Solidarity with Pelican Bay Prisoners is Just a Click and a Prayer Away
by: Megan Dowdell on July 2nd, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Across California, 6,600 prisoners have participated in the hunger strike begun on July 1 at Pelican Bay State prison’s security housing unit or solitary confinement.
On July 1st, 43 prisoners inside California Pelican Bay State Prison’s security housing unit (or SHU, a fancy name to get those of us not in prison to think it is something other than solitary confinement and all that entails) began a hunger strike against torture and for self-determination and liberation. Solidarity with prisoners who are organizing themselves for justice is just a click away. Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity, a San Francisco Bay Area coalition of grassroots organizations “committed to amplyifing the voices of and supporting the prisoners,” has a blog and I suggest you check out like I did by clicking here.
It’s day two and at the same time as these 43 prisoners refuse food in participate in this hunger strike at Pelican Bay, 2.3 million people are in similar conditions, marginalized in solitary confinement and isolating conditions within an already hidden and dehumanizing system. For those of you who have not thought about the prison industrial complex as a justice issue for people of faith specifically, just that number of people hidden in our society seems like something to pray on. Here’s a couple other reflections that convinced me to learn about mass incarceration as a social justice issue and now to write about and pray for the Pelican Bay prisoners:








On Friday, May 28, I attended a lecture at St. Paul AME Church in Berkeley, California by Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. It was an interesting chance that Alexander’s lecture coincided with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the mandate for California to reduce its 


















