Dozens protest outside Department of Corrections

Dozens of people demonstrated outside the Department of Corrections building in Raleigh Friday, Nov. 4 against solitary confinement and harassment of politicized prisoners, including members of the Almighty Latin King & Queen Nation. 

(right: a photo of the demonstrators taken after the rally. Taken from the Prison Books Collective website)

North Carolina ALKQN leader and Greensboro city council candidate Jorge Cornell appeared on Channel 12 News speaking from the protest, which one participant said drew 60 people despite heavy rain. According to a post on Greensboro Indymedia, about 25 of the participants were part of the ALKQN, and they were joined by anarchists and anti-prison activists from throughout the state. 

"This protest comes on the back of the historic prisoners' hunger strike against solitary confinement in California, which spread to over 11 facilities this summer," a flyer for the rally read. "Prisoners in NC have been active for the last year as well, organizing radical study groups, staging a yard occupation in Windsor, hunger strikes in Taylorsville and Polkton, and speaking out against the beating of a handcuffed prisoner at Central Prison in Raleigh."

Anarchists have staged a number of anti-prison solidarity demonstrations throughout the state in the last year in connection to a prisoners' hunger strike in California — which was recently restarted — and in solidarity with some of the North Carolina actions as well. The "noise demo" in Greensboro happened July 24, and approximately 40 people attended.

The protest at the Department of Corrections comes a week before the second annual Carrboro Anarchist Bookfair. 

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