Over 1 million African people are locked up in U.S. concentration camps called prisons. The mass incarceration of African people is genocide, breaking up families and preventing births by removing African men and women from our community during our prime reproductive years.
Prison in the U.S. is modern-day slavery, where the forced labor of Africans makes millions for the government and corporations.
With the privatization of prisons across the U.S., libraries are closing and access to information from the outside world is increasingly denied to our brothers and sisters behind bars.
Since its first full print issue, The Burning Spear newspaper has always shipped free to any prisoner who requests it. The Burning Spear newspaper is a lifeline to thousands of Africans in prison who pass the paper from cell to cell until it falls apart.
The Spear helps African prisoners understand the real reason they are locked up because we as an African nation don’t have state power to determine our own destiny or to control the value that our labor has created.
The Spear ends the isolation of African prisoners, connecting them to the African nation and the heroic resistance of African people throughout the world.
We depend on donations from people like you to pay for the monthly subscriptions that they can’t.
Today, The Burning Spear Sponsor-a-Prisoner fund ships newspapers to over 350 prisoners at 150 prisons.
In California we ship to Atascadero, Blythe, Calipatria, Corcoran Super Max, Delano, Ione, Jamestown, Lancaster, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Stockton, Susanville, Tehachapi, Vacaville and Soledad.
In Texas we chip to Amarillo, Angelton, Beaumont, Beeville, El Dorado, Fort Stockton, Gatesville, Huntsville, Kenedy, Livingston, Navasota, Rosharon, Snyder and Tennessee Colony.
The Burning Spear newspaper goes into prisons in Washington state, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Nebraska.
The Spear reaches oppressed Africans in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.
We go into prisons in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Kentucky and Virginia.
In Pennsylvania, we’re in Albion, Bellefonte, Cambridge Springs, Camp Hill, Frackville, Huntingdon, Marienville and Waynesburg.
Africans are reading The Spear in North Carolina inside of Badin, Bayboro, Bunn, Butner, Laurinburg, Lillington, Maury, Nashville, Polkton, Raleigh, Salisbury, Tabor City and Yanceyville.
And in South Carolina in Bennettsville, Bishopville, Columbia, Fairfax, Kershaw, McCormick, Pelzer, Rembert, Ridgeville, Ridgeland, Salters and Trenton.
The Burning Spear newspaper goes into prisons in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee and Louisiana, including the infamous Angola prison, a redesigned slave plantation, bigger than the island of Manhattan.
In Florida, where ex-felons are not allowed to vote, even after release, The Spear penetrates the walls of Arcadia, Avon Park, Bonifay, Bowling Green, Bristol, Brooksville, Carrabelle, Century, Chipley, Coleman, Crawfordville, Crestview, Defuniak Springs, Florida City, Graceville, Indiantown, Lake City, Live Oak, Malone, Mayo, Miami, Milton, Monticello, Ocala, Okeechobee, Orlando, Perry, Polk City, Punta Gorda, Raiford, Snead, South Bay, Wewahitchka, Zephyrhills.
Every week The Burning Spear office gets letters from prisoners, asking to receive The Spear, asking for help with their case or just telling their story.
Some excerpts from letters:
“All the hells that black America currently experiences such as poverty, drug addiction, alcoholism, prison, illiteracy….all the hells are a direct result of foreign white domination systematically imposed through colonialism.”
“From the moment I was arrested, the process of being stripped of humanity began. The dehumanizing experience of being shackled like an animal and corralled into the county jail where I was stripped naked, searched and my body sprayed down with chemicals like a dog with fleas. The dehumanizing experience of having my name and my identity all taken from me and replaced with ‘inmate’ followed by a series of numbers. I wonder if this is what my ancestors felt being stripped of their identity as they were turned into slaves.”
The Spear is more than a newspaper to the million Africans in the brutal conditions of the prison system of America. It’s a lifeline.
Sponsor a prisoner today. Your $25 donation will put The Spear into the hands of a prisoner, every month, for a year.
And please spread the word to your family and friends about this important program.
