Prisoners in Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit (SHU) are isolated for at least twenty-two and a half hours a day in cramped, concrete, windowless cells. They are denied telephone calls, contact visits, any kind of programming, adequate food and, often, medical care. Nearly 750 of these men have been held under these conditions for more than a decade, dozens for over 20 years. This treatment has inflicted profound psychological suffering and caused or exacerbated debilitating physical ailments.
Ostensibly, these men are in the SHU because they associate with gang members and isolating them is necessary to prevent gang activity and racially motivated violence. But in the summer and fall of 2011, these men, joined by other SHU prisoners throughout California, showed this claim to be the lie that it is. Organizing across racial lines, more than 6,000 SHU prisoners went on hunger strike for several weeks to protest their conditions. That’s right – men who have been isolated for over a decade and deprived of basic human rights because they are allegedly connected to racially divided gangs worked together to demand basic rights and constitutional protections for themselves and one another. Now they have resumed their hunger strike, demanding that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation meet their demands.
Here is the seventh in our series of their stories and those of their families.
Marie Levin, sister of Ronnie Dewberry. Dewberry is a plaintiff in the Center for Constitutional Rights lawsuit challenging long-term solitary confinement.
My name is Marie Levin. I am the younger sister of Ronnie Dewberry. Ronnie has been held in the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison since 1990, a circumstance that is truly cruel and unusual punishment. When I heard about the inhumane conditions in the SHU, I broke down crying uncontrollably.
Ronnie lives in a cramped, windowless cell for at least twenty-two and a half hours a day. He is let out of his cell only to exercise alone in a concrete enclosure and to shower three times weekly. He is allowed no phone calls and may only receive one package per year. His food is often cold and rotten. Ronnie has chronic stomach problems, swollen thyroid glands and a severe Vitamin D deficiency. He also suffers from high blood pressure and has at times been denied his medication. He says that being in the SHU feels like psychological torture. It is traumatizing knowing that a loved one is suffering and there is nothing you can do about it.
(Image: Kevin “Rashid” Johnson)Ronnie and I are ten months apart in age and we were very close growing up. At first, he was in a prison near our family and I was able to visit him regularly. But since he was transferred to Pelican Bay in 1990, I have seen him only five times. The drive is almost eight hours; I don’t own a car, and travel and lodging are very expensive. There is so much time between visits that, each time, Ronnie looks much older. After the long, costly trip, we are only permitted to visit for one to two hours, through a piece of glass. I have not been able to hug my brother in over two decades. Our mother has had several strokes and is now paralyzed, speaks with difficulty and suffers from dementia. She longs to see her only son, but she is no longer able to make the long and difficult trip. Though Ronnie is eligible for parole, he will not be paroled while he is in the SHU. I fear our mother will pass away before she and Ronnie can see each another again.
In 2001, our oldest sibling, Carol, suffered kidney failure and Ronnie set about trying to donate a kidney to her. He was able to get tested and found out that he was a compatible donor, but the prison would not allow him to make the donation. For years, Ronnie fought for permission to save his sister. Carol died in 2010, in a puddle of blood, bleeding out after a dialysis treatment. She was 59 years old.
I am very grateful for this lawsuit and for all of the support that has been given to Pelican Bay prisoners since the hunger strikes. The movement to end these barbaric conditions has lifted Ronnie’s spirits, as well. For the first time in a very long time, I feel hopeful that Ronnie’s situation might change for the better.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy