CCBF was honored to be able to support yesterday’s third annual Incarcerated Mother’s Day Vigil and Toiletry Drive organized by Moms United Against Violence and Incarceration. The powerful speakers addressed the linkages between race, poverty, violence, trauma, and incarceration. All the moms who spoke shared the ways that their incarceration in Cook County Jail or a prison impacted not only them, but their children and their broader communities. They blessed the crowd with powerful calls to tear this “modern-day plantation” down, reclaim all 96 acres for the community, and reinvest these millions of dollars we spend on cages into our neighborhoods. Let’s #EndMoneyBail & #FreeOurMoms!

If you weren’t able to make it yesterday and still want to donate toiletry items in travel or regular sizes, you can drop donations off this week during business hours at the Westside Justice Center, 601 S California Ave.

For more information about how you can support #AlishaWalker, follow Justice for Alisha Walker and Support Ho(se) at: https://supporthosechi.tumblr.com/ #FreeLele!

Speakers from Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network and Cabrini Green Legal Aid offered resources and political analysis. Black Lives Matter Chicago and the #LetUsBreathe Collective provided crucial support and beautiful testimony.

For more information about women punished for self-defense, follow Survived and Punished and Love & Protect. #FreeBresha #FreeParis#FreeThemAll!