
Mapping the Legacy of Prison Hunger Strikes in Texas
"I'm willing to die for the cause, because I can't live."
Since 1954
"I'm willing to die for the cause, because I can't live."
Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr is currently serving six life sentences for participating in a murder, rape, and torture ring when he was a teenager.
Archives of survival hold the power to transform beliefs about revenge, retribution, and the carceral state.
In Texas, dying in jail is “par for the course.”
I receive phone calls from distraught friends inside complaining of unbearable heat, uncontrollable outbreaks, and paltry diets.
Many prisons, especially in the South, are named after racist officials and former plantations.
People approved for parole in the Texas prison system already waited months to start programs required for their release. Coronavirus is making some wait even longer.
The Observer identified at least nine Texas counties where current prison cases make up more than 10 percent of the total COVID-19 cases in the county.
Families of prisoners and civil rights groups call the new policies arbitrary, punitive, and isolating for people behind bars.
Russell Johnson’s sister warned officials that nearly three years in solitary confinement had broken him. His suicide in isolation two months later points to compounded crises inside Texas prisons.