MANCHESTER, NH – Activists with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) will uplift the strength and resilience of incarcerated mothers in an event called “Communities Not Cages” on Friday, May 14 at 2:30 p.m. with a car caravan circling Hillsborough County House of Corrections (Valley Street jail) in Manchester followed by a rally in the parking lot of Blessed Sacrament Parish on 14 Elm Street. The program will include messages from formerly incarcerated women and other community members impacted by incarceration. The event is part of AFSC’s Free Them All days of action, and will be simulcast on Facebook Live. Registration and more information can be found here.
Grace Kindeke, Program Coordinator for the AFSC’s NH Program and Manchester resident, said, “As we celebrate mothers and caregivers this May, the absence of incarcerated loved ones is acutely felt for families and communities who are forced to navigate daily life and celebrate without them. We honor the strength and resilience of mothers separated from their children and loved ones, and the incredible labor of all the mothers and caregivers leading the struggle for a more just world.”
Manchester resident, business owner and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Shaquwanda S. Allen expressed support for the organizers’ efforts to draw attention to the harm caused by incarceration and the need to transfer funds from incarceration to community supports: “If my mother had had the resources necessary to overcome her addiction instead of being locked in a cage like an animal, maybe she would have been able to be home and be a mother to me and raise me the correct way. And maybe I wouldn’t have had to go through the things I went through in life.”
Despite official reports to the contrary, many former residents of the jail have spoken out about the many civil and human rights abuses that they and others have endured while held there. In April, a Hillsborough County Superior Court judge said he was “deeply troubled by the cavalier attitude that the Hillsborough County Jail has shown toward its residents during the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to a report by NH Public Radio’s Casey McDermott (“As COVID Alarm Bells Went Off At Valley Street Jail, County Officials Gave It High Marks”). The report notes that “even before COVID-19, the Valley Street Jail had a reputation as one of the state’s most troubled correctional facilities.”
Anthony Harris, Decarceration Organizer with the AFSC’s NH Program, hopes that this event will provide encouragement to those who have experienced incarceration: “Those of us who have lived at Valley Street have important perspectives to share about the conditions of confinement at this facility. And we must start by reminding our elected officials that imprisoned people are human beings.”
The American Friends Service Committee’s New Hampshire program engages in organizing, advocacy and coalition-building to promote racial and economic justice, the rights and well-being of immigrants, and an end to state-sponsored violence. More information at afsc.org/nh
