Date/Time
Date(s) - Friday, Aug 21
12:00 am

Location
Central Park Rec Center

Categories

• Black Lives Matter

On August 21, 1971, the murder of revolutionary George Jackson at San Quentin State Prison ignited what we celebrate today as Black August. Black August, first commemorated by our incarcerated brothers and sisters, is a time to recommit ourselves to the struggle for Black Liberation and to honor those who’ve contributed to our collective progress and all those who have been lost to unjust violence and systemic racism.

This August 21, join us in a car protest to bring the Black August fight to our local prison walls. We will drive in a mobile protest to the Denver County Jail and the GEO Aurora ICE detention facility to let those who are chained there know that we are with them, we are fighting for them, and we will keep fighting until all chains are broken.

The many injustices faced by those behind bars in the U.S. are today amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Prisons and jails all across the country, where medical neglect is commonplace and quarantining impossible, have become hotspots of infection. Hundreds have died in US prisons from COVID-19, and yet no response has been made to defend against unnecessary death. The mass incarceration of Black, Brown, and Indigenous populations means that they are not only disproportionately affected by the virus outside of jail, but inside as well.

We raise the following demands, recognizing that if they are not met, more unnecessary death is a certainty:
1. Immediate humanitarian release of all ICE detainees and all vulnerable inmates, those convicted for non-violent offenses, and those who have not been convicted at all.
2. Where people remain behind bars, drastically increase medical staffing and supplies to local jails and state prisons, and guarantee sanitary conditions for all inmates.
3. Free all political prisoners!