In the United States, nearly 80 percent of incarcerated women are mothers, most of whom have been accused of only minor offenses. And Black women — the fastest growing prison demographic — are twice as likely to be jailed as their white counterparts.
Many of these women have not been convicted of any crime, but — like 62 percent of people in jails nationwide — they are entrapped by a money bail system that disproportionately hurts the poor as well as people of color, who are given bail amounts that are higher than whites accused of similar offenses. Every year, Americans spend $9 billion to incarcerate people who have not been convicted of any crime but are simply too poor to make bail.
It is this system that entrapped Sandra Bland and hundreds after her who were unable to make bail and died in jail while awaiting trial for minor offenses. It is this system that was recently found unconstitutional by a federal judge in Texas and that lawmakers in several other states are working to reform.
And it is this system that the Atlanta-based LGBTQ liberation group Southerners on New Ground (SONG) is resisting as part of its struggle against mass incarceration.
For this Mother’s Day, SONG has organized “Mama’s Day Bail Out,” a campaign to bail out as many Black women as possible in the week leading up to the May 14 holiday. The effort was envisioned by SONG Co-Director Mary Hooks and has been joined by a coalition of organizations including Black Lives Matter chapters in Memphis and Atlanta, the Dream Defenders, SisterSong, and the Texas Organizing Project, among others. Bail-out actions are set for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee, among other states.
“In the tradition of our enslaved Black ancestors, who used their collective resources to purchase each other’s freedom before slavery was abolished, until we abolish bail and mass incarceration, we’re gonna free ourselves,” the initiative’s website says.
In Kinston, North Carolina, for instance, activists are working to secure the release of one woman — charged solely with a minor count of trespassing — who has spent three months in jail awaiting her trial because she cannot afford to post a $500 bond.
SONG organizers in Durham, North Carolina are aiming to post the bond of 10 women. In recent weeks they have been fundraising and researching the demographics of those incarcerated in the county jail so they can better understand who they will be able to help. In partnership with the Inside-Outside Alliance, which supports inmates at the Durham County Jail, SONG has been writing letters to incarcerated women to find out their specific needs.
The effort is “calling attention to a system of bail as a requirement to purchase their freedom,” Serena Sebring, a Durham-based SONG organizer, told Facing South. Sebring, who is a mother herself, said she sees the action as a “spiritual calling” and is excited to see mothers reunited with their children. She has been helping to organize a homecoming celebration for the women on Mother’s Day.
Beyond securing the women’s release, organizers hope that they can also support them at their trial dates. It is their hope that the money raised to bail out the women on Mother’s Day can also be used to secure the freedom of others in the future.
To learn more about Mama’s Day Bail Out or to contribute, click here.
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.
Last week, 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 are presently looking for 98 new monthly donors before midnight tonight.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy