Sherry Chandler

When I visited Wallens Ridge in the spring of 1999, it was new and as yet unoccupied. It felt like a house on moving day, all echoes and loneliness. What I found there was the perfectly evolved American prison. It was both lavishly expensive and needlessly remote, built not because it was needed but because it was wanted by politicians who thought it would bring them votes.
–Joseph T. Hallinan Going Up the River: Travels in a Prison Nation, 2001

The use of American correction executives with abuse accusations in their past to oversee American-run prisons in Iraq is prompting concerns in Congress. Mr. Armstrong, assistant director of operations in American prisons in Iraq…resigned last year after Connecticut settled lawsuits…with the families of two Connecticut inmates who died after being sent…to Wallens Ridge, a super-maximum security prison in Virginia.
–New York Times, May 21, 2004

One consequence of the U.S.’s becoming a prison nation is that prisons have become a growth industry. One outcome of growth (and rightwing idealogues) is that prisons have been privatized. And one outcome of a privatized prison industry has been the building of prisons in job-hungry areas that might at first seem unlikely, like Eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia. One unintended consequence of that has been the “forced” mingling of two marginalized populations, urban black and Appalachian hillbilly.

This photo from the Thousand Kites web page seems to indicate that, along with Wal-Marts, prison installations may be one use for all that nifty flat space created by moutain-top removal mining:

I mentioned this trend here here almost two years ago when the Appalshop started their Holler to the Hood project:

Holler to the Hood is a multi-media human rights project designed to foster collaboration and communication between urban and rural communities. The project was initiated by Appalshop artists in response to the growing prison boom in the economically distressed central Appalachian coalfields. We believe in the power of art to speak boldly for human rights and positive social change in our communities.

Holler to the Hood has now launched a Thousand Kites:

What would you do if you learned human rights violations were occurring right in your own community?
In 1998, when Nick [Szuberla, media producer] and Amelia [Kirby, media producer] were volunteer DJs at WMMT, a community radio station in Whitesburg, KY, we received hundreds of letters describing human rights violations in newly-opened local prisons. We responded with an art project called “Holler to the Hood,” addressing human rights abuses in the U.S. criminal justice system.

One of the first things we did was produce a radio program bringing the voices of prisoners’ families to the airwaves. Broadcasting stories and messages from families and loved ones helped everyone understand who was in our region’s prisons. The show is now broadcast weekly (click the button on the left to listen now). A special annual holiday broadcast airs on more than 120 stations around the country. We also brought hip-hop together with mountain music (hill-hop), organized story circles, and produced cultural events inviting people to share their experience with the criminal justice system.

Building on these projects, we began working with other artists and community activists around the country to create Thousand Kites.

Thousand Kites is involved in the documentary file Writ Writer that will air on PBS stations in June:

WRIT WRITER tells the story of Fred Cruz, an ordinary Texas prison inmate who became an extraordinary leader of the prisoners’ rights movement in the 1960s.

During the 1940s and 50’s, Cruz grew up in a drug-saturated, racially-segregated San Antonio, Texas. At 21, he found himself without the funds to hire a lawyer. Cruz began studying law in hopes of appealing his conviction.

WRIT WRITER shows us how Cruz’s self-guided studies inspired him to work toward establishing prisoners’ human rights. Law became his passion, and his writs of habeas corpus –submitted to the courts on behalf of a other of prisoners– infuriated prison officials, who punished him repeatedly.

When Cruz sought help beyond the prison walls from the memorable “lady” lawyer Frances Jalet, and others, prison officials learned that they had met their match.

Thousand Kites has also produced the documentary film Up the Ridge:

…though the lens of Wallens Ridge State Prison, the program offers viewers an in-depth look at the United States prison industry and the social impact of moving hundreds of thousands of inner-city minority offenders to distant rural outposts. The film explores competing political agendas that align government policy with human rights violations, and political expediencies that bring communities into racial and cultural conflict with tragic consequences. Connections exist, in both practice and ideology, between human rights violations in Abu Ghraib and physical and sexual abuse recorded in American prisons.

Yesterday, I spent time reading around in the few Clinton-leaning or Clinton-neutral weblogs I know of. Many lefty blogs are downright abusive of Clinton and others are quick to assign the worst motives to her actions. But that’s another story. My point here is that I was reading around in the comments from angry, outraged, and disillusioned Clinton supporters and I found quite a few who were vowing to give up politics as a way to accomplish the social goals they value. These people wanted to find other grass-roots ways to be activists. Thousand Kites, it seems to me, presents such an outlet:

Thousand Kites is a national dialogue project addressing the criminal justice system. By being involved with Kites you will become part of a national movement to use the power of art to reform our criminal justice system and to talk about human rights in the United States. Using video, theater, radio, and the web as tools, you can bring people together to support organizing efforts and share experiences with the criminal justice system.

There are many ways to get involved. For instance, you can hold a Kites film screening and panel discussion, or use our play to start a good conversation around restorative justice. Individuals and groups at the local, state, and national level are finding Kites a powerful way to work for positive social change.

Thousand Kites has a YouTube channel and a Flickr page.