Strengthening Our Actions and Voices Through Unity

On November 2, 2011 a historical convening of the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted People’s Movement (FICPM), gathered to adopt a national platform. Several hundred people attended this convening in Watts, California. Prior to the November 2^nd Gathering, formerly incarcerated and convicted people consistently sought each other out for several years to discuss our needs, which lead into a historical gathering and march hosted by TOPS in Alabama and the development of a Steering Committee that worked on the platform for over nine months. It should be noted that A New Way of Life, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and All of Us or None performed an extraordinary job with hosting people from all over the country. There were representatives from 20 states, Washington DC, England and Japan. Over 40 different grassroots organizations attended this gathering. Needless to say, it is remarkable that the Steering Committee continues to meet to further develop tools and a structure for this network.

Our platform is alive, and the week leading up to the November 2^nd Gathering was preceded by a Peace and Justice Summit in Long Beach, California, organized by A New Way of Life and All of Us or None. This event was one way of informing more than 300 formerly incarcerated and convicted people that the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted Peoples’ Movement was coming to Watts.  It should be noted that since our gathering, our efforts to end structure discrimination have raised the cry to Ban the Box in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Richmond, California. By strengthening our actions and voices through unity, we will dismantle the New Jim Crow, and we aim to continue this movement by restoring our civil and human rights. We vow to educate “every wondering mind” that ask the question, “How can we dismantle the disparities in opportunities for employment, housing, social services and end mass incarceration?” We vow to mobilize and organize a movement of the 65 million people that have been tagged as formerly incarcerated and convicted people to challenge their oppression.  Our victories will continue to grow and we need to learn better how to continue to connect our dots and our victories. We recognize that formerly incarcerated and convicted people are pursuing justice all over the country and we need to shine a light on our victories and our movement.    

Once again, we elected to gather our forces in a community challenged by the brutal conditions of oppression, the Watts Labor Community Action Center (WLCAC). We agreed to engage this system through the democratic process and we will register a million formerly incarcerated and convicted people and their families. We pledged to each other that we will not only engage in the registration put actually push people to exercise their right to vote.

Great minds from every corner of activism, advocacy and service provision stepped up and seriously considered movement development. There was one was real challenged to everyone that has ever worked on behalf of formerly incarcerated and convicted people:  could they loosen the grip enough to see if these birds could really fly?  Could they allow formerly incarcerated and convicted people to DECIDE on a platform about them?  This was one of the few gatherings where formerly incarcerated and convicted people were asked to vote on a document that was written by them and designed to be the basis of a movement about their interest. We want to thank our families, friends, comrades, allies and colleagues for allowing us to join our movement and the human family. To those people who were not able to attend, we ask you to consider the platform that we adopted.  Our effort is dedicated to those people who are currently incarcerated and to those people who stood up for us before we knew how to stand. Our efforts are design to enlarge the circle and our community and not shrink it, and to unify our movement and not divide it.