Please see my newest on Truthout! Here’s how it begins:

(Image: Gts / Shutterstock; Edited: JR / TO)

This past January, prisoners in Florida went on strike to protest what they called modern-day slavery in the state’s prisons. As of March, not only had the Florida Department of Corrections not responded to the demand for paid labor and improved living conditions, it had also placed some of the prisoners who were demanding fair wages into solitary confinement. As Heather Ann Thompson, author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy succinctly said on Democracy Now!, “If you do not treat people as human beings they will eventually erupt.” The fight is far from over.  MORE