Each year, June 11th serves as a day for us to remember our longest imprisoned anarchist comrades through words, actions and ongoing material support.In 2010, some people who care about Eric McDavid and Marius Mason met up to talk about what we could do to expand our solidarity with the two of them.
Our discussion grew to include the general state of anarchist prisoner solidarity in the United States, because we are all long-term anarchists and most of whom have relationships with many prisoners (including non-anarchists).
We found that Marius and Eric bore the brunt of ineffective prisoner solidarity. At our first gathering, we laid out typical prisoner support efforts. These centered on getting people out of jail and exchanging letters.
These all fall short of meeting Marius, Eric and other long-term prisoners’ needs and desires. We have known many prisoners who have no hope of getting out early and desire something more than what these efforts, however hard to define that something more is.
As our conversations grew, we also became concerned that many people around the world expressed solidarity for Marius and Eric readily and vigorously, but we in the US rarely returned support for international long-term anarchist prisoners.
Of course, we were not the first to come to these realizations. Many people have and continue to put hard work into tailoring their projects to better support prisoners and maintain relationships across barbed fences; we decided that June 11th would be our own collective try. 
That date had previously been a day of solidarity with Jeff Luers, a former anarchist eco-prisoner. He agreed that we should renew the tradition, and we set to work. Continue reading “June 11th.. Day to Support Marius, Eric and all Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners”
The Free 