Dear friends, comrades and supporters:

This past April, in response to the jail-wide lockback of prisoners at the Durham County Jail, Inside-Outside Alliance (IOA) began to hold protests outside the jail every Friday at 6:00pm.  These eight months of weekly actions served to demonstrate public outrage at the lockback and other deplorable human rights abuses occurring in the jail, including price gouging, restrictions on visitation, medical abuse and neglect, violations of religious freedom, malnutrition, and lack of proper sanitation.  These protests gathered together a community of resistance, expanded IOA’s ongoing efforts to build relationships with and among those inside and their friends and family members, and – by supporting those inside who banged on doors, filed grievances, spoke their truth in letters and visitations, and engaged in countless other acts of resistance – helped to force the county jail to reverse its disastrous and repressive policy and end the lockback.

Now, building upon these successes, IOA will be shifting towards new strategies of resistance.  Because it is important for our tactics to be flexible enough to respond to  evolving situations on the ground at the Durham County jail, after December 11th, we will no longer be holding weekly Friday protests at the jail.  We will continue to write to prisoners and engage with visitors to the jail, and we will hold periodic rallies to show our continued friendship, love, and solidarity for those inside – starting with the annual New Year’s Eve noise demonstration, to which all are welcome and invited!  We also will continue to boldly and directly challenge the egregious violations of human rights that continue to occur inside the jail; to support the resistance and rebellion of its detainees; to press for an independent, community-based investigation of the jail; and to work towards the abolition of the jail itself.  To our friends, family and comrades inside and outside: we love you, we see you, and we will continue to stand up and fight back together with you. To the jailers and the white supremacist capitalist class they work for: ending the lockback is not enough to make us go away; you run a criminal system, and, make no mistake, we will give you hell until you open every cell!  To people of goodwill everywhere: stay tuned! the struggle continues!

In Solidarity,
Inside-Outside Alliance