Banner Drop at NC Republican Nominating Convention in Solidarity with Prisoners at Alexander Correctional Institution

Report on banner drop in solidarity with prisoners at Alexander CI who have issued a set of demands.

On May 21, 2022, prison abolitionists dropped a banner in the middle of the nominating convention of the North Carolina Republican Party at the Koury Convention Center in Greensboro. The banner read “Meet Alexander Prisoners’ Demands,” and it was dropped in solidarity with people locked up at Alexander Correctional Institution in Taylorsville, NC. For over a year, Alexander CI has seen multiple petitions, hunger strikes, and other forms of resistance.

Organizers inside and outside Alexander have been documenting and demanding an end to three endemic abuses: a prolonged pattern of racist assaults perpetrated by white guards against black prisoners; a grievance process that essentially amounts to these same guards being allowed to “investigate” each other; and a facility-wide policy of making those caged at Alexander sit down in the day room for their so-called “rec time” rather than allowing them to go outside or even get up and walk around outside their cells. Demands have been addressed to both the Department of so-called “Public Safety” and to the state legislature, many of whose members were attending the convention this past weekend.

As convention-goers were filing into a dinner with Trump-backed Senate candidate Ted Budd, two abolitionists fastened the banner to a balcony with metal zip-ties and threw leaflets listing the demands coming from those on the inside of Alexander CI before reading the demands and chanting “America is a Prison State!”; “Free Them All!”; and “Attica!” Finally, after a space of several minutes, the two abolitionists were dragged off the balcony by hotel security.