In this Rattling the Cages panel talk, former political prisoners Eric King, Jake Conroy, and Claude Marks discuss staying active and engaged in liberation struggles after being released from prison, and also the importance of collecting, analyzing, and understanding our histories of resistance. This event is a fundraiser for the Freedom Archives and attendees are asked to make a donation in lieu of ticket cost.

Recently published by AK Press, Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners is a project of abolitionist Josh Davidson and Eric King. The book is filled with the experience and wisdom of over thirty current and former North American political prisoners. It provides first-hand details of prison life and the political commitments that continue to lead prisoners into direct confrontation with state authorities and institutions.

If you missed the previous panel discussions you can watch the recordings here.

Claude Marks was imprisoned for his involvement in an escape conspiracy to free Puerto Rican independentista and political prisoner Oscar López Rivera. Claude has worked in radical media since the late 1960s and is co-founder and co-director of the Freedom Archives. In 2016, Claude traveled to Palestine as part of an anti-prison delegation that focused on political imprisonment and solidarity between prisoners in the US and Palestinian. He has also worked to free numerous political prisoners and continues to fight for prison abolition.

Eric King is a father, poet, author, and activist. Last December, he was released from the supermax ADX prison after spending nearly ten years as a political prisoner for an act of protest over the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. He was held in solitary confinement for years and was met with violence by guards throughout his incarceration. Eric has published three zines: Battle Tested (2015), Antifa in Prison (2019), and Pacing in My Cell (2019). His sentencing statement is included in the book Defiance: Anarchist Statements Before Judge and Jury (2019). Eric now works as a paralegal for the Bread and Roses Legal Center.

Jake Conroy is a longtime animal rights activist who was sentenced to four years in prison for his involvement in the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC USA) campaign. Jake has been involved in various forms of activism since the mid-1990s, working on campaigns both local and international. The SHAC 7, as he and his codefendants became known, were tried as domestic terrorists for running a website and supporting controversial tactics and ideologies. Since his release, he has remained tirelessly committed to the struggle on many fronts. He is currently the host of the Three Minute Thursdays show on his Cranky Vegan YouTube channel and is cohost of Radicals and Revolutionaries, an oral history podcast about direct action movements. Jake also contributed to the book Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners.