, thank you to the panelists who share their stories today and thank you to all of you, our audiences, who care, who share the struggle and walk the talk of justice, equality and equity. Stand strong, Elizabeth Sackler. So before we begin, I'm just gonna share a little bit more about Sophia and The Alliance of Families for Justice. Sophia, as we have heard as the founder of The Alliance of Families for Justice and its executive director. AFJ's mission is to support families of incarcerated people and people with criminal records, empower them as advocates and enable them to marshal their voting power to achieve systemic change. Prior to founding AFJ, Sophia Elijah was the executive director of the Correctional Association of New York where she was the first woman and the first person of color to lead the 170 year old organization. Miss Elijah has dedicated her life to human rights and social activism and is a frequent presenter at national and international forums on criminal justice policy and human rights abuses. An accomplished advocate, attorney, scholar and educator, Miss Elijah has practiced criminal and family law for more than 30 years. She has served as deputy director and clinical instructor at the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, has been a member of the faculty and the director of the Defender Clinic at CUNY School of Law, worked as a supervising attorney at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and also as an attorney at the Juvenile Rights Division of Legal Aid Society. So thank you, Sophia, for being here and I will invite you up now to begin our panel. Thank you. Well, good afternoon, everyone. I must admit, it feels a little strange to be here without Elizabeth because we've done several of these programs together but I know she's with us in spirit. I wanna thank you for joining us this afternoon and I particularly wanna thank our panelists. They're gonna tell you a little bit later on about their experiences with the March for Justice and with the Alliance of Families for Justice but to kind of set the tone for the program, we wanted to show you a short video about the march that kind of puts into context the work that we're doing, the reason that we marched and what we have in mind for the future. So I think there's somebody who's much better at tech than I am who's going to turn this image into a video for us to watch and then we'll have our panel discussion. Thank you. Number of 1971, the men in Attica had an uprising to protest the inhumane conditions under which they were being held. Many of the conditions that are exactly the same as they are today. And they took over the yard and they created their own organizational structure and they had a set of demands to bring about change and to end the inhumanity that they were subjected to. And at a certain point, they asked to meet with the governor, then governor Nelson Rockamper and he refused to meet with them. Instead, he ordered the New York State Troopers to retake the prison by force. They came with assault weapons. They scaled the top of the walls all around Attica they fired tear gas into the yard and they fired thousands and thousands of rounds of assault, bullets and murdered 42 people, including 10 hostages. And to this moment, the state of New York has not apologized to any of the family members of those people who were killed by the state. Where should we start? The Alliance of Families for Justice is a statewide organization. So we are very interested in building networks with other organizations and individuals all over the state. And so this March for Justice was designed to culminate in a rally on September 13th, the 46th anniversary of the Attica Massacre to draw attention to what happened and to say we will never forget. And we are calling for the shutdown of Attica and we are calling for the end of all human rights violations and prisons and jails across this state. What we should be looking at is should anybody with a mental health diagnosis be put in a cage? Should anybody who's pregnant be put in a cage? Should any child be put in a cage? Should any human being be put in a cage? We have more advocacy for four-legged animals than we do for two-legged people. People will beat you out of your mind for what you do to their dog and ignore what you do to another human being. So it's not about the laws, it's about the hearts. It's about the conscience, it's about our willingness to treat everybody with respect and dignity. And unless and until we get to that, we're not gonna fix this problem. Why don't we let people who are incarcerated have access to the internet? What are we afraid they might see? They might learn something like their rights. Go visit. There is no substitute for walking through those doors, filling out those forms, talking to officer asshole, having to walk through the metal detector. Ladies, if you have on a underwire bra, I've been told you have to take it off and go into that visiting room, bra-less. Sit in that visiting room, watch people try to piece together their relationships and be humiliated. And once we do that, we will challenge every inhumane practice that exists. We have to, because otherwise, we can never look at our children and grandchildren with any kind of pride. We owe it to them to build a humane society. We cannot ignore, we cannot ignore what's happened. Oh, we tell them. In the short video, we saw some of you. I think we saw all of you. And I would ask you to begin by telling the audience why you marched. And I'll start with you, Kevin. Well, I marched because there was a need to spread awareness about some of the conditions that are going on inside the prisons. There was a need to make people aware of the suffering of families. A lot of times the families are ignored in these situations. And we just needed to bring attention to some of the abuses that are going on. And we wanted to march along this route, a route that a lot of families take to visit some of their loved ones inside. And so for me, it was just creating a situation of awareness. And once we're aware, then we can start taking some action to remedy some of the problems we have. And thank you, Kevin. And Carol, for you, why did you march? I marched basically because of my son. I didn't know much about Alliance of Family for Justice. I didn't know much about the organization as yet because I've just started. And when they talked about marching the Albany, I thought it was crazy. But basically I did for my son. But when I went on to march, I realized it's more than my son. It's a universal thing with all family members. So basically I thought I would for my son, but then I realized it's more than my son. Thank you, Carol. And for you, Lily. So similar to Carol, when I first heard about marching, I thought you were crazy. Sophia had put forth the idea of marching from Harlem to Albany. And being from London, I just knew that that was far away. I knew that we were just far away. And as we explored the notion, the term put in your feet to the street, I think, you use quite often. And that really resonated with me because I know that for me, I wanted to march for everybody else that couldn't march alongside us. But I didn't know how best to do that. I know about my role in AFJ and how I contributed that way. But I really wanted to be at the front lines. I wanted people to see me in action doing something. So I stood up and I agreed to the madness because I thought in all honesty, I have to do this for everybody else that would love to be as crazy as me and do it. Okay, well now all of you have declared to the audience that I'm crazy. Thank you for that. But you still marched. So since you thought there was a wacky idea initially, if you would describe what was a typical day like, and I guess I'll start with you, Lily, this time. Well, at the beginning, midway, because it changed. I think it changed. It evolved. So initially, we obviously had hundreds of people marching with us from Harlem to the Bronx. So in the beginning, that would say that was quite hectic. That day felt like it felt like it was gonna be an interesting start, but it was in no way preparing me for what the rest of the march would be like. As we continued, we would start to implement and incorporate new ways of bonding the group. And that would be welcoming in new people and in some ways, clapping out saying goodbye to the people that marched with us previously. But it started off with us waking up extremely tired, your legs are sore, your feet ache, but finding the strength amongst our group to just keep going. So Theo, you introduced us doing some stretches, which was very helpful. It helped you to feel a bit more limber to prepare you for the day. But more than anything, I felt like it centered me. I found a way to ground myself and prepare myself for the task ahead. Because it's no easy fate to march, God knows how many miles a day. So a typical day started off with us doing some stretches and Kevin and I being like, why are we doing this again? And Kevin, so how did our day kind of flow and end? Also, I wanted to add that logistically, we had to pack up all our things, the beds we had, the beautiful, lovely beds we had. That we slept on the night before and just the organizing effort, I think, was really amazing that Sophia and Lily put together logistics of this. These things you take for granted were just well taken care of. And just the idea of packing up everything and getting everybody on board. Everybody wakes up differently. And organizing bathroom time, there was one time in Yonkers, I mean it was packed, I mean we had about 50 people in a very small area. So we had to organize bathroom time and how we would get out on time to go to our next destination. So those are the things you kind of take for granted. But somehow we made it happen and we got through personality differences and all of that to look at the big picture of what this was all about and to keep people focused on why we were doing this to begin with. Thank you, and what did we do each evening besides our dinner, yes? Well, the great part about the entire march of the 19 days, I think almost every day we had teachings or rallies or seminars where whatever area we were in we would have somewhat of a workshop and just inform people of the issues, the general issues, the issues that might be in those particular areas. And it was a great turnout. It was a way for us to connect with the community and other organizations that we're gonna talk about later that we network with. So in each and every one of those 19 days we were able to tell people in those particular areas exactly what's going on. A lot of people were shocked to hear the things that are going on inside. I enjoyed the teachings very much. And what kind of reception did you experience and balance that against what kind of reception you thought you were going to experience along the way? I'll ask, I'll start with Carol and then Lily. Why not? This is the way it was for 19 days, by the way. Well, when they talk about the march and I talk about where we're gonna be up in March in the basically, I call it the boondocks. Basically up there and I'm thinking that these people are not gonna be receptive to us. They're gonna be like, what is these people doing in the backyard? They're probably gonna shoot us, hang us. I'm sorry guys, I'm being really honest. That was my thought because we do not know what we're going into, what are we getting ourselves into. So I was scared, I didn't tell them though because I'm one of the brave ones. So I didn't say anything. But I was literally scared. But we had got a little problem when I was on the march because I didn't march all 19 days. Well, one of the time when I got on the march we was kicked out of a park by the fire department. They said, get out of a park, we don't want you near. And it was very aggressive. That scared me. But most of the time we had really nice people who like she said, fed us, they fed us like, we gained weight, instead of we lost, we gained weight. So we had more nice than bad so that overrides what I expected. So basically it was an experience that I was scared going in and I was scared for a minute with those people in the park with the fire department. But we also had some very nice people, which surprised me because the way from the treatment that I get when I go to the facilities, it's basically mostly white guards that's there. So I get very bad treatments. So when I was going up there, I expected the same treatment from the same, because, you know, white people, you understand? I expected the same treatment the way I get from there. So it was very refreshing to find that there was really, really nice people. Lily, you wanna add to that? So I think I was somewhat apprehensive moving forward. I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I do know that in this day and age and in the political climate that we're sitting at the moment, there isn't room for people to kind of sit on the fence right now. People have a view, they have an opinion, and they're quite open about expressing those views and opinions, and sometimes they don't necessarily match your own. So I have taken many a visit upstate and as I have gone upstate, I've seen that a lot of people are fans of Trump. I personally am not, but, you know, their views differ to mine. And so those kinds of things being in the back of your mind made me a bit wary of what to expect. I would say though, honestly, like Carol said, it shattered my expectations because we were met with so much love, so much love. There were times when, you know, people would come out to meet us in droves or to just generally come and see if we needed some water. That's when I really felt the humanity and the spirit of people coming together. And I knew that even though you could differ in terms of opinions, it wasn't necessarily gonna cause a problem. That's not to say we didn't encounter some people who did have a problem with what we were doing, even though they didn't know what we were necessarily doing. So there was an occasion where we marched through the town of, is it Buchanan? Right. So we were marching, doing our usual charge, so we are a family, happy, happy family, singing things that I think are quite uplifting. As we were walking through this small town of Buchanan, a guy comes out on his porch or something and he starts shouting, I don't know what he's shouting, because we're also shouting, so there's a bit of a clash. We're chanting, not shouting. And he then proceeds to do some sort of, I'm thinking he jumps up and down and does some sort of a movement. And then says, hold on one moment, I've got something for all of you. He ran into his back garden, which is outside. So at this point, some of us are thinking he's going to get a knife, a gun, you don't know what he's doing. We're in a small town, upstate, and they're not happy to see us. He then runs back outside, but okay, that's giving him too much credit. He kind of waddles back outside because he was a heaviest set guy. And eventually he gets back to the side wall and he has a hose in his hand. And he then begins to start to spray the hose towards us. Now I don't live through the civil rights movement, but I can imagine that that probably hits home for quite a few people that did. And that's when I thought to myself, wow, wow, wow. As much love as you can be met with when people meet you with that same passion and it channels into hatred, that is scary. Hatred for something that they don't know or understand. Because we were chanting about things that were, what I believe should bring people together. Like you mentioned in the video, we have more compassion for four-legged animals than two-legged people. And some of the things that we were marching about was for the human rights abuses that are taking place against people. And this guy just saw a mixed group of people, I will say a diverse group, because as we went further and further upstate, we actually had more diversity in terms of our group. And he just wasn't happy. And that, for me, I think hit home. It didn't overshadow all of the good that we were met with, but it definitely stuck with me. And it reminded me that the fight continues. So I remember in that moment, it's like we had this thing, this energy between us. We all started chanting louder and our feet started hitting the street harder. And there was something about us that found the strength. So I want to thank him for trying to hose us down. You know, it was cool to do it at the time to give us that strength, but it was a reminder to say the least of what we were doing and the tasks we were taking on. Thank you. Yes, I remember that guy with the hose. And I actually thought he'd gone to get a gun. Right. And in that moment, we were being followed. We had a little caravan that was following us, a small school bus, a truck with all of our supplies and a volunteer who was driving a Jeep. All three of the drivers were Vietnam veterans and they were all at the ready to go into action if we were in danger in that moment. But we didn't know that they were planning some kind of, I don't know, military action I guess over there, but it was quite a moment out there in that small town. I want to shift the conversation a little bit because you all have shared why you marched. But I'd like if you could share kind of like, what kind of preparation did you go through to get ready for this event? And I was, other than deciding that I was crazy. I'll start with you, Kevin. Months and months of walking. And because physically, I wasn't sure if I was gonna make it physically. You know, my heart was in the right place, but I wasn't sure if my feet was gonna follow my heart. So I did a lot of walking and then I was ready. I was motivated. Once we got started, you know, that was it. It was no turning back. But also mentally, you know, just being prepared and we encountered media along the way. So I wanted to be prepared and to present our case in, you know, articulate manner so people understand exactly what's going on and what we're doing. And to prepare for resistance. So all of that stuff was kind of going through my mind. I had no idea what it was gonna be like, but it was a great challenge. I really enjoyed it, actually. Carol, how about for you? As you ended up doing extra duty during the march, what kind of preparation did you do? I didn't do any preparation, people. I was lazy. I did not want to go. I'm not lying, but I had to go. I have a bad knee. And I'm saying, Carol, what in God's name are you doing? But it was so important. This march was so important, so eye-opening. So I didn't really did any kind of exercise. Like I said, I'm lazy. I didn't run. I didn't walk. Sophie, keep telling me, Carol, you gotta walk a couple of days before you start. I say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm doing, I'm doing, but I lied. I'm sorry, God. I didn't, and let me tell you something. My knees felt every pain. Sophie, my knees felt every pain. That's cause you didn't practice. You didn't have a mama. I didn't listen to mama, and I'm sorry, but I didn't feel pain. So I really didn't prepare anything, but my mind, I pray a lot, so that helped me to meet people, see people, and talk to people. We also had some forum that Sophie did before we leave, where we do media, or to talk to media people, how to talk to people without, you know, if they push a button, or to keep calm, how people do push a button. So, you know, we had a little program about that, which was very helpful, you know, so beside that, that was it. Lily, did you prepare? I mean, I'm gonna follow on from Carol. I didn't prepare. I go to the gym, so I thought, I've got this, I'm fine, I'll be fine. After day one, I was like, my legs, my legs. Come feel my legs. But in terms of the physical way of preparing, I was like, I'll take it each day as it comes. But I think a lot of that happened because the logistical team, there were a lot of us in the office trying to make all of these moving parts come together, and it was not easy. And that's why I wanna give a shout out to Tiffany, Maya, Izzy, Sophia, Linda, and everybody else that helps to make it come together. We're gonna set up our whole system. She's here. Brother, raise your hand. Yep, thank you. Like, there was so much that had to go into it, and that meant for a lot of people, not myself, early mornings, but more so for me, late nights. And so, in terms of preparing for the march, I feel like I was so buried into trying to take this march off of paper and make it come to fruition. So that was my preparation, just mentally always trying to envision where we're gonna be and how it's gonna look. Yeah. Well, yeah, go ahead, Kevin, you wanna answer? Just wanna add one part that also I needed to prepare in terms of photography and videography, which was kind of thrown upon me to document what was going on. So I wanted to be prepared that everything was properly documented. I've done still photography for years, but I've never really did any videography. So some of the videos were in all that great, but some of it was sort of the purpose of documenting what we were doing. And I would like if each of you would share one particular highlight on drawing the march, and then I'm gonna shift again. But if there was one highlight drawing the march, and before you answer that question, I do wanna give particular thanks to the various faith-based organizations that housed us over the course of the 19 days. We stayed in various churches along the way, none of whom had any relationship or contact with before we kind of reached out and say, hey, you don't know us, but can we sleep on the floor in your church? We did have air mattresses. It wasn't quite as bad as the sleeping bags we had originally planned on. But I definitely wanted to say thank you to all of the religious leaders, not only who housed us, many of them, after housing us that evening, came back the next morning and marched with us, even though that hadn't been their original plan. So I'll start with, I guess, Lily, what's a highlight that you took away from that 19 days? Sophia, I know this might sound a little bit bad, but the thing that sticks out the most to me is the laughter, because through it all, no matter what we were going through, and the difficult times and the struggles and how exhausted we were, I'm gonna say you, me, and Kev, because we've done the whole thing. We've always found time to laugh. Whether we were sitting around dinner, and as part of the logistical team, I'm exhausted at this point, because I've been in go mode from beginning to the end of the day. I always found some sort of way to laugh with you, and I wanna thank you both for that, because it kept me going. That was a highlight. But if I think about an area that we stopped off, Newberg, that stood out for me. Okay, and what about Newbergs? They cooked us a lot of food, a lot of food. Not that we needed any more food, because we needed a lot, but I'm always saying yes to another plate. But they went absolutely all out for us. We arrived, and they had put on the most amazing spread, when we arrived at their first church, we had eaten a buffet-style meal. Then they took us over to their second church, which could have been any more than, what, 15 minutes away? And we had another meal, where everybody had cooked and bought food from home, and I was happy for Sophia, because she's vegan, and these are SDA, so Seventh Day Ventus, so they are vegan, so the spread was incredible. But they also had a revival afterwards, which I've never been to. That was incredible to see. I really appreciated Newberg, but something that touched me about Newberg as well is how heavily impacted the community was. Sophia done a talk there after we'd eaten our second meal, and she asked people to put up their hands if they had a loved one, or had been impacted by mass incarceration in any way, and surprisingly, or not surprisingly, a good few people raised their hands. And there were so many people within that congregation, that I didn't know somebody else had been impacted. For them, that was the first time that they had shared that they had a loved one and was incarcerated. And that really hit home, because it goes back to the idea of isolation, and the fact that they had been studies conducted by Hedwig Lee, and they touch on the facts that family members who have someone who is incarcerated are the least civically engaged. And for us, that was something we needed to, we wanted to eradicate that. And we'll talk a bit more about the ways that we're doing that later on. But that's why Newberg stood out for me. There was so many things in that one moment, that one night. Thank you. You're welcome. And Carol, for you, what was the highlight for you? When I reach out on the march. Whichever. When I reach out on the march, well, I like Pastor, was Pastor Mike? What's his name, Pastor? Oh, Pastor D. Pastor D. We stopped at his church. I find it, it was very refreshing for me because I realized diverse people can work together. We're diverse, but we can work together. And it was so refreshing to see majority of the people that was up there was not of my color, but it was willing to work with us. And like Lilly said, the food was awesome. Always food. How can you go to Walkford? 19 is the gateway. I don't understand, but there was always food. And the people, Pastor D, was so nice. His Congress was very nice. So that was one of my highlights. But I have a few, but I'll wait till later. And Kev, what was the highlight for you? I think there were a lot in between, but the kickoff and the ending were both the highlights for me. The kickoff was tremendous. I mean, we had probably 300, 400 people there. Danny Glover, I got a chance to meet Danny Glover. And some of our people spoke. Jamal Joseph was there. And it was just a tremendous, tremendous kickoff in Harlem. And then our elders leading the way for blocks and blocks and blocks was just, you guys raise your hand. Barbara. Please tell them, Miss Barbara. They don't hear us. But it was tremendous, it was really inspirational to have them leading the way. And you just see a whole group of people behind them crossing the bridge into the Bronx. That was really inspirational for me. And then the ending, we did it. We came near the end. We set out to do something and we accomplished what we set out to do. So that was the highlights for me. I wasn't going to answer the question myself, but I think I wanna share one highlight. And like you all said, there were many. But we went to Garrison and we stopped there for lunch at a convent. And the nuns prepared our lunch. And they were all in none attire. I guess that's the best way to describe it. They had their habits and they had the floppy habits. So they were like bustling all around waiting on us. Now I don't know how many of you in the audience have ever had a bunch of nuns waiting on you. I would venture to say, probably haven't had that experience. So that in and of itself stood out. But then we were finished and they really didn't want us to leave. And they were already talking about us coming back and marching next year. And it was kind of early in the march to be talking about us trying to do it again. But what really struck me was at the end, we're all saying our goodbyes and our groups lined up now to start chanting and marching to go to the next space. And there the nuns are lined up behind us. And they're waving to us. But the next thing I know, they're marching with us. They just fell into formation and marched with us down till we got to the main thoroughfare. And that scene really stood out to me because it spoke to how people just embraced what we stood for. Even if they didn't understand why we would choose to march as opposed to another way to make a point, they really respected the fact that we were willing to put in that much effort that it was that important to us that we would take 19 days out of our lives and we would literally put our feet on the ground to draw attention to it. So before I ask the next question, I wanna shout out a couple of people in the audience. First I wanna shout out Jane, who will raise her hand, I hope. Thank you. Who came to an event that we had last year at the Sackler Center. And Jane and I hadn't seen each other in a few years. And afterwards she came up to me. She said, I really like what you're doing. I wanna get involved. And she volunteered to get the parade and sound permits for all of the towns and villages that we marched through, which was a tedious job. People weren't always happy to hear that she was getting permits for us to come, those New York City people to come walking through their peaceful towns. But she took that on, so I wanna give her a shout out for that. And I don't wanna give a shout out to her husband, Mark, who was pressed into service who's doing photography for us. We have one of our upstate partners, Phoebe, who's here from Ithaca. I saw Caddell. Did I say yeah? There she is. From the Unitarian Church of All Souls that hosted one of our events. And then I definitely have to acknowledge Emily, who's back there with the knitting needles, who's done all of our grant writing as a volunteer for a full year before she came on board just a month ago as a paid employee. So let's go. Leave out two of our three fearless elders who led the march. Those of you who got to see the video saw Ms. Barbara and Ms. Beverly. And then there was Ms. Ivy, okay? In their 80s, who led the march. And as Kevin mentioned, they were supposed to only walk for a couple of blocks. And then the game plan was they were supposed to get into the school bus, all right? And then the rest of us were gonna walk, but we were gonna, in a respectful of elderly way, they were gonna ride while we march, okay? And they wouldn't get on the bus, okay? They kept marching and marching and marching. And we had a police escort from Harlem to the Bronx. And those cops actually, whenever they were thinking about us, they were totally swept away by these three elders who wouldn't sit down on the bus. And finally one of the cops said, ma'am, you gotta please get on the bus. We're out of our jurisdiction, but we can't leave you. And so finally, reluctantly, after crossing the bridge into the Bronx, they got on the bus. So I think they deserve some applause. I'm conscious of the time, so I wanna shift the conversation. We've talked a bit about this march, the takeaways from it. I think we're also clear. I don't think I could convince you all to march next year. No, okay. That's good, we have a solution for that. So what are the future plans? What are the things that we have in the works going forward? And I think I'll start with Kevin. Well, it's always good to follow up on marches. You know, a lot of groups have a lot of marches, and then that's it. But we plan on, we're gonna have some regional conferences coming up. The first one is gonna be in New York City in April, April 13th and 14th in Manhattan. And what we plan to do there is to raise some issues and consolidate some of the networking partners that we've been in touch with and just talk about some issues that affect in the community. And come up with some strategies and some action plans as to what to do next. Some practical stuff to follow up on the momentum that will be created for the march. So we have six regional conferences planned, three for this year and three for next year. And some of them will be in Ithaca and Adirondacks, Adirondacks and Buffalo and Albany. So thank you. Yeah, we're gonna start in April. As I said, it's gonna be here in New York City. Then we go into Peekskill in July and Ithaca in October. And then the following year will be in Buffalo in April and Albany in June and Adirondacks in May. So we wanna follow up, as I said, what we created on the march. We created some dynamic partnerships. And we're gonna come up with some action plans to really make a difference and to put pressure on people. There are people in power that we need to give them a little shove. And we have some power of our own that we need to start exercising. So we're looking forward to that. We're also gonna have a family retreat coming up at the end of June, beginning of July. And we're looking forward to that to some relaxation and some recreation. But also to, again, create a safe space where we could talk about some issues regarding families. So those are two things we got coming up in the future. Thank you. Lovely, do you want anything you would like to add? Particularly about the regional conference. So, but anything else we're gonna be doing? Okay, so Kevin spoke a bit about the regional conferences and we do have some palm cards at the back if you wanna grab them. It's got a bit of info about what we're doing, the dates we're doing it. And we've got some really key speakers that will be present as well. So I think it's not to be missed. I'm really excited. We've got some key key note speakers as well that I think you should come along to. But just following on from what Kevin said, this is a great way for us to have this conversation around why we march, what we're doing and how we're gonna do it. And in AFJ we've been sort of in our little hub having a lot of conversations like this. So the regional conferences for me really stand out for that reason. I wanna thank the Unitarian Church because they're gonna be hosting us. And for those of you who are involved or can come to learn about AFJ, everything that we do for our family members is free. We've not charged anybody for anything. We've took a bus of family members up to caucus weekend so that they could make the issues known as far as how families are impacted by mass incarceration and no one had to pay a dime. When we did the March for Justice, all the food, everything was free. Every single event, we do a mother's acknowledgement event in May, a father's acknowledgement in June. We had a family dinner gathering in November. No one ever has to pay anything and that's because we don't ever want economics to be a barrier for people getting involved. We live in a society that's driven by money and this is our small way of making it clear that money should never be the separator of people. Carol frequently will tell me that you should ask people to give a little something. And if people want and can, that's fine. Donate people, donate. But if they can't, they should still be able to come and get involved and that's what's really important to us. We have been building a statewide network of other organizations that share in our beliefs and our concerns that families are really being shredded by mass incarceration. In this state, there's a little under 50,000 people who are currently incarcerated and another 36,000 people who are on parole or probation supervision. So all of those families are impacted by mass incarceration and the focus of the regional conferences is going to be how families are impacted and how we can do something to rebuild those families and push back against the devastation that is being visited on those communities where the families come from. So I hope that all of you will come. As Lily mentioned, we have these palm cards and one of the ways, people always ask us how can they help? What an easy way that people can help is you can take a bunch of these, they're in the back and give them to other people. Another easy way you can help is to go on our website, sign up to get our newsletter and urge other people to do so. Carol said, and it's true, none of the, we don't charge people for anything but we have to pay for everything we do. So we raise the money through foundation support and individual donations. So certainly donations are always helpful. But spreading the word is perhaps the most impactful thing that you can do. Many of you, I'm sure, are on social media. So we'll ask you, is it up there? It's not up there, but it's on all of our materials. Our various social media handles. Now I'm tech challenged, I'm gonna use the wrong technology, but those of you on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, please follow us, post, tweet, whatever those words are that I'm supposed to say at this moment, do those things, okay? Okay, I'm going to now shift, I wanna talk a little bit about some of the advocacy that we've been engaged in and then I wanna open up the floor for questions. So I'll start with some. Carol just voluntold Kevin. That's a new word for AFJ, by the way, voluntold, okay? You don't volunteer for anything in this place, we're just told what to do by so few. But you're supposed to feel like you're a volunteer, so it's voluntold. So we'll start with Kevin. What is some of the advocacy and deficit we've taken on in the past year, since you've been involved with AFJ? There's so many issues going on, but I particularly was excited about the caucus weekend that we went on, where we were able to go up to Albany and let the legislators know some of the issues that are on our heart, and we were able to have scheduled meetings and sit down with them for 15, 20 minutes, half an hour, and give out, so give out our postcards and just let them know what's on our hearts and that we're gonna be following up. And we wanted to know exactly where they were coming from. So there's a lot of issues going on that we're probably gonna get into, but that weekend was really special. We also had a workshop, which I and myself, my partner here participated in, and we discussed how families are affected by everything that's going on. As I said earlier, a lot of times, we just talk about those inside as we should because there's a lot of injustices going on inside, but most times families are left out. Nobody talks about the support of the families. And one of the reasons why I joined AFJ was because the emphasis on families being supported. And that's really critical. A lot of people don't realize the impact incarceration has on an entire family, emotionally, financially, you know, if you have children, you know, the stigmatism that goes along with that. So, went off a little bit, but that's some of the issues that just come to mind right away. Kevin, you have that pump card on your lap. Could you show that to the audience, please? So those are in the back, and they are like a snapshot of the various ways that mass incarceration impacts families and communities. So if you feel that you want to start talking to other people about these issues, please grab some of those pump cards, you can give them out to other people, and they're easy talking points. They help you to understand. If you haven't lived that experience, it may help you to be able to describe it to other people. And if you can kind of imagine putting yourself in the place of a mother or a spouse or a child who has an incarcerated loved one, this pump card was designed by one of our family members who's directly impacted. It will help you to start that conversation with other people who you think might give you a listening ear. I'm then going to turn to Lily, because you have a postcard. Maybe you could tell people about that package policy that we worked on. With pleasure. So. Volatile. Volatile, right? Yes, so docs are very sneaky. I'm not sure how familiar all of us are with the way they do things. I have to tell them what docs are. Oh, sorry. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. So they are the body that runs the facilities in New York State as well. So docs, as I would say, very sneaky. They tend to be doing a lot of things behind the scenes that a lot of people are aware of, namely family members. Recently, they tried to push through a policy, which we laid with the package policy, which would have made it so there are a lot of changes to what our loved ones can receive inside. The things like fresh fruit and vegetables, which we are told on a daily basis, we need to eat, we need to consume these things. Docs are trying to rid our loved ones of being able to order these things or have access to them. Certain religious material, books, they would have had a sale of the kind of books that would have come through. They would have had vendors which were out of state basically benefiting from the revenue and just capitalizing off of essentially our misery and lack of funds. So once AFJ caught a whiff of this, of course we were not happy. We decided, alongside a number of organizations that we were gonna push back against this doc's policy. So this postcard you see me holding here was our way of pushing back. We would ask that family members or anybody we encountered could sign and put their zip code on there as a way to show that they stand in solidarity with us to say we're not gonna allow this to take place. And that involved us doing one of the most important things we do in AFJ, which is the outreach. We go to these bus stops where loved ones are picked up and taken on these six hour journeys to go and see their loved one upstate somewhere. And we would stand there and have conversations with the different family members about what's happening and a lot of them didn't have a clue. They had no idea. And in spreading the word like Sophia said, it raised a lot of awareness. And the policy was rescinded. So we can half clap because we've done half a job so half a clap, but stop, you have to stop. Because although it's been rescinded, Docs always has another policy that they're trying to push through. So we have not stopped doing what we're doing. So I would ask that if anybody is here that feels passionate like we are about this, please grab a postcard, take a stack of them and go and give them out to people and have a conversation. And if you can get them to sign their name and their zip code on the back and we've even paid for the postage. So all you have to do is pop it in a letter box. Is that what you call it? Letter boxes. Mailbox. A mailbox. Letter boxes is a British thing I think. Mailbox. So just pop it in the mailbox, British. So yeah, that's one of the things that we're working on as well. Do you want me to talk about the book? Okay. Can I just add one thing? Just as a result of when we sent 2,000 postcards around 2,000 to the governor, that influenced him to rescind the policy. So this stuff works. Just one there. And part of the way that we were able to be effective is the partnerships that we have formed with organizations across the state. So when we decided we were going to engage in this postcard campaign, we mailed dozens and dozens of bundles of postcards to our various organizational partners that we met during the March for Justice. And they all got postcard signed. Now some of you might be saying, why didn't you just do a petition campaign? Wouldn't that be easier and cheaper? But we know that the governor's office counts pieces of mail. That really has a major impact on it. So one piece of mail is the equivalent of almost 25 signatures on a petition. And a postcard counts just like a letter. And so since we know they count them, we decided to send him thousands of them. Love letters we call them. And we're continuing this effort because no sooner did the governor announce that they were rescinding the package policy, docs announced that they only temporarily suspending it. So we know that they're planning to come back with another policy. And in the interim, each of the 54 prisons is doing whatever they want to do with respect to packages, which is causing major confusion all over the state. So we hope that you will join with us and sign the postcards. If you don't want to find a mailbox which is harder to find these days, we'll even put them in the mail for you. But the main thing is please don't take them and throw them out. If you take them, please get them signed because we already have stamps on them. The last policy, are any of you ever to talk about the visiting policy before we talk about room review? All right, I'll talk about the visiting policy. Last year, Governor Cuomo announced that he was going to reduce in-person visiting and maximum security prisons from seven days a week to just three days a week, which was going to be catastrophic for a whole host of reasons. And it obviously was going to have a major impact on family ties. And so our members across the state engaged in a campaign, letter writing, calling, putting pressure on the governor's office and say, oh no, no, no, no, no, not on our watch, it's not going to happen. And in just a few weeks, they were effective and victorious and got the governor to rescind this idea of reducing visiting. So these things are very important, not only because the policies need to be rescinded, but also it sends a strong message to our family members that when they take that pain that they feel from having a loved one incarcerated and they feel empowered by putting their efforts together, they really can make a difference. And that is part of the reason that we believe that we can shut down Attica. Because if we can push back on a visiting policy and on a package policy, if we can galvanize more people, people who are directly impacted and people who care, just like at one point, no one thought Rikers could be closed and now it's going to be closed, we can shut down Attica and we're going to shut down Attica. So I do want to have Lily talk about an effort that we're engaged in right now about, well, I won't describe it. Lily, please explain for the audience. Yeah, I'll touch on it just because I know we're conscious of time. Okay, so one of our volunteers has received a request from her loved one who's locked up and he asked us to take a look at what are some of the rules that will be reviewed. As we explored this, we went away for a retreat like a couple of weekends ago and ourselves and the rest of our coalition decided to have a chat about some of these rules that will be reviewed and it's absurd. It's absolutely absurd. They are proposing the idea of removing law libraries. Law libraries are key for people who are incarcerated, key because that essentially is the key to their freedom. There are many people who are considered jailhouse lawyers, even lawyers who on the outside respect their work and their efforts because they have a lot of time and a lot of time means they have a lot of time to read and educate themselves. If you've removed a law library, you are taking away people's freedom and their hope more than anything to ever think that they can bring themselves back home. The facts that they are talking about removing law libraries or eliminating things like contact visits. The, again, it blows my mind. So there's a suggestion in this rule review that initial contact visits will be removed. So if you have a husband, a son, a daughter, and they've been moved to another facility or have just gone in for the first time, you won't be able to touch them. You won't be able to kiss them. And these are the kind of ridiculous things that are being proposed. So in AFJ, of course, we caught with of this and we're like, no, not having it. So we have put together, I should say Akira, thank you, shout out to Akira. She has put together a nice letter that says what we are opposing. And all we ask is that you take some of these letters with you. We have some at the back. We've got some more of these letters at the back. And have a read. It just says all of the things that we're not happy with and we're not going to agree with. And if you could just sign your name at the back and put your zip code as well, that must definitely say in. Again, it's another way for us to push back. And you can leave those here. Yeah, you can leave those here and we will take over from there. But I do ask that, please, everybody here, if you could grab some of those, that would be amazing. Because one thing we did realize as well is they've already determined when they're going to review these rules. So is it every two years? Yes, every two years they've been reviewed and there's a deadline for this letter of April 1st. Yeah, April 1st. So we need to, one, almost be prophets and try and anticipate what they're gonna try and take away or change in the future. But once we're here in the present, we need to push back. So I would ask that, please, especially with the deadline approaching, you take your sign and you leave behind and we will do the rest. Thank you. Thank you, Lily. You know, the rule. I'm sorry, question. I'm gonna do what the audience will do. Do you need to put your address on it or just the zip code? Just the zip code. The zip code, yeah. And there's a reason why we say the zip code. Because we need it to show this. From across the state, you know, if people come up with their zip code, it doesn't look like it's just coming from Brooklyn. We need to show that everybody across the state is aware of this. Right, I'm interested. And it's interesting, like, you know, as the world becomes more digitized and we use email for everything, we pay for bills online, right? Why would they require that the response to this particular rule review be by snail mail? By snail mail. Like, how, I actually know people who have no idea how to write a check. Because they pay for everything online, okay? But be that as it may, we're flexible. So we adjust to whatever the demand is. So we have the letters printed. We had somebody go through a fine tooth comb. Some of you might like to look at the litany of proposed rules that are up for review. And we have copies of those in the back if you'd like to look at those. But we hope that everybody will sign this letter so that many voices are heard. Because what usually happens is the docs promulgates a bunch of rules and nobody ever responds, okay? Because they don't know, all right? We're fortunate that a guy inside had the time and the intellect and he found the rule and got it out to his wife. And so we could go into action. And that's how we learn about a number of different policies because the people inside are the true experts, okay? They're living and breathing it every day. And so our job is to support and do what we can do on the outside that they can't do on the inside, okay? So hopefully all of you will take that letter. We have our next community organizing meeting is when, Carol? April 26th from six to eight at the National Black Theater, Sioux Zero Three One Fifth Avenue. And we have some in the background. Yeah, this fly is in the back. So please come out to the meeting. It's very important. Because if I didn't come to that meeting, I don't know what I would have been lost. You understand? This meeting, this applies in front of justice has helped me tremendously. And I don't know if I've got someone to talk to, let my guards down because when my son was... I hate talking because then I talk about, you know, Christ, I like a little baby and hate being like that. When my son got incarcerated, it was very hard for me. And if it was for these family that gave me one of these flyers at a bus one night, I probably would be so depressed. I don't know what would have happened. And the organization has helped me. I know volunteering for Alliance of Family for Justice. And believe me, people is so important because these family members, you don't know what they're going through. You do not know what they're going through. So it's very important. I'm so sorry. I get so emotional when I talk about this. I met last night, I was at the bus department. My mother's wise. I went to see my son yesterday Friday, I met wise and the thing that it's going through with these, they're going through. It's so sad to see that we're in 2018 in New York City, America, land of free injustice. And these people are going through so much. There's a mother who got a letter from her son. Her son hasn't eaten food in three days because he's in the box. They choose to feed him if they want to or they choose not to feed him if they want to. There's another mother whose son passed out. A wife, she drove from Florida. She lives in Florida. She drove down and she can only come over six months. She's a school teacher. And she can come up when school give recess. Her husband passed out because they forgot to order medicine for her husband. They know he needs this medicine, okay? I'm talking to people and it's like, when I go to the bus to meet these people, I cannot get out a good report. Oh wow, that's been so great to me. All my son, they are fine. My daughter is great. I'm getting all these things. I can't get that information from. Why? Why can't we just receive a good report from Docs? Why are they so powerful? I don't understand. I'm sorry I keep doing this. I'm sorry Sophia, it's okay. Why are they so powerful? I don't understand. Our children suffered and you guys, you come to the meeting, you do, you listen. But are you doing anything? Are you doing anything guys? Because everybody in prison is not guilty. And you have watched how many of our brothers has walked to the jail because of not guilty because of lack of funds, of lack of good education, of not getting a good lawyer because they can't afford it, are sitting in jail and nothing is happening more than they are being abused. So I'm sorry if I took up too much time. But you guys, we have to do something. These people saved my life, like I said. I was so depressed and when I got to meet Sophia, she's with me and Virginia. I'm sorry she's not here to meet you. I talk about them all the time. Some people don't like to say, I see two white people at the bus stop in the freezing degrees giving out these flyers. But there was two white people at the bus stop giving out these flyers and it took my heart to see two white people at a bus stop and zero below two degrees and a winter night giving out this. So it really affected me to see, well, hey, it may be all white people ain't all that bad. You understand? Yeah, yeah. I'm being honest because the abuse that I get when I go to the facilities and what I'm hearing from my son, my son said, mom, you know, sometime the correction officer, they'll have a bad day. They can't beat their wife. They can't run nobody up the street that try to run them over. They can't, if they get a bad coffee, they can't throw it back in the guy that gave him a bad coffee. So when they come inside and you say, good morning officer, they say, what you talking about my mother? What you talking about my mother? And they ready to beat you down. You understand? It's bad. It's very bad. The system is messed up. And a lot of family for justice, God bless their heart. They're trying to fix it. And I'm behind them wanting to sit and you guys better get behind them too because it's very important because everybody in jail and not a wicked evil monster. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Correct. April 26th. Yeah, April 26th. Well, let's open it up for some questions. I'm sure that there's a few ideas, assignments back there with the mic. So, and you know, one of the beautiful things about our form of language is that questions end in question marks. So if you want to give a speech, let's hold the speeches till later and get some questions out because I'm sure that there's some things that you'd like to know. So who would like, who has a question? I know somebody does. Okay, first question. You were talking, I've been talking about closing Attica and I was wondering, you've been talking about what you're doing in general but how is the campaign to close Attica going? We're building up momentum. At first when we said close Attica, people were like, yeah, uh-huh, but that's impossible because people couldn't think beyond a certain norm, right? And then we started to unpack it for people. The prison population in New York State has declined drastically. It's dropped by more than 22,000 people over the past 15 years and at the same time the crime rate has dropped by 40%. So it shows that we don't, we can have public safety and not put people in cages. So if we just want to crunch numbers, back in 2011 Governor Cuomo closed several prisons. There were 8,000 empty beds in Doc's system at that time. With the facilities that he closed, that closed, that shut down 3,800 beds. Everybody with me on the map? So that left 4,200 still empty beds in the system and remember the population has continued to decline. So I'll just take a wild guess that there's at least 4,500 empty beds in the Doc's system right now, okay? Attica holds at capacity less than 2,000 people, okay? So if you were gonna do the least humanitarian thing, you could just move those under 2,000 people to one of those 4,500 empty beds and you can shut down Attica immediately. So that would be the quick and dirty fix. And so, and we're not closing our eyes to the quick and dirty fix because for some people, that's as far as they can imagine it for right now. So we would say let's at least start with that because Attica is so symbolic, but there's Clinton and there's Great Meadow and there's Fishkill and there's Sullivan and there's Auburn and there's Wendy and the list goes on and on. And many of the atrocities that happened at Attica also happened at many of these other facilities. Clinton facility that's up in the Adirondacks, I've talked to countless people who were in Clinton decades ago and they described to me the time when they decided to build a gymnasium and so they dug up the floor and under the floor were bones. Bones of men who had died in that facility and had just been dumped in shallow grave underneath that facility. And so they continued, people continued to be beaten not within an inch of their life, but to death in these various facilities. So at the same time that we're talking about closing Attica and we're talking about raising up the conversation about human rights abuses, we're trying to challenge people's thinking about putting people in cages. Because we know every single behavioral health research study that has been done has shown that punishment does not change behavior. But we are a society that has been fed from birth to believe in punishment, even though we know it doesn't work. So we continue to do that. So we're hoping to also challenge people's thinking as to how we could build a better world so that eventually we evolve from the thought that putting people in cages is acceptable. But for now we know there's 4,500 empty beds that could shut down Attica tomorrow, okay? That's a question, certainly. So in New York state they don't have private prisons. There are several in the state to do, but New York has done a decent job as far as pushing back against private prisons. What has happened though in New York is there's other privatization that is attached to prisons. So medical care is privatized, okay? The linen service is privatized. The food service is privatized. And on and on and on. So there's privatization, but the prison itself is not privatized. The operation of the prison isn't privatized. So we must always stay vigilant when Lily was talking a little while ago about the package policy. Docs has announced, and some of you may have heard this, that they are going to suddenly, benevolently, give out tablets to every person that's incarcerated. All right? How many of you have a tablet and iPad or something that looks like that? Okay? How much good is it to you if you couldn't access the internet with it? Okay. It would turn into a glass frisbee, right? Okay. And that's what the tablet is, okay? Because the men and women inside are not gonna have internet access, okay? So what material is on that tablet is gonna be controlled by the vendor who owns it and the data, the information about how someone uses that tablet is gonna be owned by that company to sell and the information about how people think in using the tablet is subject to subpoena, okay? Everybody follow those? That bouncing ball? Okay. And so there's a form of privatization with respect to that tablet that can have a very sinister intent. Thank you for asking that question. Other questions? In the visiting room of about 10, 20 or 10, 30, I sat, I sat and sat and did not go up to ask, you know, whatever, until about five minutes or 10 minutes to 12. As I walked up, my son finally came down and I asked them what was the problem? Because I asked what was the problem and then she didn't respond. I asked to speak to the person, I don't know what his status said. And he stayed on the phone and would not approach me to find out what I wanted. Now I waited two and some hours for the visit. And because as I was leaving, I said, God don't like ugly, what they did was they said you would not be able to visit for a week. And then he turned and said, no, you won't be able to visit until we send you a letter. Now what can be done because that's abuse? Because I sat there two hours, it's not the first time that they have done that. Somebody on this panel want to answer that question? What do you think we could do? I want to speak to Ms. Polk. Can you hear me, Ms. Polk? Is that a bit better? Is that a little bit better? Can you hear me a little bit better? I don't want to deafen everybody else though. Because if I start shouting, I wanted to say that I had a similar experience. I had gone up to visit a loved one and when I arrived for whatever reason, my visit was denied. I probably wasn't so taken aback by the rejection or not being able to gain access, more so the treatment that I experienced from the CEO when I was there. First of all, when I walked into the space, they didn't even say good morning, good afternoon, I was speaking to air. I say hello and I've got nothing. And that already after a six hour journey, which has taken its psychological toll on you, is enough to push anyone over the edge because you're going to see someone you love and they are in a cage and that's all you think about all the way there. So to get there and then be met with this hostile cold reception does nothing for us. I took it upon myself to pull that CEO to the side when nobody else was around because I didn't want it to look as though I was trying to challenge her authority or status and I had a word with her and I took her into the world of what it feels like to be a loved one traveling to this very moment and this place in time. I told her, no, she did miss Beverly after speaking to her. I told her that something as simple as a smile can make the world of difference to all of us. Acknowledging our presence and our existence means the world to us because we are criminalized from the moment we walk into that space anyway. I'm told to take my bra off. I have to take this off, make sure I haven't got this hidden, do drug tests, dah, dah. Last time I checked I hadn't done anything wrong. When I spoke to that CEO, she was not happy, she was not happy but something happened and she shifted and it's because I connected with her on some sort of a personal level. She broke down and she started telling me about the stress that she has to go through with having to process numbers of people within a certain space of time and the pressure that she's getting from up here and how that affects her. So my conversational question to her was how are we coming from two different positions going to fix this moving forward because this can't continue. And from that point forth she agreed, she would smile, she would say hello and I know it didn't make a difference in terms of me gaining access but one thing I will say is it makes a difference to other people walking into that space. So that's just my, that's how I deal from on an interpersonal level. I want to have conversations with people but I know you're going into something a lot deeper about the abuse of restricting someone from seeing their loved one. And what we can do collectively, what we can do, I understand. And we are attempting to push back on systemic abuses. So one of the things we can do, we can write to the superintendent, the organization can write to the superintendent. We can send love letters to the governor. We know he likes to get love letters. I can call the commissioner. He always knows if I call him, it's not gonna put a smile on his face. So there are various ways that we can use our collective efforts. And that's why it's so important that we raise these issues so that more and more people know so that more and more people can add their voices to this effort. So thank you for asking that question. I think someone else had their hand up a moment ago. Yes. I wonder just, the prompts here are just amazing and it says a lot of what you're doing is raising awareness, it's like educated. People know about what you just described. It's horrible. And so people would do more. But that's one thing. But it also sounds like there's this whole, there's a lot of people in favor of prisons. They make money on it. It's an employer. You mentioned the packages. There are vendors who make money on that. So I just wonder, how do you attack both of these issues? And what is the resistance you would face from that sort of more of the economics of it? First of all, that's a great question also, Mark. Thank you for asking it. So you heard us say earlier that we form partnerships with organizations throughout upstate New York. Almost all of the 54 prisons in New York state are located in upstate communities. And in most of those communities, they are the centerpiece of an economic life raft, really, okay. So what we are looking at is the fact that for many of those communities, the young people who are coming up have no other place to turn for a job except to go work in a prison, okay. And so part of our effort in building relationships in upstate communities is to build a conversation about how those communities could join us in advocating for a different form of economic support, okay. There's just like when a company decides it's gonna go offshore, it's leaving the United States and goes someplace else. It sets up an industry in another area where they feel they're gonna get cheap labor, okay. So it is possible to build new industries in these communities if there was the will to do it. And part of the way to create the will to do it is to help empower people to elevate that conversation. And to help them understand that the dinner on their table is at the expense of another family that's suffering in Bed-Stuy, East New York, Brownsville, Harlem, South Jamaica, and on and on. Because for many of them there's a, we all know there's this upstate, downstate divide. And that was another reason that the March for Justice was so important is that we could start to break that down. And so people-to-people relationships is how you reach hearts and minds. Other questions? Yes. Hi, thank you and we came in late so apologies if this has already been addressed. So in terms of the work that you all do, you hear, you mentioned interacting directly with the CEO who you had taken issue with. And you talk about CEOs coming to work, sheep labor and things like that in your last comment. What type of work do you all do to reach out to the people who are working in the prisons to attempt to change hearts and minds? And so in terms of, as long-term strategy, like the prison to be shut down, but in terms of, okay, here we are. What do we need to do to make the process better for the people who are having to live in these prisons by working with the people who are working at these prisons? So first of all, I'm glad you asked that question because a lot of times people do ask us. Our organization is called the Alliance of Families for Justice, intentionally. And our first concern is the families whose lives have been destroyed because they have loved ones who are incarcerated. That has to be where we start, okay? Our sister Carol here, her son is incarcerated and it was wrecking her life, okay? All the families who come to us come to us traumatized. And their loved ones inside are terrorized by the people who get a paycheck from the state of New York. So we have to start with the people who are traumatized. We intentionally partner upstate New York because we know most of the guards live in the regions where our upstate partners are. And so it is our upstate partners who help us build and craft what the dialogue will be to reach some of their neighbors, okay? But our first concern is the families that are being destroyed. But we're clear that ultimately the way that we're going to take this beast down, and I do call it a beast, is that we will have to build bridges with the people who are employed in those facilities and the people who are incarcerated in those facilities. But we also have to get the people who are employed in those facilities to recognize the humanity of the people who are incarcerated in those facilities. And so the awareness that we're focused on building right now is on that, okay? Yes, question. Thank you. When a letter sent to Albany or any action is taken as an inmate, funny thing starts happening. Hi, they call you to the ID room, you get smacked up, punched in the face, made off to sign off on things to say you didn't do anything. There's a lot of physical violence and coercion that takes place. So what are some of the action plans that we have in place to ensure that the individual inside and save? Like, do we have things in place to periodically check up on them and whatnot? Yes, who wants to do that? Do other cow go first? Yes, on my son, he was getting a lot of retaliation because we was doing a lot of back and forth. Like you said, they take you out, they beat you, they gas you for no reason because he's been aware that he's sending letters to Albany, sending letters to the court. And when Alliance of Family got involved, they kind of backed off because they realized it's not just he's writing and I'm writing, but there's a group of people that's taking notice. Sophia has been five years, he has some problem with his throat and stuff like that. Sophia got in touch with the commissioner and they started giving him the medication that he needs. Okay, so Alliance of Family for Justice is doing what they're doing, but we also have to get our loved ones in there to write and let them know what's happening to them because if we don't know, we can't help, okay? So the retaliation will go on, but is, I mean, he's still been getting retaliated against, but is it important enough to get a little slapping so 10 other people don't get that slapping? You understand what I'm saying? Which is not right in any form at all, it's not right, so you'll be beaten, but sometimes you have to take that retaliation so you can take notice so they can be noticed and other people can be aware of what's going on. So as for Sophia and her Alliance of Family for Justice, they are intertwining with the family members and the people inside there. I don't know if I answered you correctly about the retaliation, but right now they do do that and the family member, I think, they would rather retaliation and get notice than just it still keep going on and on and on. Thank you, Carol. The other thing that we do, Angel, is where we can, I usually reach out to the commissioner and I don't use the name. I don't use the name of the din number. I say there's a situation happening in this facility, okay? It happened in this month, okay? Need you to look into it. I don't give the date, I don't give any din number, okay? I don't give the age of the person, all right? So that it's not easy to identify who it is that brought it to our attention, but I let the commissioner know that we're watching and he knows we're not at a loss to make a noise. If we had enough nerve to walk to Albany, we sure don't have a problem calling him out. And so that is how we try to protect against retaliation and we make it clear to our family members that we need to know from the person inside if they want us to use their name because we will never use their name unless they say absolutely we want you to do so and ask them to tell us in writing because I know I'm not there on the three to 11 shift when all the mischief happens and people are beaten and killed. Excuse me, we also have some family members up in, I'm gonna mess this word up completely, but I'm gonna, oh you got it, Anaranda, Anaranda's. We also have family members up there that if anything happens and they're so close, they'll go and check upon them for us because that will happen to me. Love them all that she went to the prince cause they beat my son and I didn't hear from him for about two weeks and I was very scared. So we contacted one of the members that's upstate. They went up there about an hour and a half away, they wasn't able to go up there, make sure he's okay. Also, what they do is that if you reject, they reject you from seeing your loved one, they come and pick you up and take you off on the internet and they're sitting there six hours to wait for the bus to come back. They will take you up and take you around and treat you, they also bring you cookies and had warmers and toasty toasties. So this is not just us, it's opened up all the way upstate and there's people doing work up there also. Who has the microphone? I'd like you to comment more on the groups that support you sometimes in terms of advocacy or faith groups. So there are people who may not be in the trenches emotionally, but because we all are human beings, we all know that this is wrong and this is our tax dollars. Can you comment? Because there were a lot of groups that you give advocacy and it's not personal, but. There are a whole network of churches and organizations that stepped up when we did the March for Justice and who also supported us with the package policy effort with respect to getting the postcard sent in. We mailed them out throughout the state and people readily got the members of their congregation to sign them. We, when we stayed in Kingston, we stayed in the LGBTQ center. They took postcards and got them signed. Every minister that we connected with took postcards and got them signed and they have pledged to stay in contact with us and always ask us to keep them informed about what are the issues we're working on. Because they don't, not everybody has to be walking 180 miles or coming to our monthly meetings, but in whatever way people can assist, they do. We have people who intern with us. There's a woman who's helped us. She lives in North Carolina. We've never met her in person. We have students who come and spend three weeks with us or a spring break. One young lady came up from Florida. She's a law student down there and she spent one week with us interning because it mattered to her the kind of work we were doing because she has a cousin who's incarcerated. I'm another young lady. She was getting her PhD at Yale and she came and spent the summer with us. We have some volunteers who are retired who come and spend time with us as a gentleman who works up in Westchester. He comes down on Fridays and spends four hours volunteering his time. So there's so many different ways that people support our work. The most of the materials that you see, the graphic designer is a young woman who learned about us through a friend of hers. She doesn't have the time to come to our meetings, but she designs anything that we need designed. The palm card about the regional conference. The, our brochure, our annual report. She's in business for herself. She came and did outreach at night. That's the person that Cowell was referencing, gave her material about what we do. And I will readily admit, when she first saw the kind of materials that we had designed kind of makeshift, she was mortified. She's like, oh my God, this is like, this is like really embarrassing. I gotta help these people. And she took us from looking ragtag to looking professional, right? And so there's a way for everybody who wants to help to help. Thank you for asking that question, Roberta. I don't know where we are time-wise. It's 20 to four? Are there any other questions? Could you please join me in giving a round of applause to our panelists? Thank you, everyone.