Olympia: Report Back from September 9th Prison Strike Solidarity Action

Submitted to It’s Going Down

First we rolled up on the Washington D.O.C headquarters located in Tumwater toting big banners, instruments, and info flyers. We proceeded to make noise, chant and call out the D.O.C. for their continued enslavement of prisoners. We marched around the building so they all knew why we were there, and we put leaflets on the cars in the parking lot detailing ways that D.O.C. employees can sabotage their work place. When we looked up at the building, we could see dozens of DOC employees had stopped working and were looking out the windows, transfixed by our presence. At least one DOC employee showed his utter contempt for us and the prisoners he helps oppress by giving us all the middle finger.

From there, we headed to the newly built Tumwater accountability and restitution center (a dystopian euphemism for big huge jail), and again we marched around the facility with banners, chanting and drumming, while we blasted The Post-Ferguson Mix Tape by ANTAGONISMS on our sound system. There were no windows on the entire building. Despite being technically in an “authorized personnel-only area” no arrests occurred, which may have had to do with people in our group wearing NLG shirts.

Then we marched right across the street to the Youth detention facility making a huge amount of noise and sending our love. We gave flyers to people in and around the facility (presumably for visitation or family court) and some of the people enthusiastically thanked us for being out there. We again marched around the perimeter of the facility. The Tumwater police department, who rarely if ever deal with protests, kept their distance throughout all of our 3 different protests in their jurisdiction.

After that we went to downtown Olympia and posted up outside Starbucks after filling our bellies on some Food not Bombs food. We got very artistic with chalk on the outside of Starbucks, and handed out info on fliers to customers going in, and again, we were very loud. Some of the customers at Starbucks were offended by our presence, as they insisted that Starbucks really is a great corporation that pays it’s employees a fair wage. When we spoke to one such coffee-drinker about Starbucks use of prison labor, she indignantly refused to believe us.

In solidarity with prisoners around the world there will be future actions and events to come. Our passion for freedom is stronger than their prisons.