What is the Anarchist Black Cross Network?

The Anarchist Black Cross Network is a decentralized and egalitarian network of organizations committed to the original ideals of the Anarchist Black Cross movement -- of seeing prisons and the poverty, racism and genocide that accompanies them to be symptoms of a social order whose last days are near.

From country to country and state to state, figures are staggering, but the facts remain the same: Third World/indigenous/people of color and the working class and poor are forced into existences in which communities are gentrified; in which they are targeted over race and class or worse if they are "illegal" immigrants or refugees; health care, child care, food and rents go out of reach in costs; and their "choices" are nothing more than setups to lock them away. Revolutionaries who speak out and fight against the conditions of society are imprisoned or killed. And we are expected to stand by until they come for us, if they haven't done it already. To this, we say no!

Former Black Panther, political prisoner and a longtime anarchist revolutionary named Lorenzo Komboa Ervin proposed an idea in 1991 for an ABC Network. His ideas, while written over a decade ago, embody principles that define our movement:

The stated purpose of the Anarchist Black Cross Network is to actively assist prisoners in their fight to obtain their civil and human rights, and to aid them in their struggle against the State/Class penal and judicial system. The prison system is the armed fist of the State, and is a system for State slavery. It is not really for "criminals" or other "social deviants," and it does not exist for the "protection of society."

It is for State social control and political repression. Thus it must be opposed at every turn and ultimately destroyed altogether. The abolition of prisons, the system of Laws, and the Capitalist State is the ultimate objective of every true Anarchist, yet there seems to be no clear agreement by the Anarchist movement to put active effort to that anti-authoritarian desire. We must organize our resources to support all political/class war prisoners if we truly wish to be their allies, and we must give something more than lip service.

Organizing against the enemy legal and penal system is both offensive and defensive. It is carried on with individuals, groups and among the masses in the community. We must inform the people on a large scale of the atrocities and inhumanity of the prisons, the righteousness of our struggle, and the necessity of their full participation and support. We must organize our communities to attack the prison system as a moral and social abomination, and we must fight to free all political/class war prisoners.

The ABC Network does its work in a broad, nonsectarian manner. You do not have to be explicitly an ABC group to join or even with an organization to join. There are no dues, bylaws or structure to which you must agree to to join. Click here to learn more about joining the ABC Network.

What we do

The ABC Network serves as a communications and working base for autonomous ABC groups, who engage in activities that generally fall in one of two categories.

Defensive and Offensive Work of the Network

Defensive work involves meeting the needs of the prisoners: whether those needs stem from the daily oppression of the prisons, police, courts or the intense repression by State/Class authorities of prison organizers. Prison support by ABCs meets these needs in two primary ways:

1. by educating the community about the class/racist nature of the prisons and the legal system and how to fight against it;
2. by forming outside support groups on a local and national basis in order to ensure prisoners' defense and survival from enemy attack and from inhuman prison conditions.

Offensive work means directly challenging the existence of prisons and this work also involves actively campaigning against prison conditions, and propagandizing the actual cases of political/class war prisoners (i.e. prisoners jailed for specific political reasons and those who have become politically aware of the reasons for their oppression while in prison, as well as victims of frame-ups) to the largest possible audience.

Some protest activities include elements of a 15 point program proposed by Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, and which many ABCs engage in today:

1. Organizing defense committees on behalf of prisoners framed or railroaded through the Capitalist courts for their political and social beliefs or prison organizing.
2. Organizing support for activists jailed for their outside work and/or repression by authorities.
3. Holding protest rallies, marches and street demonstrations in support of prisoners' rights and against the repressive actions of State/Class authorities.
4. Writing press releases and holding news conferences for the Third World/people of color, alternative and radical news media (and sometimes the Capitalist news media) appearing on television and radio news and/or talk shows to discuss prisons.
5. Securing Anarchist and other revolutionary materials for prisoners to read, and fight for their right to receive this literature if prison officials try to ban or prohibit such literature for any reason.
6. Organizing emergency response calls, letters, faxes and email to continually contact "corrections" and other authorities about the treatment of prisoners.
7. Organizing legal defense funds to raise funds for legal fees and to assist prisoners and outside activists and groups.
8. Organizing and/or participating in coalitions with poor people's movements, prison support, Third World/people of color, Women's rights, Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender, Church, Left-wing, and other diverse groups, so as to win them over and to integrate the prison struggle into the general movement for social change.
9. Assisting prisoners in getting parole, probation or a pardon by demanding their freedom when they become eligible for parole or are seeking executive clemency.
10. Organizing correspondence for people to write to prisoners and find out about prison conditions and to show their solidarity and human concern, and observers to go into the prisons, visit the prisoners, investigate their complaints, question the officials and monitor the prison for violation of prisoners' rights.
11. Working against the death penalty and exposing it as an instrument of racial genocide and class and political repression.
12. Exposing the fallacy of the Capitalist system of cops, laws and prisons being for the protection of society or as a social necessity.
13. Demanding the freedom and amnesty of political/class war prisoners, and the abolition of prisons. Especially demand the immediate release of prisoners who have served unnecessarily lengthy sentences.
14. Demanding the immediate closing of all control/isolation/supermax units in prisons.
15. Linking up the struggles against criminalization and imprisonment with associated social ills: poverty, homelessness, hunger, gentrification, racism, racial/cultural profiling, anti-refugee/immigrant actions, privitization, globalization, the drug war and many other issues.

How we do it (our structure and principles)

The ABC Network is foremost intended to develop solidarity and stronger communications among the many groups who are doing the grassroots, day-to-day work around campaigns, prisoners, criminalization and liberation. What unites us are the principles mentioned by Komboa -- of struggling to expose injustice, corruption and oppression; supporting prisoners who (consciously or unconsciously) are combatants against the state; providing advice and support to activists who put their bodies on the line in defense of freedom and revolution; and seeing our continued activism, campaigns, etc. in the larger picture of prison abolition and revolutionary change -- as well as our own experiences in creating conditions for change.

There is no "party line" of the ABC Network. As anarchists, we believe in building a culture of resistance rather than legislating it. How you or your group conducts your effort is solely up to you, although you are strongly encouraged to link up to some of the ABC Network's activists and resources, work through ideas, learn together and help your group from reinventing the wheel on basic questions of group structure, issues, etc. But regardless, how you organize your group is still up to your local membership.

About every six months, affiliated groups with the ABC Network are asked to give their comments, criticisms and suggestions for how to make the Network better, stronger and more helpful to each others' needs. While the purpose of this is not to develop "legislation," it is intended to get people regularly thinking about how we work together and how the Network stays relevant to our unity. However, please know that the floor is always open to raise comments/ideas/critiques, etc. We welcome these ideas, because they're how we become more effective.

How to join

Easy! Just get in contact with the ABC Network via email at abc-net@anarchistblackcross.org or via post at P.O. Box 667233, Houston, Texas 77266-7233, USA. Mention a little something about your group/interests, a public address and a way to contact you. We work on a modified consensus basis, meaning unless affiliate groups have disagreements, all groups are permitted to join.

You can, as an individual, become part of the ABC Network by distributing literature and providing support to the organization as your time allows. Get in touch in the same way to find out how.

The Network has these basic standards for affiliation:

1. You need to agree with and abide by the ACBN Mission
   Statement.
2. You need a Post Office Box/Address
3. and a Contact phone number of at least one member of the group (extreme care will be taken with phone numbers and they will be ONLY for internal communication within network).
4. At least one member of the group has to be on the ABCN e-mail list.
5. You will have to contribute a group update to each quarterly ABCN newsletter.
6. And there's a requirement of the attendance of at least one member at annual ABCN meetings.
7. If your ABC group dissolves/relocates, you need to notify the network & prisoners, as well as write a statement for the ABCN newsletter.

Groups that affiliate with the Network will be assigned a mentor chapter to facilitate participation (and development, for new groups). Your group does not have to have "ABC" in the name to affiliate with the Network.

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