Lessons in Love and Struggle

Edited by:   Shakaboona Marshall, Patricia Vickers Marshall, Human Rights Coalition
Imprint:   Common Notions
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
ISBN:   9781942173731
ISBN 10:   1942173733
Publication Date:   15 May 2024
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Cancelled

Shakaboona Marshall: Cofounder of the Human Rights Coalition and coeditor of The Movement Magazine for 13 years. He has been incarcerated since age 17 and spent 13 years in Solitary Confinement. Patricia Marshall Vickers: or Mama Patt, is the matriarch of the movement. After her son was incarcerated at the age of 17, she has worked tirelessly to advocate for his release and to fight for the rights of all incarcerated people. She is one of the original HRC members, and coeditor of THE MOVEMENT magazine. Russell Maroon Shoatz: Beloved mentor, abolitionist thinker and political prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz has been incarcerated since 1972 and spent 30 years in Solitary Confinement. A member of the Black Panther Party and co-founder of the Black Unity Council, he co-founded HRC and has served as a mentor to several HRC members. Robert Saleem Holbrook: As an HRC Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Abolitionist Law Center, Saleem has long been at the forefront of campaigns against solitary confinement, incarceration of political prisoners, police violence, and death by incarceration. He was released from prison in 2018 after serving 27 years for an offense he was convicted of as a child. Theresa Shoatz is one of the original HRC Members and the daughter of Russell Maroon Shoatz. She has been organizing about issues of prisoners’ rights since a young age. Jerome Hoagie Coffey is an HRC Co-Founder and activist known for his creativeness, communication, and organizing talents. He is serving a life sentence for a crime he did not commit and spent 12 years in Solitary Confinement. Karen Ali is an Activist, Long Standing member of the HRC team, and wife of Omar Askia Sistrunk Ali who is innocent, yet convicted to a sentence of LIFE in prison. Bret Grote Before founding and becoming the Legal Director of the Abolitionist Law Center, a public interest non-profit that works to end mass incarceration and police violence, Bret was an active presence in the Human Rights Coalition starting in 2007. He is a 2013 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, where he was recognized as the Distinguished Public Interest Scholar for his graduating class. Bret was also the Isabel and Alger Hiss Racial Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights in 2012. Etta Cetera is a community organizer, artist, and mediator deeply committed to prison abolition work. She founded HRC FedUp!, a chapter of the Human Rights Coalition based in Pittsburgh. She is co-founder of the Pittsburgh-based Let’s Get Free: The Women and Trans Prisoner Defense Committee, which raises up the impacts of mass incarceration on women and working for parole reform in PA.In 2004 etta received a Creative Activism Award from the Thomas Merton Center, Pittsburgh’s Peace and Justice Center and in 2014 received the Volunteer of the year award from New Voices Pittsburgh: Women of Color for Reproductive Justice. Shandre Delaney joined the Human Rights coalition in 2008 and was a lead organizer with the Justice for the Dallas 6 Support Campaign, a movement to support the 6 individuals at SCI-Dallas who were charged with inciting a riot when they non-violently protested the abuse they faced in solitary confinement and were attacked by guards. Her son, Carrington Keys, was one of the 6 men, and represented himself in court. Shandre is still doing the work to keep HRC FedUp! Going.