“Corn cannot expect justice from a court composed of chickens.”
―African proverb
By John Cole Vodicka
Nancy G. is 54 years old. I took this photograph on this past Friday morning while she and I stood outside the Athens Homeless Day Shelter on North Avenue. Thanks to the Oconee Street United Methodist Church’s Community Bail Initiative, I was … Read the rest
By John Cole Vodicka
Donald D. is my neighbor. I’m the one though, with a roof over my head. Donald D. is homeless. He will tell you he “sleeps on the concrete.” I sleep in a king-sized bed. Still, Donald and … Read the rest
“We have a system of justice that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent.”
-Bryan Stevenson
… Read the rest“The problem with money bail, for those who aren’t familiar with it, is that it puts a price tag on freedom. It says to someone who is wealthy that no matter how dangerous you are you
“The prison therefore functions ideologically as an abstract site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues afflicting those communities from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate numbers. This is the ideological work that the prison performs—it relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society,
No more in bondage shall they toil;
– traditional African American Spiritual
Let my people go!
Let them come out of Egypt’s spoil;
Let my people go!
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt’s land.
Tell old Pharaoh
Let my people go!
By Steve Williams
On Wednesday, May 19, Joshua J. appeared in Superior Court before Judge Patrick Haggard, cuffed … Read the rest
On a cold mid-May Wednesday, more than a dozen members of Oconee Street UMC showed up for the Beyond Baldwin March and Protest at the Arch on UGA’s North Campus where a range of speakers urged university leaders to confront historic and present day racial harms with specific initiatives to create a just and antiracist learning community in line with … Read the rest
I thought about all those people whose suffering had been erased, and I thought, “Why can’t they speak? Why can’t I undo some of that erasure?”
–Jesmyn Ward
By John Cole Vodicka
Jesmyn Ward is, in my estimation, one of the best writers on the planet. I encourage folks to read anything and everything she’s written. Two of her books … Read the rest
“I’m not a big enough man to change the world. But I can put a dent in it.”
–WINFRED REMBERT
By John Cole Vodicka
Who is Winfred Rembert, you might ask? Winfred Rembert died on March 31 at his New Haven, Connecticut home. He was 75. In the New York Times obituary this week the headline noted that Mr. Rembert “Carved His … Read the rest
By John Cole Vodicka
Donald Dewayne Carnes died this past December in a prison nursing home in Milledgeville. He was … Read the rest
… Read the rest“We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from a nation that has buried its head in the sand, waiting in vain for the needs of its poor, its elderly and its sick to disappear and just blow away. We must dissent from a government that has left its young without jobs, education