#  When the Prisoners Ran Walpole: 50 Years Later 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **March 23 - March 24, 2023** 

 All day 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Thompson Room (Barker Center 110)**  



 

 



 

##    ![mhch_web_walpole_banner_900x324px.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum4936/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/mahindra/files/mhch_web_walpole_banner_900x324px.jpg?itok=tz9Cfyj9) 

 



##  [ABOLITION](/abolition)

##  Thursday, March 23 - Friday, March 24, 2023

 [REGISTER TO ATTEND IN PERSON](https://mahindrahumanities.formstack.com/forms/walpole_symposium_registration)

 We are happy to announce that due to popular demand, the panel presentations for this symposium will be available virtually as well as in person.

 In the fall of 1972, the men incarcerated at the state prison in Walpole, Massachusetts organized themselves into a labor union—the National Prisoners Reform Association (NPRA). In March of 1973, when Walpole’s guards went on strike, the NPRA took over the prison and ran it peacefully for two months. Seizing on the opportunities provided by the guards’ strike and by a radical new Commissioner of Correction, Walpole’s prisoners launched an extraordinary struggle for self-determination and an important chapter in the movement for prison abolition.

 Marking the 50th anniversary of these events, this symposium brings together the people who made them happen. Panels will include former members of the NPRA and other prison organizations, colleagues of commissioner-turned-abolitionist John O. Boone, and civilian observers. It will also bring a new generation of abolitionist activists into conversation with these speakers.

###  Schedule for Day 1 (Thursday, March 23)

####  7:00 – 9:00 PM | Documentary Screening and Discussion: *3000 Years and Life* (1973), directed by Randall Conrad and Stephen Ujlaki

 **Bobby Dellelo**, NPRA President (1973)  
**Rev. Edward Rodman**, Ad Hoc Committee and NPRA External Board Member (1973)  
**Albert Brown**, NPRA and BANTU Board Member (1973)  
**Moderator:** **Keith Harvey**, Northeast Regional Director, American Friends Service Committee

###  Schedule for Day 2 (Friday, March 24)

####  9:00 – 10:00 AM | Light Breakfast

####  10:00 – 11:30 AM | Black African Nations Toward Unity (BANTU): Education, Community, and Abolition

 **Albert Brown**, NPRA and BANTU Board member (1973)  
**Kazi Toure**, Community Activist  
**David Dance**, Phillips Brooks House Association Volunteer (1973)  
**Jabir Pope**, Concord Prisoners' Peaceful Movement Committee (1973)  
**Moderator: Margaret Burnham**, University Distinguished Professor of Law, Northeastern University

####  1:00 PM – 2:15 PM | Blurring the Prison Wall: The NPRA, Commissioner John Boone, and Prison Abolition

 **Bobby Dellelo**, NPRA President (1973)  
**Jim Isenberg**, Mass. Dept. of Health and Human Services (1973)  
**Hon. Paul A. Chernoff** (ret.), Boston College Law School  
**Tony Van Der Meer**, Senior Lecturer in Africana Studies, UMass-Boston  
**Moderator: DeAnza Cook**, Ph.D. Candidate in History, Harvard University

####  3:00 PM – 5:00 PM **|** Organizing and Abolition: Then and Now

 **Kazi Toure**, Community Activist  
**Margaret Burnham**, University Distinguished Professor of Law, Northeastern University  
**Rev. Edward Rodman**, Ad Hoc Committee and NPRA External Board Member (1973)  
**Jamie Bissonette Lewey**, author of *When the Prisoners Ran Walpole* and former chair, Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission  
**Andrea James,** Founder and Executive Director, The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls & Founder of Families for Justice as Healing  
**Moderator: Toussaint Losier**, Associate Professor, W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, UMass-Amherst  
**Moderator: Tone the Organizer**, Black Lives Matter - Boston

####  5:00 – 6:00 PM | Reception

 *All panels and symposium events will take place in the Thompson Room (Barker Center 110).*

 This symposium is co-sponsored by the [American Friends Service Committee – Northeast Regional Office](https://afsc.org/office/northeast-region), the [Committee on Degrees in History & Literature](https://histlit.fas.harvard.edu/), the [Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics](https://ethics.harvard.edu/), the [FXB Center for Health and Human Rights](https://fxb.harvard.edu/), the [Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project](https://clinics.law.harvard.edu/plap/), the [Hutchins Center for African & African American Research](https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/), the [Inequality in America Initiative](https://inequalityinamerica.fas.harvard.edu/), the [Institute to End Mass Incarceration](https://endmassincarceration.org/), the [Mindich Program in Engaged Scholarship](https://publicservice.fas.harvard.edu/mpes), the [Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management](https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/wiener/programs/criminaljustice), and the [W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at UMass Amherst](https://www.umass.edu/afroam/events).

###  About the Series

 The Abolition series examines how the humanities - history, language, storytelling, and the imagination - informs the activism and vision of movement leaders.



 

 



 

 See also:- [ Abolition ](/event-series/abolition)
- [ Public ](/event-type/public)
 
 

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