https://themilitant.com/2020/04/25/florida-prison-bans-militant-for-photos-of-worker-protest/
Florida prison bans ‘Militant’ for photos of worker protests
article
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Vol. 84/No. 17
May 4, 2020
In an outrageous effort to ban photographs of workers raising their
fists in labor and other battles, Florida prison authorities have banned
issue no.
13 of the Militant. This is the first time in eight months the paper has
been suppressed.
A letter received April 17 from officials at the Jefferson Correctional
Institution in Monticello, Florida, informed the Militant that issue had
been impounded.
The reason? “Gang signs: pgs. 1, 5, 14 and 16.” But what the photos show
are workers organizing to defend their rights, safety, dignity on the
job and
to build unions. The only common element is workers raising their fists
in the air as part of their protests.
One photo appears twice — on page 1 and on page 16, the first page of
the Spanish-language section of the issue. It shows a worker at the
Perdue chicken
processing plant in Kathleen, Georgia, raising his fist in the air as he
and his fellow workers walk off the job March 23 to protest work and
safety conditions
there.
Another is of nurses protesting at Kaiser Permanente in Richmond,
California, March 24, demanding hospital bosses provide safe working
conditions.
The fourth photo depicts members of United Steelworkers Local 8888
during their historic battle to organize a union at the Newport News,
Virginia, shipyard
in November 1979, a strike covered in hundreds of newspapers and other
publications for decades.
Prison officials now claim these raised fists are all just gang signs,
“a threat to the security, good order, or discipline of the correctional
system
or the safety of any person.”
Raised fists as part of public protests got its widest media coverage in
1968, when U.S. Olympic team sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos
raised their
fists on the winners podium at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City to
protest racist discrimination. “It was a cry for freedom and for human
rights,” Smith
told Smithsonian magazine in 2008.
The Smithsonian Institution has on exhibit the track suit Smith wore and
a box he held on the podium, which contained an olive branch, as well as
the shoes
he raced in.
This iconic photo was splashed on front pages all across the country.
Standing with them was silver medal winner Peter Norman, a racer from
Australia from
a working-class background.
Norman told the press he was familiar with racism from his experiences
with the Australian rulers’ “White Australia” policies and their
discriminatory
treatment of Aboriginal peoples. He wore the badge of the Olympic
Project for Human Rights around his neck on the podium, a group Smith
and Carlos had
helped organize months before.
Would Florida prison authorities have banned all these papers?
Anytime authorities at any Florida prison seize a copy of the Militant,
the issue is taken from all 48 subscribers in prisons across the state.
‘We will fight to reverse this’
The Militant’s attorney, David Goldstein, informed Florida’s Department
of Corrections Literature Review Committee — which reviews all
suppressions of
newspapers and other literature — that the paper is preparing to appeal
this impoundment, and that it is obviously improper. The Militant has
appealed
every instance when the paper has been banned, the vast majority
successfully.
He was told the committee has already scheduled a review of the ban for
April 23. If the committee refuses to overturn it, the paper will appeal.
Last year 14 out of 16 issues of the Militant were impounded over three
months. Florida authorities, who received dozens of protest letters from
the Florida
American Civil Liberties Union, American Library Association, PEN
America and many other organizations and individuals, overturned most of
these bans and
stopped seizing further issues in mid-August — until now.
“The prison authorities’ ban is a clear violation of freedom of press
and of the right of our subscribers behind bars to read the paper,” said
Militant
editor John Studer. “We will fight to reverse this.
“If they think they can ban every symbol of workers’ struggles, they’re
in for a surprise,” he said. “Workers behind bars are part of the world.
They have
the right to consider different views and form their own opinions. They
have the right to read about workers’ actions to defend jobs, wages and
working
conditions, against racist discrimination and violence, and to defend
their rights in the midst of today’s economic and social crisis caused
by the capitalist
system.”
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IN THIS ISSUE
Front Page Articles
list of 6 items
• Put workers back to work! Fight for jobs, no wage cuts!
• Demand massive gov’t public works program to provide jobs
• Florida prison bans ‘Militant’ for photos of worker protests
• Revolution in Cuba opened door to today’s int’l solidarity
• Protest cop killing of Steven Taylor in Northern California Walmart
• SWP candidates campaign, win new readers to extend reach of ‘Militant’
list end
Feature Articles
list of 1 items
• ‘Things are even harder for small farmers now’
list end
Also In This Issue
list of 8 items
• ‘Lift US sanctions on North Korea, sign a peace treaty’
• Contribute ‘stimulus’ payout to build SWP
• SWP: ‘Demand prosecution of cops for cold-blooded killing’
• Copper strikers are ‘holding the line’ against Asarco union busting
• Puerto Rico gov’t uses virus pretext to attack rights
• Workers, vendors in Kurdish Iraq fight for right to work
• Workers’ struggles don’t stop during coronavirus
• Campaign to expand reach of ‘Militant,’ books, fund (week 2)
list end
Books of the Month
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• Che: ‘Cuban Revolution’s first great battle was land reform’
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25, 50 and 75 years ago
Letters
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___
Thomas Paine
“One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
