We Are Not Yet Free — And That’s Why We’re Launching The New Wave

By Ivan Kilgore

This past week, I had a powerful conversation with my comrade Max Parthas. We were talking about freedom, a word so often used, especially around national holidays like Juneteenth, but rarely understood in its full truth. Max reminded me of something that cuts through the celebrations and the parades: slavery never actually ended in the United States. It simply evolved.

Most Americans don’t know about the loophole in the 13th Amendment: a clause that allows slavery to continue legally as long as it is “punishment for a crime.” That single sentence—“except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”—has kept millions of us chained in cages, literally and figuratively.

That truth struck me again, not because it was new to me—after all, I’ve been incarcerated for 25 years, serving life without the possibility of parole—but because it reaffirmed something I have come to understand deeply: the American ideal of freedom is, for many of us, a myth.

A few days earlier, I had a conversation with my wife. We were reflecting on the illusion of freedom. She said something that has stayed with me ever since: “We all live in prisons. There’s the one you can see, and the one you can’t—the one made of beliefs, routines, fears, and norms that were never truly ours to begin with.”

She’s right. That second prison is often harder to escape than the first.

People assume that, for someone like me, freedom must simply mean release. And of course, yes, I long to be free in the physical sense. But I’ve come to understand that true freedom is not just about walking through the prison gates. It’s about walking into a life that’s yours to shape, a life not bound by systems of control dressed up as culture, tradition, or morality.

Because when you leave one cage, you often walk into another: the prison of capitalism, of systemic racism, of consumerism, of conformity. Out there, people are shackled by their debt, their social class, their addiction to convenience, their fear of speaking out. They’re told they’re free, and they believe it, until they try to challenge the system.

Charles Bukowski said it best: “Slavery was never abolished, it was only expanded to include everyone.”

So I ask again: What does it really mean to be free?

To me, it means having the power to build. To create. To reshape institutions rather than be shaped by them. Freedom is agency. It’s influence. It’s an education that teaches you how to think—not just what to think. It’s power—not the kind that controls people, but the kind that liberates communities.

That’s exactly why we’re relaunching The New Wave.

In the Fall of 2025, we’ll be releasing a new version of the newsletter—a bold, unapologetic publication dedicated to political education, personal empowerment, and collective liberation. Our aim is to give people the knowledge, tools, and frameworks they need to dismantle both the visible and invisible prisons that shape our lives.

Because mass incarceration isn’t just a facility—it’s a mentality. It’s embedded in our schools, our neighborhoods, our laws, our media, our workplaces, and even our own sense of self.

The New Wave won’t be filled with clickbait or surface-level commentary. It’s a platform for deep engagement. Each issue will feature voices from the inside, critical analyses of public policy, lessons from history, and strategies for action. We’re not just talking about what’s wrong with the system—we’re showing how to build something better.

We want to equip our readers to become sociopolitical influencers—people who understand how power operates and are prepared to wield it in service of justice. We want a new generation of builders: of nonprofits, media platforms, mutual aid networks, cooperatives, youth programs, schools, and movements. We’re not asking for change. We’re creating it.

If you’ve ever looked around and felt something was deeply off…

If you’ve ever wondered why they never taught you the truth about redlining, COINTELPRO, or the real impact of the prison-industrial complex…

If you’ve ever felt like your job, your education, or your place in society didn’t reflect your purpose or your worth…

Then The New Wave is for you.

This newsletter is the evolution of work I began through the United Black Family Scholarship Foundation (UBFSF), an organization I founded from inside a prison cell. Through UBFSF, we’ve educated and empowered hundreds of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. We’ve built leadership development programs, mentorship pipelines, and community initiatives that prepare people to lead, not just survive.

Now we’re bringing that mission to a broader audience.

Because real change doesn’t come from the top down. It rises from the margins. From those the system tries to erase. From those it underestimates. From those who, despite it all, refuse to be silenced.

Juneteenth can’t just be a day off work or a performative celebration. It must be a moment of reckoning. A declaration that the work is not finished. That we are not yet free.

The New Wave is that declaration. It is also a blueprint. A classroom. A community. A movement.

It’s for those who no longer want to wait to be saved.

It’s for those who are ready to save themselves, and bring their people with them.

So when The New Wave drops this Fall, don’t just subscribe.
Read it. Share it. Teach it. Live it.

Because we are not yet free.

But together, we can be.

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Subscribe to The New Wave.
Launching Fall 2025.
Link coming soon.
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