Peace and Justice Community Summit Saturday

Please forward widely and attend! All community members are welcome.

Peace & Justice Community Summit: Saturday, July 31,
2004, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the First Unitarian
Church, 685 14th Street in Oakland, (near 12th Street BART)

PRESS ADVISORY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 5, 2004
Contact: Linda Evans, All of Us or None, 510-219-0297
Dorsey Nunn, All of Us or None, 415-516-9599

Former Prisoners Organize to Fight Discrimination
New Civil Rights Movement Born in Oakland


Oakland, CA -- A new civil rights movement is being
born in the streets of Oakland. For the first time
ever, people with felony convictions are organizing to
fight against the discrimination they face after they
are released from prison. That discrimination includes
barriers to employment, housing, and social services,
and denial of access to former prisoners’ own
children.

This new civil rights movement’s name is All of Us or
None. All of Us or None is a national, grassroots
group dedicated to building political power for people
in communities devastated by mass incarceration.



On July 31, at the First Unitarian Church in Oakland,
former prisoners and their families will come together
to dialogue with elected officials and other community
leaders at a groundbreaking Peace & Justice Community
Summit.

The Peace & Justice Community Summit will address the
many barriers to re-entry that people confront when
coming out of prison. “Discrimination against people
with felony convictions has moved from ugly private
practices into accepted public policy,” says Dorsey
Nunn, Program Director at Legal Services for Prisoners
with Children, and a co-founder of All of Us or None.
“We must endure life-long punishment for crimes
committed years ago, even though we have suffered the
punishment of prison. We say, ‘Enough is Enough’: when
our prison sentences are over, we should be accepted
back into our communities and given equal
opportunities and support for our re-entry.”



Speakers at the Summit will focus on how sending so
many people to prison has impacted families and our
communities, and they will tell policy-makers about
the specific changes that former prisoners and their
families are demanding. Formerly-incarcerated people
will testify about:

one-strike evictions from public housing,
the lifetime welfare and foodstamp ban that drug
felons face in California,
fast-track adoptions and barriers to family
reunification,
discrimination in public and private employment,
deportations of immigrants and how deportations tear
families apart,
the impact of youth incarceration and felony
convictions.
Former prisoners will also present specific
recommendations for policy changes at local, state,
and federal levels of government.



In a letter inviting elected officials and community
leaders to participate in the Summit, Keith Carson,
Alameda County Supervisor, writes, “There is a need
for elected officials and policy makers to do a better
job of facilitating a successful transition for those
who have been convicted of committing crimes and paid
their debt to society into our neighborhoods so we can
sustain healthy communities…. At this point we are not
successfully engaging those who have been convicted of
committing crimes in the past to develop a system that
will prevent criminal activity in the future.”



The public is urged to attend the Peace & Justice
Community Summit: Saturday, July 31, 2004, from 10
a.m. to 2 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church, 685 14th
Street in Oakland. Childcare and a community lunch
will be provided. This Summit is being sponsored by
All of Us or None, and Keith Carson, District 5
representative on the Alameda County Board of
Supervisors.





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