In the last month, protests have erupted across the country calling for justice for Black lives, a wholesale restructuring of policing, and a greater racial reckoning across all facets of American society.

“All of these things are interconnected,” Brittany Packnett Cunningham told At Liberty this week. “If we’re gonna talk about police violence, we’re gonna talk about health care … we’re coming for the whole thing.”

Packnett Cunningham is an activist, educator, and writer who has been on the front lines of many of these conversations, most prominently since the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Change is in the air — but we’ve been here before. Eric Garner was killed by police in New York City in July 2014, followed weeks later by Michael Brown in Ferguson, igniting outrage and protest. Activists then hoped for change, too, as they have for many generations.

We’ve seen countless movements surge in popularity, cause a stir, and then seemingly peter out weeks or months later. This time, however, feels different. But how do we actually ensure that it is different?

“I feel ready, and I think a lot of other people are finally ready in a moment that they have been being pulled to for a number of years,” said Packnett Cunningham. Listen as we discuss how to sustain movements, and compel real change.

Activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham on Building a Lasting Movement

Activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham on Building a Lasting Movement

In the last month, protests have erupted across the country calling for justice for Black lives, a wholesale restructuring of policing, and a greater racial reckoning across all facets of American society. 

In the last month, protests have erupted across the country calling for justice for Black lives, a wholesale restructuring of policing, and a greater racial reckoning across all facets of American society. 

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Since the inception of this pandemic, it has been clear that incarcerated people are particularly at risk from COVID-19. In addition to the clear, consistent guidance from public health experts, incarcerated families, corrections staff, and data scientists urged states to take action to prevent tragedy.
 
Unfortunately, states failed to heed these warnings and have failed to protect incarcerated people, facility staff, and communities at large from the looming threat of COVID-19.
 
This is the core finding of a new ACLU report: “Failing Grades: States’ Responses to COVID-19 in Jails & Prisons,” co-authored with Prison Policy Initiative. The report evaluated states based on four criteria:

• Testing all staff and incarcerated people, and making sure everyone had access to personal protective equipment;
• Whether the governor issued an executive order to stop the churn of people coming into jails, and to immediately get people out of jails and prisons;
• Sharing data, disaggregated by race, so the public has insight into how the crisis is unfolding and being addressed; and
• Actually reducing the number of people in jails and prisons — the most important step any state can take in this moment.

There is no doubt that the responsibility to respond to this crisis falls heavily on states: Of the 2.3 million people incarcerated in this country, over 1.9 million people are in state prisons or local jails. These facilities are cramped, unhygienic, and designed to inhibit a person’s ability to protect themselves. Social distancing is impossible. Human contact is unavoidable. Soap and medical attention are prohibitively expensive, while hand sanitizer is often regarded as contraband. And unfettered access to open air and outdoor spaces is essentially nonexistent.
 
The results of states’ failure to respond are therefore as tragic as they were predictable. Jails and prisons have become the epicenter of this pandemic. Most of the largest COVID-19 clusters are in jails and prisons, and the largest hotspot in most states is inside a jail or prison. Moreover, to date, over 600 incarcerated people and over 50 staff have died. These numbers will only increase as COVID-19 continues to run rampant in these facilities.
 
This impacts all of us. Not forcefully confronting COVID-19 in jails and prisons will have deep reverberations in neighboring communities. Just as importantly, this travesty exacerbates the racial inequities that define mass incarceration. We know that the egregious harm created by our carceral systems has always been deliberately concentrated in Black and Brown communities. A similar disparity has played out in the COVID-19 pandemic — a product of generational underinvestment in the housing, health care, and other resources that communities depend on for protection in moments like this.
 
Yet it is not too late to change course. It is not too late for leadership. This report offers more than an evaluation of what has not happened; it also offers some ideas and a blueprint for what must happen now. The lives lost cannot be brought back, but other lives can still be saved. People can still be allowed to go home. Corrections staff can work without fear of carrying a virus back to their families. And we can actually combat this pandemic while caring for and centering people’s humanity and dignity.

Dylan Hayre, Justice Division Campaign Strategist, ACLU

As a Buddhist priest to a man on death row, I have prepared myself for the difficult, yet necessary role of attending the execution of a man I’ve been advising for 11 years in order to provide support as he crosses over from this life. I want nothing more than to fulfill my priestly duty to Wes Purkey, but because of the Federal Bureau of Prison’s decision to schedule his execution during a pandemic, I feel substantial pressure to abandon my religious commitments to him. I’m being asked to make an impossible decision — violate my religious beliefs or risk my health and life by attending an execution that could become a “super-spreader” event for COVID-19.

I first met Wes  in 2009. As a Zen Buddhist, Wes sought my spiritual guidance to answer questions and share religious insights about life and death. While I knew Wes would eventually be executed, I was shocked and horrified when he finally received an execution date. That date was originally set for December of last year, but was postponed. His new execution date is just days away, and remains in place despite posing significant risks to the health of all involved due to COVID-19. 

Much of the country is still sheltering in place and practicing social distancing. Even the Federal Bureau of Prisons has taken extraordinary preventative measures, suspending all visitation nationwide, even with attorneys,  due to what BOP officials have called the “unprecedented world-wide public health emergency.” As such, Wes and I have only communicated through letters since March. Due to my age and history of lung illnesses, which make me highly vulnerable to the virus, I have altered my everyday life and habits. I’ve stopped going to places I used to frequent on a near-daily basis, such as coffee shops and the library, and I do not currently attend services at my temple. These are necessary adjustments to avoid contracting and spreading COVID-19.   

I know from my experiences visiting Wes in prison that normal security protocol would not allow me to follow the CDC-recommended safety guidelines, even those for people without medical vulnerabilities. During regular visits to Wes’s prison, I routinely came into close contact with corrections officers and other visitors. In the waiting room, for example, other visitors often sit in cramped rows of chairs for up to 90 minutes at a time. It is impossible to social distance as recommended by public health officials. I expect that security protocol will be even more stringent on the day of Wes’s execution and will require more contact with correctional staff and other attendees of the execution — reporters, witnesses, the victim’s family, and others. The number of people in attendance is projected to be in the hundreds, and many will have traveled from around the country.  Moreover, it has been reported that the Terre Haute, Indiana, prison where Wes is housed and where he will be executed is currently experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak.

As a Zen Buddhist, I believe that one’s state of mind must be at peace at the moment of death in order to release one’s attachment to this life with minimal distress. It’s vital that I be there, as Wes’s priest, to ensure this peaceful transition from life to death during his most dire moment of distress —his ultimate crisis — as he sits at the threshold of death. I will chant from behind a plexiglass barrier to ensure his peace of mind while passing and, through my physical presence, serve as a spiritual reminder to Wes of all the religious lessons I have taught him as he passes on from this life. This is my sacred duty.

The federal government’s decision to proceed with Wes’s execution burdens my religious freedom by forcing me to choose between performing my religious duties as a priest, and protecting my own life. Although Trump officials have repeatedly claimed the mantle of guardians of religious liberty, too often their commitment wavers when it is inconvenient for their political agenda. This appears to be one of those times.

While I am religiously obligated as Wes’s priest to provide him spiritual guidance and comfort as he leaves this life, none of this dismisses his responsibility for his actions. I do not intend to gloss over the gravity of his past errors and the tremendous suffering they caused for others. Many will argue that Wes should be denied his right to my presence at his execution due to his crimes. I understand this position — people have a right to feel outraged by any harm he has caused. But is the answer really to rob him — and me — of our religious liberty? We must ask ourselves how much we are willing to sacrifice to enable the government to perpetuate a cycle of killing.

Rev. Seigen Hartkemeyer