BK/NY – Tuesday, September 13th – Letter Writing Dinner for Chip and Cinque

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, September 13th, 2016
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

We hope you all are recovering nicely from the amazing noise demo and march in solidarity with #PrisonStrike and #BX120. If you missed last night, we feel sorry for you. The amount of love and energy that goes through prison walls during a noise demo is indescribable. There were hundreds of people there making noise in solidarity with those nationwide who were kidnapped from their daily lives to be chained and forced to work by the State. The folks inside were participating by flickering their lights and banging on their windows. For an hour, that love and energy continued onto the streets, where folks burned an american flag and chanted “Attica!” throughout the prison’s neighborhood and to oncoming traffic on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE). There was no shortage of solidarity in Brooklyn last night.

NYC ABC will be continuing our every other week letter writing dinners this week by writing to two political prisoners, Chip Fitzgerald and Cinque Magee, located in California State system, which has a notorious history of prisoner resistance and rebellion.

Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald, born and raised in Compton, California, joined the Southern California Chapter of the Black Panther Party in early 1969 as a teenager who had just been released from the California Youth Authority. In September of that year, as a dedicated member of the Party, Chip was arrested in connection with a police shoot-out and tried for assault on police and related charges, including the murder of a security guard. He was sentenced to death.

Commonly regarded as the longest held political prisoner in the U.S., Ruchell “Cinque” Magee has been imprisoned since 1963. He was politicized in prison and participated in the August 7, 1970 Marin County Courthouse Rebellion— the attempted liberation of political prisoner George Jackson and the Soledad Brothers by Jackson’s younger brother Jonathan. Magee was seriously injured in the incident and subsequently pleaded guilty to aggravated kidnapping. He was sentenced in 1975 to life in prison and has been denied parole numerous times.

 

It is with great sadness that we remind people that in the past there was a third person, Hugo “Yogi Bear” Pinell on the list of California political prisoners that we would have written to this evening. Yogi Bear died on August 12th, 2015. Rest in Power, Yogi Bear.

If you are unable to join us for our homecooked vegan meal, you can write them from the comforts of your ABC-less home at:
Romaine Fitzgerald* #B27527
Kern Valley State Prison
Post Office Box 5101
Delano, California 93216
*Address card to Chip

Ruchell Magee* #A92051
California State Prison – Los Angeles County
Post Office Box 8457
Lancaster, California 93539-8457
*Address card to Cinque

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to the PP/POW Birthday Calendar.

Directions:
Getting to The Base is simple:
From the M Train:
Central Avenue Stop: Walk east on Myrtle Avenue (away from Hart Street, toward Cedar Street). We’re about two blocks down on the south side of the street.

Knickerbocker Avenue Stop: Walk west on Myrtle Avenue (away from Harman Street, toward Himrod Street). We’re about three blocks down on the south side of the street.

From the L Train:
DeKalb Avenue Stop: Walk south on Stockholm Street (away from Wyckoff Avenue, toward Irving Avenue). We’re about four blocks down, at the intersection of Stockholm Street and Myrtle Avenue.

From the J Train:
Myrtle Avenue Stop: Transfer to the M train and follow the above directions.