ORGANIZING CRITICAL RESISTANCE SOUTH
ORGANIZING CRITICAL RESISTANCE SOUTH
Directed / Produced by Ashley Hunt
The Corrections Documentary Project
2003 / 18 Minutes
“We see it as a movement, but people need to see it as saving our lives...it all comes back to saving our communities...”
— Althea Francois, CR South organizer and organizer for the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3
The first of two videos about Critical Resistance’s 2003 Southern Conference, ORGANIZING CRITICAL RESISTANCE SOUTH is an 18 minute piece that follows the two year organizing process leading up to the conference that brought thousands of family members, advocates and formerly incarcerated people together in New Orleans’ historic Tremé neighborhood. The film was filmed in part during organizing events where we screened CORRECTIONS and invited communities to New Orleans for the conference, and it kicked off the conference's on its opening night.
Getting into fundamental questions organizing, its importance and its function within movement building, the video follows the conference’s lead organizers to events and community forums in 11 Southern states. What it builds is an expectation of a different kind of conference than one tends to expect — one establishing the space and respect needed to form a new discourse around prisons and criminalization than what the state offers; where “organizing” becomes not only rallying around campaigns but also working toward real power for the people and communities that prisons impact most. (Also see THE CRITICAL RESISTANCE SOUTH CONFERENCE)
Special thanks to:
Melissa Burch
Althea Francois
Dan Horowitz de Garcia
Curtis Muhammad
Critical Resistance
Project South
The Women's Project of Arkansas
