Kevin Rashid Johnson

Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson (born October 3, 1971 in Richmond, VA) is a revolutionary, writer, social activist, and founding member and Minister of Defense of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party, member of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, and inmate in the Indiana Department of Corrections.[1][2][3][4] Johnson, a former drug dealer, was convicted of murder in 1990, and sentenced to life in prison.[1][5] He maintains that he is innocent and was wrongfully convicted.[1]

This article is about the inmate and social activist. For the artist, see Rashid Johnson.

Johnson was charged with inciting a riot on January 10, 2018, after helping to organize a prison strike centered in Florida, and after publishing a related article on the anarchist website It's Going Down.[6][7] In the piece, entitled Florida Prisoners Are Laying It Down, Johnson detailed what he views as the "objectionable conditions" of prisoners, including unpaid labor, price gouging, and the "gain-time scam that replaced parole".[7][lower-alpha 1] Although the state of Florida maintains the strike never occurred, prison rights groups released statements claiming that "prisoners in more than a dozen facilities either went on strike or were preemptively punished to prevent them from doing so."[6][8][lower-alpha 2] Johnson's lawyers have alleged he was tortured in retaliation while held in solitary confinement, and was confined in an unheated cell in freezing temperatures.[3]

Johnson was previously transferred from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to the Florida Department of Corrections for allegedly having a weapon in his cell, although he claims he was transferred as the result of "persistently publicizing the abuses of the Texas prison system".[9]

Johnson is a frequent contributor to the newspaper San Francisco Bay View.[10] According to his official biography, he has spent some 18 years in solitary confinement, during which he studied law and subsequently filed a number of lawsuits against the prison system.[11]

Johnson maintains that prison labor is a form of modern slavery, writing in The Guardian:

At the end of the civil war in 1865 the 13th amendment of the US constitution was introduced. Under its terms, slavery was not abolished, it was merely reformed. Anybody convicted of a crime after 1865 could be leased out by the state to private corporations who would extract their labor for little or no pay. In some ways that created worse conditions than under the days of slavery, as private corporations were under no obligation to care for their forced laborers – they provided no healthcare, nutritious food or clothing to the individuals they were exploiting.[1]

Publications
  • Kevin Johnson (December 2010). Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin "Rashid" Johnson. Kersplebedeb. ISBN 978-1-894946-39-1.
  • Kevin "Rashid" Johnson (November 15, 2015). Panther Vision: Essential Party Writings and Art of Kevin "Rashid" Johnson, Minister of Defense. Kersplebedeb. ISBN 978-1-894946-76-6.
  • Johnson, Kevin “Rashid” (March 2013). "Political Struggle in the Teeth of Prison Reaction: From Virginia to Oregon". Socialism and Democracy. 27 (1): 78–94. doi:10.1080/08854300.2012.760266.
  • Johnson, Kevin Rashid (August 23, 2018). "Prison labor is modern slavery. I've been sent to solitary for speaking out". The Guardian. Retrieved August 23, 2018.

See also

Notes
  1. See also Parole#United States
  2. According to an official statement from the Florida Department of Corrections, "There was no punitive action on the work stoppage because it didn't happen—there was no strike."[3]

References
  1. Johnson, Kevin Rashid (August 23, 2018). "Prison labor is modern slavery. I've been sent to solitary for speaking out". The Guardian. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  2. Pauly, Madison (August 20, 2018). "Prisoners Are Getting Creative to Pull Off a Massive Strike This Week". Mother Jones. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  3. Dilawar, Arvind (May 7, 2018). "How to Organize a Prison Strike". Pacific Standard. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  4. Newton, Creede (January 24, 2017). "Malnourished Prisoner's Death Reveals Horrific Conditions in a Texas Prison". The Intercept. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  5. Pilkington, Ed (August 23, 2018). "Major prison strike spreads across US and Canada as inmates refuse food". The Guardian. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  6. Iannelli, Jerry (January 26, 2018). "Florida Prison-Strike Organizer Charged With "Inciting Riot," Says He Was "Tortured"". Miami New Times. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  7. Johnson, Kevin Rashid (January 21, 2018). "Florida prisoners are laying it down". San Francisco Bay View. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  8. Iannelli, Jerry (January 9, 2018). "Florida Prisoners Plan Huge Strike for Civil Rights on MLK Day This Monday". Miami New Times. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  9. Washington, John. "Florida's Prison Laborers Are Going On Strike". The Nation. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  10. Kelkar, Kamala (December 18, 2016). "From media cutoffs to lockdown, tracing the fallout from the U.S. prison strike". PBS News Hour. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  11. "About Rashid: Kevin "Rashid" Johnson & the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter". rashidmod.com. November 9, 2010. Retrieved August 23, 2018.

Further reading
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