Rebuilding the Community from within the Community
It's said that processionary caterpillars travel in long, undulating lines, one creature after another. Jean-Henri Fabre, the French naturalist who died in 1915, once led a group of these caterpillars onto the rim of a large flowerpot, so that the lead caterpillar...
Catherine Clark Perkins affectionately known as Ms. Cat (Catron Academy Learning Institute) is a community activist/advocate working to end Mass Incarceration and gang/gun violence. She is the CEO and founder of Catron Academy Learning Institute. A member of the...
My name is Laurie Tang, and I volunteer as the Program and Policy Coordinator for the R.E.B.U.I.L.D. team at UBFSF. So far, I have been engaged in structuring the R.E.B.U.I.L.D. narrative, discussing ideas to reach wider audiences with Ivan, and helping to plan...
Testimonial for Mr. Banks When I first met Ivan, I was immediately struck by his confidence and determination. We walked to chow one morning, and as he talked to me about his business, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Here was a man who, despite the immense...
Words as Resistance: Dismantling Systems of Oppression through Writing By Keziah Poole As a teacher-scholar of resistance literature and Director of The Readers’ Circle, a peer-editing program that connects college students with incarcerated writers, I am often met...
September Message From Our Founder By Ivan Kilgore This month's theme is one that perplexes many and begs of us to ask the following questions: How? How do we dismantle an oppressive system? What are they? Are they régimes led by dictators? Are the tools they use...
Excerpt: What (or Who) Is Broken? To pave the road of his revolution, Ivan Kilgore, [founder of United Black Family Scholarship Foundation,] has enlisted the help of a younger generation. Like the liberation movements he learned about from elders while sitting in the...
August Message From Our Founder Some two decades ago, I entered the California prison system as an unsuspecting 26 year old man unaware of the challenges that lay ahead. Indeed, as the years went by I would go through the fire: race riots, the SHU, lockdowns, etc....
Slavery is Abolished... By Max Parthas Slavery never ended. Not a solitary day has passed where it but for a single second suddenly ceased. It wasn't solved, it evolved from slaves on plantations to involve caged convicts being leased. Or, warehousing bodies for...
July Message From Our Founder By Ivan Kilgore What is the 4th of July to America's incarcerated, homeless, black, and poor? I have been incarcerated 24 years. Prior to my imprisonment, I recall how my family, friends, and I celebrated this occasion. As a child, like...
Juneteenth and Modern-Day Slavery By Isabella Cain Does slavery persist in modern-day society? In short, yes. American society would love to say that institutionalized slavery was outlawed in 1865 when Congress passed the 13th Amendment. However, there is one clause...
June Message From Our Founder By Ivan Kilgore As the nation celebrates Juneteenth this month, it pains me to know and continue to experience what remains of the dehumanizing culture that sprung from the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Without question, slavery lives with...