MANCHESTER, NH – About two dozen activists formed a caravan Friday afternoon and drove around the Valley Street jail in a show of support for all incarcerated mothers.
Sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the activists affixed signs and flags – “Build Communities Not Cages,” “End Deportation,” and “Free Them All” – to their cars as Grace Kindeke of AFSC, leading the convoy, drew attention to the motorcade with a bullhorn. The event was part of AFSC’s “Free Them All” days of action.
Ageth Okeny, hearing about the protest the night before, walked from her West Side home on South Main Street, to the jail to show her support. Raising both arms, she cheered as the convoy rounded the corner of Valley and Willow streets, horns tooting. Okeny, who came to Manchester 20 years ago from South Sudan, said she felt it was important to show the women inside there are people on the outside supporting them.
Kindeke gave a running commentary, which was live-streamed on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AFSCNHProgram , as she led the convoy of 17 cars in circling the jail. She said AFSCNH formed a collaboration among New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont with the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Woman and Girls (NCIFIWG) to fight to free women and girls from prisons.
“Valley Street jail is one of the worst prisons in the state,” she said. People who unfortunately have been housed there, she said, “come out with horror stories of how they were treated in that jail.”
She said the event was staged to make the community aware of what is happening. “We can do better as a society,” she said. “We have the resources. What we don’t have is the will.”
Kindeke said accountability is a part of the equation “but we can have accountability without punishment.”
Incarceration, besides punishment, is supposed to rehabilitate the offender but, Kindeke said, currently the proposed state budget cuts rehabilitation and education funding for the incarcerated.
After the convoy, the activists staged a rally in the parking lot of Blessed Sacrament Parish on Elm Street.
Okeny spoke briefly saying that her son, who is now in rehab, was in the Valley Street jail. She said there needs to be programs in the jails to help people overcome their addictions. Without them, she said, people released just go back to using drugs and ultimately end up in jail again.
Sashi James of the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Woman and Girls also spoke. Her mother, Andrea James, was a criminal defense attorney in 2010 when she was sentenced to two years in a federal prison for wire fraud. It was there the incarcerated women joined together to form the organization in 2010.
The group is committed to abolishing incarceration for women and girls saying prison most often causes further social and economic harm and does not result in an increase of public safety. James attested to how her mother’s imprisonment was a detriment to her upbringing.
The rally coincided with the celebration of mothers and caregivers in the month of May.
“We honor the strength and resilience of mothers separated from their children and loved ones, and the incredible labor of all the mothers and caregiver leading the struggle for a more just world,” Kindreke said.
Anthony Harris, decarceration organizer with the AFSC’s NH Program, said he spent six months in the jail, an experience he said was bad.
He said he could only imagine how bad it must be for women. Elected officials, he said, need to be reminded that inmates are human beings.