Ed Mead: Prison Lives Matter
May 7, 2021
Ed Mead, right, and Mark Cook, left, were both active in Seattle’s ‘70s leftist paramilitary underground, Ed through the group George Jackson Brigade. Both men were incarcerated for long periods of time, where their militant human rights organizing became organizing for prisoner rights. Both Ed and Mark organized inside Walla Walla prison, where Ed organized Men Against Sexism and Mark formed a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party. They are pictured here at a discussion in Portland, Ore., May 10, 2014.
by Ed Mead
There had been a bit of a prisoners’ moment back in the 1950s; it took the form of a rash of prison riots across the country. As a result of this national uprising, changes were implemented, wardens became superintendents, guards became correctional officers, prisoners became inmates and the prisons themselves were renamed “correctional institutions.”
By Laura Bates
Sourcebooks ; $28.99 ; 352pp
There’s an ideology that’s spreading via the internet, leading to terrorist attacks in America. It existed before the internet of course, but the past decade has seen it spread rapidly through mobile social media, growing in both breadth and virulence. Of course for an ideology to convince a score of men to commit mass murder in suicide attacks on the U.S. mainland you would expect there to be a sizeable number of less fanatical supporters. And that is indeed the case. Anyone who doubts the mass influence of this ideology only has to look at the ways in which mainstream politicians have mouthed support for its basic tenets.