On Monday, March 27th, I went with a carful of people to Boston to a bond hearing for 3 Migrant Justice organizers arrested by ICE two weeks ago. Migrant Justice is based in Burlington, VT, and advocates for immigrant and farmworker rights, especially on Vermont dairy farms . It seems clear that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was targeting these young people because they are human rights leaders. In the car, I was sitting next to a man named Austin, a student at Middlebury College (VT) who is involved with Migrant Justice, so I interviewed him. In Boston at the rally, there are a few minutes of recordings of speeches and chants. Our goal was to put pressure on the judge to release, or lower the bond for, Alex Carrillo, Enrique Balcazar, and Zully Palacios.

I made a sign that said “Fugitive Slave Act of 2017?! Which side of history are you on?” Earlier this week I was at a Sanctuary in the Streets training where Margaret(?) gave some history about abolitionist tactics in the mid-1800s in MA. The history was presented with a disclaimer that slavery was a different beast than our current economic situation. But still, there are parallels.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made it federal law that people in the non-slave holding states were still required to aid in the capture of people who had escaped slavery. In 1850, northern anti-slavery people argued that non-slave states shouldn’t be forced to pay taxes to support the south’s institution of slavery. (I hear echoes of Trump’s new budget proposal and the wall on the Mexico border.)

One strategy of northern states was to refuse to let their jails be used as detention centers. Perhaps we can do that with Franklin Co Jail, in Greenfield, where ICE has recently paid $3million dollars to the state to regularly imprison 75 people who are said to have entered the country illegally. (Greenfield Recorder, Feb 23, 2017)

Visit the 4-story hanging potted plant in the middle stairwell of the Arts and Industry building, 240 Pine St, Florence! Pablo and I admire it.

Duane and I take a visit to Historic Northampton to view the States of Incarceration exhibit. Co-director of HN, Betty Sharpe, explains the exhibit and her role. Duane shares personal stories – like cooking in the jail for then-governor Michael Dukakis, and the giant plate of melted cheese.

John Paul Tademe, who is couchsurfing at my house, is here from Ghana to participate in the Valley Venture Mentors entrepreneurship program in Springfield. He and his co-founders are creating an internet-based way to connect people who need work done with tradespeople. Trabapido is the 3rd business he has started. He said he has been an entrepreneur since he was a boy in Ghana, cracking stones for sale or selling kerosene.

Happy International Women’s Day! We have a recorded word from my friend Akesa Mafi, who came with her co-workers from Paolo Freire Charter school in Holyoke, to the women’s march/rally in Northampton today.

AND – We have special guest appearances by Amiee Ross and Paige Bridgens, who, together with myself, tell some of our stories of being naturally bearded ladies.  Says Amiee, “I don’t really care for the word ‘lady’ — unless it’s preceded by the word ‘bearded.'”         CatBerry calls into the radio station in solidarity.      (This is not on the show, but that night I ran into Susan Stinson [Ep 75] coming out of the library, and she laughingly mentioned when she first met Amiee [the most bearded of us all] outside the post office, and Amiee was like, “Hey, Beard-o!”)

Last week Jada Tarbutton Springfield came into the studio (see previous episode) but we had so much more to say, she came back again this week. She talks about her witnessing and experiencing racism as part of her tenant’s association at her apartment building in Northampton – all rising to the surface because of her effort to get recycling in her building.