Category: General

Running Down the Walls is a non-competitive 5K event that happens in cities all over the country to raise money and awareness for political prisoners. We hope you’ll join one near you and walk, roll, or run to support political prisoners. Peppy will be participating from the inside by running 5k and doing a thousand burpees. If you are unable to join in person, you can still support by making a donation to support the ABCF Warchest. 

Collective action to protect and care for each other is paramount to our survival.

The statement

Dearest Comrades,

Greetings from behind the layered walls of imprisonment, where we are captives in rebellion seeking collective liberation. We are each braving the forces of fascism, and although we may not know all that confines you, we hear and meet your calls for freedom. May we all draw strength today from the future we are building, the necessity of the times we are in, and from the memories of our fallen. 

Our comrades in Athens once declared boldly, “The passion for freedom is stronger than their cells”, and we wholeheartedly profess the same. Between the rage and sorrow of our forced separation and more importantly the separation of vecinos all around you, we know undoubtedly that social media posts, yard signs, and performative protests are no longer enough. We need revolutionary commitment – a refusal of debilitating despair and comfortable delusions. We need examinations of uncomfortable complexities and contradictions to resolve doubt and cast off the chains of a shallow past.

When you take to the pavement today, know that we are with you. Our liberation bound together with great love because without it, our dreams would have no meaning. Today we move with you; in motion, imagination, and spirit: great strikes against defeat! Although we have yet to abolish these prisons where pain goes to burrow, multiply, and explode, we remain hopeful because from the shadows of these margins, humans brave daring acts of subversion. 

We are able to live with our losses without succumbing to misery because of your unwavering comradeship. Running Down The Walls creates social and political bonds that make visible our existence and our shared struggle in this threatening world. We are honored to run with you because “a wall is just a wall” after all, let’s run those shits down! 

Juntos,

Peppy & Krystal

Much has happened in the last two years, locally and globally. The journey toward freedom can be marked by great acts of solidarity, grief, defiance, and rebellion. Encouraged by our community’s commitment to care and the radical legacies we walk in, we have come this far because we never walked alone.

Your collective efforts and generosity have given us the ability to pay off our restitution. And your widespread and consistent letter writing has meant that Pep has not gone a day without company. We offer our deepest gratitude and reflect back the strength of your collective power, Thank You! 

As we recognize this marker in time, we ask that you show solidarity by extending our work and writing a letter to Jaia Cruz , the 24-year–old transgender woman convicted of first degree manslaughter after defending herself against a transphobic attack in a Harlem deli. She is currently serving a 15 year sentence in the New York State prison system. Letters can be sent to:

As well as donating to Queer Fight Club PGH. The struggle for trans liberation and the celebration of trans lives continues. 

Toward the possibility of communal life and total emancipation,

Pep & Krystal

And Maybe Together

We are who we become to be. I couldn’t change that I hurt for others’ hurt. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t walk away. And maybe, I stayed with the hurt long enough to make a friend. And maybe that friendship grew with others. And maybe these friendships became deeper as shit got realer. And maybe as shit got realer we learned more. But we were still young. So we played and laughed. We were curious so we traveled to lands far near.And maybe we learned ways and means as students of the lands from gutters and fields. And maybe we outwardly with many more of us. And maybe then, in and up with jobs and kids, and losses, so many losses. And we remember mourn our fallen and we return to the hurt.

We awaken with this pain, this knowing this longing. We rise to greet the day and hold both ambition and tears into future held by the choices we make in the present and in the past. And now, I held hostage in this literal prison, this place, we have yet to abolish has souls behind these walls and there is hurt. I can’t look or walk away; I can’t not feel all of this. This forced separation from my other half; distant lovers singing songs of sorrow for a better tomorrow.

This which has me asking our ancestors for guidance. This, which now has you; friends I met along the way, friends who go by many names who sometimes call compta, heval, koukolofori, comrade, And now in here, brother.

And maybe you remind me, what has always been true – new possibilities and horizons come; for there is always a way, a way, tough and tender as Che would say.

And so maybe I reveal share, listen with all the push our movements have so we are who we become to be (with a little help from our friends).

Which can always be as radiant as the warm glow of a sun setting across across the bullet-rattled lands of kurdistan where heval, we held hands in comfort, with loyalty at the edge of your autonomous neighborhood. For our world has many worlds and many colors. And maybe you never left with your farewell-as martyrs never die. Your hope and smile survive.

Biji Biji Rojava.

And in the deep green jungles of Chiapas, you , compa, carved out a liberated territory, to sing, dance late into the night. You welcomed me to your gentle vibrancy of colorful dresses and pitch black halacavas.

The Caricols of Morelia and Oventic held thousands of years of history and maybe, it seems, we hide our face to reveal ours, ourselves.

!La Lucha Sigue! !Zapatistavive!

And maybe when we’re not seen by terrible eyes we can become much more than a foes narrative a prosecutor’s subject. Much more than “criminal”, “elements”. Behind these walls are our community members. I am an abolitionist. My work is here now. I say to the men: I will always give you my all to expand what is possible. So show me what you love, let me see through your eyes as you through mine. Our Liberation is bound together. Let our memories be our escape plan.

Yours In Solidarity

Peppy

“I’ve always seen myself as a collection of sparks, passions, lives that I have been fortunate enough to become with. It’s an honor to have worked with so many. I wanted to offer both a reflection and a continuance of our journeys There is so much more to say and I endeavor to, for now this is a start. “