THE CHANGE IS UPON US
Making The Walls Transparent Christmas 2001

Hello, my friends.  This is a Christmas message of peace and goodwill in a world that has too little love...

If I could tell you all we've been doing, you would not mind so much that my last letter, for some of you, was quite some time ago, and some of you haven't even received your first reply.  The reasons are many, not the least of which is the airline's loss of my yearlong collection of stamps for this mailing.  But despite my lack of communication, I've been steadily and faithfully working on the project.

Making The Walls Transparent's little family has swelled to close to 700 people in Florida prisons and maybe a couple of hundred more from out of state. Our project now includes not only all of you, but an ever-growing body of support consisting of families (God bless the mothers), a few paralegals, advising attorneys, an ex-prosecutor,  a great criminal justice man, Dr. Richard Korn of Berkeley and some of his friends.  There are ex-prisoners, members of local chapters of Amnesty Intl, NAACP, and a church or two. We even have our own, also-growing, informal "Doc Employee Board of Advisors," who help keep the project on track.

I'll tell you about just a few of the things that have kept me so busy. Here are some of our accomplishments for this year...

Several of the mothers and their courageous sons in prison have won a little more safety and respect by standing up persistantly to wrong-doing. The battle against injustice can be won as these loved ones have proven.

With the wonderful help of paralegal/mom, Lindy Shelby, we filed an FBI Citizen's Complaint this past July. The booklet was sent to 26 agencies, from Michael Moore, all the way up to the World Peace Court in Hague. Your families and supporters furnished the $185 to send the Complaints return receipt and all receipts have been received. The Washington FBI and the Justice Department have now responded, reporting that our complaint is in the hands of the Investigative Division, and inviting us to submit any other information that might help them.

With your help, we also served Jeb Bush with a protective order for over 50 of you (all I had time to list), urging him to understand that if he did not comply, we would be forced to go public in the form of a press conference: We would have to share publicly a document I had given Jeb privately, the "Overview Of Florida's Prisons", starring as many of you as I had time to write about.. Well, you know Jeb. As we knew we would have to, we held the press conference.

I wish you could have been there. You would have felt more a part of society if you could have seen the crowd in that room. Family members of prisoners told of the hardships and fear they live with. Ex-prisoners Amir Sharif and George Crossley told dynamic and sometimes tearful stories about why we so badly need to find a better way. A representative from Amnesty was there, and the ACLU, a teacher, an ex-DOC employee... and Cassandra Collins, who wrote the bill against prison rape, was there. There were mothers, wives, brothers, and an attorney or two. Lindy represented you Taylor guys, and we were finally heard. I think many of the media really saw the sincerity in us that day.

We postponed our mid-September vigil/demo in the horror of what was happening in New York, but the next day, Amnesty International's Rita Lucey hosted the "Cruelty in Prison" conference. This was the magic moment in time when the unity we will need to bring change was formed, where the pieces of the puzzle began to fall in place. You would not believe the wealth of knowledge in that room. The second conference is now being planned for February.

A young man who works for the Orlando Weekly spent two hours with me at my home, looking at your information. He spent untold hours interviewing a number of the families and employees of the DOC, then wrote a long, very fair, very thorough and impartial article called, "Up In Arms".

A small delegation of us also attended the opening day of jury selection for the Frank Valdes trial, and topped the day off by standing peaceful vigil outside FSP, New River and Union.

Several of us in the project have been doing some newspaper articles and radio shows, my last one in Berkeley CA on Nov. 12th. This public speaking stuff is a great sacrifice for a shy person like me, but the offers to speak show us that people are finally making the connection between the level of their society and what is happening inside the prisons.  They are beginning to understand how all of this will affect them too.

I am just finishing a 3 month road trip where I met a great many people who want to help. There are people all over the country talking about the justice system and the prisons and they are waking up voters who are listening for the first time.

Where you didn’t have a voice at all before, you do now, thanks to so many wonderful people who have been making walls all over the nation transparent.  You have the chance now to be heard by people who don’t consider "all prisoners liars". What an awesome responsibility and opportunity for you to change the system from within, thus giving the people outside a reason to work for change.

Now that there is this growing connection between you and the public, I'd like to ask you to think about a few things.

1.  Dignity in thought and action.  Throwing body fluids, "gunning", stealing from or setting up your neighbor just verifies the stories of prisoners as animals. If you want respect, you have to act with dignity.

2.  Non-violence is imperative. No riots, no weapons. Violence is always counterproductive.  Practice random acts of kindness just because you can.

3.  Communicate with your neighbors about ways you could actively participate in society. Projects like Artists for Peace or Locks of Love, that make wigs out of your hair for children with cancer, would be a good way to show your desire to be part of a better way.  There are many ways you can help.  If you find the project, we could present a proposal to the DOC.

4.  Be considerate to penpals. They are hard to find. Do not ask penpals for money. Many people adopt a prisoner because that's the only way they have to be a part of change. Believe me, they will ask if they are able to offer. Do not ever lie to a penpal. We have to be able to believe in you because you are really making an effort. The first lie will make them feel betrayed, and they will probably quit writing. I’ve been told that you are a very polite group of prisoners, so most of you don’t need these reminders