Starting on Friday, April 9, and running for the next three consecutive Fridays through the end of the month, Abolition Apostles national jail and prison ministry will host Abolition 2021, a virtual concert benefit to support families of people incarcerated at Louisiana State Penitentiary, otherwise known as Angola. Produced by musicians Jolie Holland and Johanna Samuels and Peter Bauer, the benefit will launch Abolition Apostles’ fundraising campaign to open a hospitality house to accommodate friends and family visiting loved ones incarcerated at Angola.
Featuring more than seventy artists, including Old Crow Medicine Show, Ani DiFranco, Marcus Mumford and Boyfriend, Abolition 2021 will stream on Noonchorus. Responding to the moral urgency of the call for the abolition of mass incarceration, artists have donated their time to create a unique multidisciplinary streaming concert. As musician and producer Jolie Holland explains, “The idea of creating a place of radical hospitality and welcome amidst the cruelty and injustice of the prison system inspired me to produce Abolition 2021.”
Located on the site of several former plantations, Angola is the largest maximum security prison in the United States. As Abolition Apostles co-founding pastor David Brazil explains, “Angola’s history as an antebellum plantation and site for convict leasing post-Civil War demonstrates the roots of mass incarceration in slavery and white supremacy.”
Angola is several hours’ drive from any major urban center. Friends and family often spend hours driving to visit their loved ones who are incarcerated there. Due to the lack of affordable accommodations close to the prison, most people are forced to drive to Angola and back home in one day, making for an exhausting trip especially for families with young children or elders.
The Abolition Apostles hospitality house will provide a free place to stay for friends, family, lawyers, and advocates coming to visit incarcerated people at Angola. By making visitation easier and more cost effective for friends and family, the hospitality house will break the isolation too often experienced by incarcerated people.
Abolition Apostles is a national jail and prison ministry based in New Orleans, Louisiana – the most incarcerated place in the world. Founded in 2019 by Pastors David Brazil and Sarah Pritchard, Abolition Apostles now serves over 1,500 incarcerated people in thirty-six states with the help of hundreds of volunteers across the country. Abolition Apostles’ mission is to provide moral and spiritual support to members of the incarcerated community, and contribute to the destruction of the prison-industrial complex through solidarity, prophetic witness, and community organizing inside and outside of prison. Visit www.abolitionapostles.org for more information.
For tickets visit here.
