THURSDAY, February 27th
5:00 – 9:00pm
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER COURTYARD
Welcome and Potluck Dinner
Bring a dish to share and hang! Grab our schedule zine and get a lay of the land! Use this space to get connected with each other and the local community.
FRIDAY, February 28th
10:00 – 11:30am
LIBRARY
How to Start a Jail Hotline, by the Community Hotline for Incarcerated People (CHIP)
Jail and prison hotlines help people on the inside connect with people on the outside for support, comradery, and collaboration. Learn the basics of starting a support hotline – for long term mutual aid, as well as short term jail support!
Instagram: @chip_southflorida Web: https://chipsouthfl.org/
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
At-Home Compounding for HRT, by Labrats
Learn how to compound your own vials of various compounds to take control over your hormone replacement therapy.
HOW BAZAR
Make Your Own Tarot Cards, by Lily Sage
This workshop will provide a brief intro to the symbols and archetypes used on tarot cards. There are nearly as many tarot interpretations in the world as there are different decks and people holding them in their hands, so everyone will start by drawing a card from the deck to learn how it could be interpreted in a reading. The card drawn will be the card one focuses on reproducing/making. Example decks and guides to interpretation will be available as a resource to help you create your own tarot card so you have a starting point for your own deck! Intuitive/automatic drawing/collaging is also encouraged, so feel free to avert your eyes from other examples/literature and let the work intuitively flow!
Some collage materials, card stock, markers, and tarot decks/books will be provided. If you would like to work with any specific type of material left unmentioned, please bring it with you! Hopefully at the conclusion of our time we will each have at least one card to take home, and the beginnings of a collectively made tarot deck. These images will be photographed and compiled into a digital zine that can be cut up and mounted onto card stock later.
http://www.lily-sage.com/tarotworkshops.html
12:00 – 1:30pm
LIBRARY
Jail is an Ongoing Disaster: Bail Work and the Appalachian Climate Collapse, by Asheville Community Bail Fund
ACBF will parse through the tactical, logistical, and emotional components of doing bail and jail support work during climate collapse. Based in one of the portions of Western North Carolina hit hard by hurricane Helene, ACBF (which operates on a small, entirely volunteer run basis) was brought face-to-face with the heightened state abandonment of our incarcerated community during both the storm and its aftermath. In particular, this work has been impacted by the overlapping of worsened internal conditions in what was already referred to as ‘one of North Carolina’s deadliest jails’, the inflated criminalization of people in the community, and the complete shutoff of incarcerated persons from the aid that flooded the city after the storm. These critical intersections provide potent lessons on state’s carceral approaches to crisis, and what communities are capable of in response. This discussion is meant to provide a window to some of what ACBF learned during this crisis response, as well as an open invitation for cross-collaboration and participation from others who have navigated similar experiences or issues in other movement spaces.
Instagram: @avlbail
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
Borders and Refugees: Connections Between Fencing in Occupied Palestine and the Southern Border
Discussion around the intersections in border enforcement between Palestine and the so-called “US/Mexico” border. Including looking at the manufacturing and deployment of technologies, the social “fencing” that mobilizes border militarization and how it all coalesces around human mobility. This talk will be followed by a caucus and open discussion on how we can resist together.
HOW BAZAR
Against Me Too: Against Survivor Politics
A reading and discussion. Hope to examine prevailing ideology of survivorship in rad spaces and its authoritarian creep and what it means for us as anarchists, freaks, musicians, poets, and yea, sexual violence survivors.
We will be discussing the norming of a 1. generalization of sexual violence and a 2. simultaneous norming of deference to publicly self-identified survivors and the dynamics that emerge in tension with those who won’t and can’t. We’re interested in de-identifying and complicating the current normed sensibility of survivor politics in rad spaces which we find limited and often flattening. We’d like to move through and beyond the weaponization survivorship lexicon that is commonly employed in rad/queer/freak spaces that we notice drives things like (so-called) community agreements, consensus and related processes. This involves more seriously considering what a more schizophrenic, many headed view and understanding of survivorship (not neat, not ever) might look like. This will mostly get into how this emerging hegemony hurts us. We won’t pretend we have solutions, but some ideas to set up an ecosystem that eschews from oversimplified, carceral responses, limits its attendant authoritarian creep, and strengthens our abolitionist practice/s around violence.
1:30 – 2:30pm
LUNCH @ CMC
2:30 – 4:00pm
LIBRARY
Reportbacks from the WNC Mutual Aid Flood Response Scene, with Pansy Collective, ROAR + Friends
In the wake of Hurricane Helene’s disastrous impact on Western NC, mutual aid affinity groups like R.O.A.R., Pansy Collective, and many more have worked together to form networks of relief within their impacted communities. This session will be part report-back and part Q&A. As climate catastrophes grow stronger and more frequent, its on us to share the lessons we learn from each day we survive.
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
The Criminalization of Florida Immigrants
Come learn about local efforts being taken in North Florida to inform and protect our immigrant community, and what you can do to be a good accomplice. Then join us for an open discussion to share tactics and ideas of community defense from your areas.
NIGHTJAR
Group Shake, by T. Deutch
Shaking is ancient – as ancient as us! Animals shake to recover after an intense experience or trauma. It’s the same for us! Shaking, known by many names, such as hopping, bouncing, yes, even twerking, can help us release muscle tension, transform and release emotions, and calm our nervous system! In this one hour durational group shake, we will explore the power of vibration together in a dedicated space to shake it all out and hopefully – let it all go!
Now, more than ever, we need tools to tend to our nervous system and get out of fight/flight/fawn mode. Let’s shake off the thorns of supremacy that bind us into our scared and shameful selves. This is a practice for liberation! For all bodies! Come as you are! Let’s return to the home within ourselves so we can better tend to our communities in these times of rising fascism and disaster.
Wear comfy clothes and bring water: we sweat, laugh, release. 🙂
Instagram: @tourminaltor
4:30 – 6:00pm
LIBRARY
How to Stop a Prison: Winning “Unwinnable” Campaigns, by Fight Toxic Prisons
Over the last decade Fight Toxic Prisons organizers have worked directly with grassroots communities across the South building campaigns and coalitions that have defeated over $5 billion in new prison construction, with over $6 billion more being fought right now. Whether you have 5 people, or 50, the fight against new cages has proven a winnable strategy even in the most ‘unwinnable’ of conditions. Drawing from different fights in Texas, Alabama, Kentucky, and more workshop participants will explore numerous strategies and tactics successfully used to fight new carceral construction, as well as frameworks for developing new strategic and tactical interventions specific to your fight. Participants will receive facilitation guides, campaign strategy development materials, and other tools and resources if they want to build their own campaigns. Not facing an active threat from a new prison, jail, juvie or detention center? The exploration of strategy and campaign development is useful across other campaigns as well!
Instagram: @fighttoxicprisons; Facebook: The Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons; X: @fightxprisons
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
Guide to Wheat Pasting, by Ambar Olivarez
A complete guide to wheat pasting, including application, techniques, and tips for avoiding legal problems. An emphasis on communicating political messages through the practice of wheat pasting will be illuminated. Participants will work together to create a combined poster design or artwork. This medium is used in public spaces for quick application street art. It is a low-cost way to mass produce your art. Not an artist? You can still print free posters made by artists and help disseminate important messages!
Instagram: @heartbreak.kingdom
NIGHTJAR
Our World Shapes Us: Politicized Somatics and Embodied Practice, by Zoë and Madi
One of the most challenging things about working toward a different world is that we’ve all been shaped by this one. Somatic awareness can help us notice the habitual beliefs and reflexive ways of being that are deeply embodied in us, often unconsciously. How might the logic of the carceral system live in our own bodies? What are the ways we’ve been conditioned by the state? How can healing support the work of social change?
The workshop will include individual, partnered, and group embodiment practices as well as discussion.
6:30 – 8:00pm
SHABBAT DINNER + GRIEF RITUAL @ CMC
After Shabbat, we will hold a grief ritual to honor our lost comrades. Bring items to add to the altar we will collectively create in their honor.
SATURDAY, March 1st
10:00 – 11:30am
LIBRARY
Gender Compliance in Florida Prisons: Strategies and Resistance
Things have been changing quickly for trans people in Florida prisons. In the words of Rayne Vylette, ARC gender justice inside member, “the administration rounded up all the transgender and gender dysphoric inmates, and had us go to the visiting park for a meeting. The head of Centurion (the medical provider) for the state of Florida read a new Health Services Bulletin (HSB) which stated that due to policy change, everyone currently diagnosed as having gender dysphoria will be re diagnosed and the appropriate course of treatment reassessed.” Learn more about what’s going on, the work of TGIJP FL, ARC Gender Justice, and the Florida Institutional Legal Services Project, and how to get involved to support advocacy led by our trans comrades inside.
Websites: https://tgijp.org/, https://www.arcgenderjustice.org/, https://www.floridalegal.org/
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
Federal Repression, Defense, and Grand Jury Resistance
In this panel, we will discuss skills that everyone can build when facing federal repression, charges or supporting others in that position. Our discussion will draw from our direct experiences including but not limited to resisting grand juries, investigative/related legal work on federal criminal cases, and engaging in meaningful emotional support in communities targeted by state repression. We hope that participants who join us will learn practical tools and approaches for fighting federal repression, cases, and grand juries, and we welcome people to bring questions and their own skill sets to the discussion.
HOW BAZAR
Rural Radicals: Appalachian Movement History and Mutual Aid, by Sparkle
This participatory workshop will provide an overview of rural anti-capitalist and abolitionist organizing in the Appalachian mountains. By the end of the session, participants will be able to recognize the through-line that connects the mine wars, prison justice struggles and the movement to end mountain top removal to current mutual aid disaster relief efforts.
12:00 – 1:00pm
LIBRARY
Hands off Haiti: Teach in on FL Abolition and Haitian Liberation
Florida’s close proximity to the Caribbean and large Haitian populations leaves local abolitionists in the best position to struggle alongside Haiti and its fight for sovereignty. We will discuss the relationship between anti-Haitian rhetoric in the U.S., U.S. funded military occupation on the island, and mass deportation of Haitians from the U.S. with the goal of extending international solidarity and expanding abolitionist ideas to include issues of immigration, ICE, and sovereignty.
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
Back Door Abolition: Representing Victims Trying Not to Prosecute, by Root Legal
We’re a new nonprofit law firm that represents court-designated crime victims who are either scared, confused, or receiving pushback from prosecutors in trying to drop charges. We help them navigate their options and risks for both themselves and the defendants they’d like to protect from state action; then, if desired, provide both mediation between victim and defendant as well as connection with appropriate social services to address the “root” of the problem. Essentially, we’re applying the theory behind defund the police, one case at a time. Data will be tracked to eventually show that this approach is more effective at promoting victim satisfaction, defendant stability, and overall public safety, and that governments should invest in it (both post-harm and to prevent harm).
Website: root-legal.org
HOW BAZAR
Current Developments in Class Struggle: Organized Anarchism, Especifismo, and Black Rose/Rosa Negra’s Program, by Otari Oliva Buadze
Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation has applied Organized Anarchism principles in the U.S. for more than a decade, focusing on Especifismo, a tendency of Organized Anarchism developed by the Federacion Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU) in the 1950s and 1960s. The Black Rose/Rosa Negra promotes class independence, self-management, militancy, direct democracy, and direct action. After conducting two years of discussion in order to achieve ideological and political cohesion, the organization published its first political program, “Turning the Tide: An Anarchist Program for Popular Power,” in 2023.
This program has two interdependent sections: Structural Analysis and Conjuctural Analysis. The Structural Analysis helps establish our Ultimate Objective and General/Permanent Strategy, while the Conjuctural Analysis helps formulate our Limited Term Strategic Plan and Tactical Plan. Several key principles of class-based Organized Anarchism are reflected in the program, including Popular Power, Social Insertion, and Class Struggle, all of which serve the broader goal of Social Revolution.
https://www.blackrosefed.org/about/program/
1:00 – 2:00pm
LUNCH @ CMC
Prison Book Luncheon, hosted by Tranzmission Prison Project
A space for people who do prison books work to come together, share a meal, and discuss strategies for getting queer content into prisons.
2:00 – 3:30pm
LIBRARY
Reproductive Justice Across Prison Walls, by ARC Gender Justice
Prisons are a key tool of reproductive oppression. Incarcerated trans people, cis women, and survivors in prison are fighting back against eugenics and for bodily autonomy, bringing court cases, advocating in legislatures, creating artwork and writing, and building organizations. Join leaders of the Alyssa Rodriguez Center for Justice to hear from inside and outside members on what people in prison are up against and how to build collaborations for reproductive justice across prison walls.
Web: arcgenderjustice.org
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
Al-Aqsa Flood: The Struggle to Liberate Palestinian Political Prisoners, by Al-Qassam University
One of the primary goals of Al-Aqsa Flood (October 7th) was to liberate thousands of Palestinian political prisoners from israeli prisons and camps by taking israeli military and reservist captives for an exchange deal. While the necessity of liberating the suffering Palestinian prisoners is widely known, the history and context of the prisoner exchange as a tactic is rarely discussed, despite its immense significance and historical success in the Palestinian struggle. This interactive presentation aims to demystify the Axis of Palestinian Resistance by informing abolitionists about the history of the Palestinian Resistance and drawing the striking parallels between political prisoners in israeli prisons and Black revolutionaries in U.S. prisons, using archived documents and direct narratives.
HOW BAZAR
Herbs for Trans Feminization
A class for trans people and allies exploring the long history and highly effective use of plants to become estrogen dominant and feminize appearance.
4:00-5:00pm
LIBRARY
Resisting FDOC: Stories from Inside Florida’s Prisons, by Florida Prisoner Solidarity and Friends
This session will be about the lived experience of a few Florida prisoners, both current and former, and their relationship to resisting the physical and political isolation of incarceration. Join us as they tell their stories of being inside the belly of the beast, their connection to inside organizing, and tactics they’ve used to survive censorship and retaliation.
Instagram: @fl_abolition, Website: flprisonersolidarity.org, X: @fl_abolition
4:00 – 5:30pm
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
Fuck the Courts, Fuck the State: Abortion Forever
During this session we’ll gather in community to imagine and build networks of care, particularly for folks having abortions. We’ll have an open, participatory discussion about holistic support before, during, and after at-home abortion care. We’ll also honor the infinite lineage of abortion that has existed far longer than any empire has and will exist long after it’s turned to ash. This space is intended to collectively envision what community-supported abortion can look like and how you can be a part of an abortion care network that exists in resistance to colonialism, capitalism, and other intersecting oppressive systems. We’ll have open discussions about how we all have and can continue to cultivate the skills and compassion to do this work. This session will also include a necessary contextualization of abortion as an act of resistance and reclamation of our agency throughout history, and of abortion as one tendril of larger struggles for bodily autonomy around the South, the so-called US, and the world. Fuck the State! Fuck the courts! We’re having abortions anyway!! And we’ll be sure to care for each other along the way <3
BIVENS ARMS NATURE PARK (3650 S. Main Street)
Decolonizing Nature, by Passiflora Jo
A guided nature immersion to help us identify the ways colonization (and capitalism) has severed our relationships with the natural world and practice the process of reintegrating ourselves to the greater ecosystems in right relation. We’ll spend time immersing ourselves in our natural community, searching for moments of wonder and grounding deeply with honor to those who have tended this land before us. Please be prepared for a short hike in buggy and potentially swampy conditions. We recommend protective yet breathable clothing, natural bug/sun protection, drinking water, emergency snack and materials to journal/take notes with if desired. Carpool will leave at 4:30, meet outside CMC if you need or can offer a ride.
6:00 – 7:00pm
RAMADAN IFTAR + DINNER @ CMC
7:00-7:30pm
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
Leonard Peltier Solidarity Recording
Let’s gather together to record a welcome home message for Leonard from all of us at FAG. We’ll also watch a short video about his release and discuss other Native political prisoners that need our support.
7:30 – 9:00pm
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
Fell in Love with Fire: a documentary about the 2019 Uprising in Chile, by CrimethInc.
Five years in the making, this hour-long film documents the uprising that swept Chile from October 2019 to March 2020, showing how everyday people sustained six months of rebellion by creating extensive networks of self-determination and mutual aid.
This is an inspiring portrayal of the tactics that gave demonstrators control of the streets, the organizing strategies that enabled the movement to act effectively while remaining leaderless, and the importance of time and space in revolt. It is also a cautionary tale about how the government used the promise of a new constitutional process to recover enough legitimacy to regain control. It chronicles a high point of action in a struggle that continues today.
https://crimethinc.com/2024/10/21/fell-in-love-with-fire-an-documentary-about-the-2019-uprising-in-chile
Murphy forever <3
SUNDAY, March 2nd
10:00 – 11:30am
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
FAGstory: Radical Queer Histories of Faggotry, Abolition, and Anarchy
How did we get here? How did FAG move from a painful insult to a label we can proudly reclaim – not just as queers, but as abolitionists? This wild and freewheeling presentation will survey the history of queer anarchism on the territory of the US state over the past 150 years, with a particular emphasis on the abolitionist, anti-police, and anti-carceral threads of the story. We’ll discuss the queer prison experiences of propagandists by the deed, the anti-authoritarian socialism of Oscar Wilde, the role of queer anarchists in avant-garde theater, literature, and music, how lesbian feminists modeled horizontal decision-making, the radical faggotry movement of the 1970s (which gave birth to such classic texts as Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions and Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture), ACT-UP and radical artists, the heavily anarchist bisexual movement (really!), and the roots of Bash Back! and queer insurrection today. And so much more! Join us to get oriented in a ferocious and inspiring history we can wield as a weapon in our movements against prisons and the world that make them possible, and our struggles to escape from the carceral confines of sexual and gender identity.
HOW BAZAR
Scenario Planning for Disasters in Prisons, Jails, and Detention Centers, by Fight Toxic Prisons and Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
We will walk participants through scenario planning to monitor threats to, and fight for the evacuation of prisons, jails, and detention centers in your community. Over the past seven years, by coordinating with grassroots groups, loved ones, and folks inside, we’ve achieved over a dozen successful evacuations across the South, ran commissary drives, and fought to ensure folks inside are not forgotten in the path of disaster. Most recently in Hurricane Milton, coordinating with Florida Prisoner Solidarity, we delivered over $1400 worth of water and Gatorade to a juvie on boil water advisory!
Through this workshop participants will create their own inside-outside disaster-preparedness plan. Together we will explore existing tools you can use to monitor wildfire, flood, storm surge inundation, and other risks like the Toxic Prisons Mapping Project. We will de-tangle the confusing bureaucratic web of agencies that control different kinds of carceral facilities and explore successful strategies to pressure each one. Lastly, we will explore ways that your crew can plug into the broader network across the country fighting to ensure that no one is forgotten in a disaster just because they are inside a cage. With the threat of hurricanes and other climate and man-made disasters worsening, it is critical that movements for both climate justice and abolition prepare for the threats they pose to incarcerated people in their path.
Instagram: @fighttoxicprisons; Facebook: The Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons; X: @fightxprisons
12:00 – 1:00pm
LIBRARY
Abolition is Harm Reduction, by Lamia Moukaddam and Erick Louis
This session will make connections between the war on drugs, and its inside/outside impact on people who use drugs. This will highlight how police and prison systems continue to use the war on drugs as consent to perpetuate the avoidable deaths of people who use drugs.
Instagram: @chxngefl
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
Addressing White Supremacy in Our Abolitionist Movements, by Caitlynne Palmieri, Rachel Bass, Jenneva Clauss
White supremacy continues to show up in our social justice spaces – including prison abolition movements – doing harm and impeding the multiracial organizing we need for collective liberation. This workshop will make a caucus space for people with white privilege for accountability around how whiteness and class privilege show up in participant’s work and how we can begin to embody the anti-racist organizing needed for the fight that frees us all.
HOW BAZAR
Bending the Bars: An Album of Original Hip-Hop Music by Folx Incarcerated in Florida, by the Community Hotline for Incarcerated People (CHIP)
Learn how the Community Hotline for Incarcerated People (CHIP) managed to produce an album of original hip-hop music with artists incarcerated in Broward County jails despite an absolute ban on in-person visits and other serious limitations on communication. Hear samples of the tracks, behind the scenes video, and tips for reproducing this project in your locale!
Tiktok: tiktok.com/@bending_the_bars, Instagram: @chip_southflorida, Web: https://chipsouthfl.org/
1:00 – 2:00pm
LUNCH @ CMC
2:00 – 4:00pm
LIBRARY
Obstacles and Pitfalls Within the Current Prisoner Solidarity Movement, by Oakland Abolition & Solidarity
We’ll be laying out some issues we’ve seen pop up within our own work and the greater movement over our group’s many years of doing this work in California. We feel there’s rarely enough spaces for candid introspection and hope to offer some critiques and open up some questions knowing we don’t have all the answers.
Website: https://oaklandabosol.org/
2:00 – 3:30pm
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
Writing the Queer/Trans Body by Autumn Barksdale
This is a generative poetry workshop for writers of all levels, encouraging participants to get in touch with and creatively write through their own queer/trans bodies. We will be reading selected poems from various LGBT writers and discussing how they use different concepts/forms/themes to connect with their diverse marginalized bodies. Then participants will be encouraged to write through their own lens.
While the vehicle for this workshop is poetry – the focus of this workshop is not exclusively to generate poetry, nor is it exclusively for “writers” – but to use poetry as a vehicle toward Body Liberation for queer/trans or otherwise marginalized people. This workshop is meant to show, inspire, and remind participants that we are free to imagine/re-imagine our bodies however we please, and that the first step toward liberation is having the ability to imagine a world beyond our chains.
The workshop will include work from fat, disabled, and QTPOC writers – to show how body-diverse folks use poetry to name their experiences and thoughts around body and self.
4:00 – 6:00pm
CAUCUS TIME
Use this window of time to schedule your own sessions, plan a caucus, or meet-up with others around affinity, movement, identity, location, skills, tactics, whatever you want! Use the whiteboard located outside the Civic Media Center to announce the topic and location.
6:00 – 7:00pm
DEBRIEF + DINNER @ CMC
Collective Debrief
This will be a space for open dialogue and/or written feedback on how you feel the gathering went. Let us know what you enjoyed or could be improved for the future. What lessons will you take away and bring back to your communities? Use this as an opportunity to announce upcoming events, DA camps, and projects you want to uplift! This may also serve as an opportunity to collectively process any events that might have come up during the gathering.
7:00 – 9:00 pm
CIVIC MEDIA CENTER
Can’t Stop Change: Queer Climate Stories from the Florida Frontlines by Yarrow Koning & Shoog McDaniel, Queers for Climate Justice
Can’t Stop Change is a feature-length documentary weaving stories from 15 LGBTQ2S+ artists, organizers, and educators across Florida (and the new Florida diaspora) into an intersectional climate justice narrative. We will be viewing the film, please stay after for conversations with film Co-Directors.
Instagram(s): @queers4climatejustice, @dearyarrow, @shooglet