5 reasons to support the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund

December 27, 2010

Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund

from Executive Director Mike Holman

Five Reasons to Support PRLF this end-of-year. 

It is the end of 2010, and like most people who care about the state of the world and hope for a better future, chances are good you are receiving end-of-year appeals from many worthy organizations. Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF), a project of the 501[c](3) International Humanities Center, depends entirely on donations from people like you to carry out our mission.

I want to tell you what is unique about PRLF and some of our major accomplishments this year.

1. Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund provided approximately 800 subscriptions to Revolution newspaper and about 650 revolutionary and other books to prisoners across the country this year, many of whom are locked down in solitary confinement. Through providing this literature, PRLF provides an educational opportunity for prisoners to engage with world events and key political, cultural, and philosophical questions of the day from a unique revolutionary perspective, including discussions or morality, religion, science and the arts. PRLF plays a crucial role in fulfilling prisoners' right to the life of the mind.

2. Reading the literature provided by PRLF has allowed many of these prisoners to develop their critical thinking and analytical skills and abilities. One prisoner wrote that "[I] ...realize[d] that I can make my life 'be about something' - not only for 'me and mines' but for all humanity...".

3. Through PRLF's efforts, many prisoners, who society often calls the "worst of the worst" or "incorrigible," are going through significant transformations, changing how they understand the world and their role in it. This opening up of suppressed human potential is precious and far too rare among the 2.4 million (mainly Black and Latino) men and women locked behind prison walls in early 21st century America.

4. The voices of many of PRLF's prisoner-subscribers, expressed through their letters to PRLF and Revolution newspaper and through dramatic readings in various cities and online, have been shared with and deeply inspired a broad range of people outside the prison walls. As one woman said after seeing dramatic readings of some prisoners' letters, "The prisoners are so smart and thoughtful and write so well. These are our people saying these beautiful things. It gives me hope."

5. This year, PRLF has won important ground in the ongoing fight against prison censorship in our battle to overturn the ban of Revolution newspaper in California prisons. The key to the advances that have been made so far include the support and determined efforts of many, including our legal counsel, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California; those who circulated and signed the Overturn the Ban Statement; donors who enabled PRLF to get out the word widely; and prisoners who filed repeated appeals and wrote to PRLF, Revolution, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, who also published a sympathetic article. This has widespread significance for prisoners' and media rights throughout the country.

Much more about all this on our new website, http://www.prlf.org/. Your financial support, which can be tax deductible, is crucial to maintaining and expanding the work above. Please donate generously.

Thank you.

Mike Holman
Executive Director

How To Donate

PRLF is a project of the International Humanities Center, a non-profit public charity, exempt from federal income tax under section 501 [c] (3) of the IRS code.

Make a tax-deductible donation here.
or by check, payable to IHCenter/PRLF and mailed to:
International Humanities Center/ Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund
860 Via de la Paz, Suite B-1
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272

Make a non-tax deductible donation here.
or by check or money order, payable to PRLF and mailed to:
Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund
1321 N. Milwaukee Ave. #407, Chicago, IL 60622