Kevin "Rashid" Johnson (born October 3, 1971 in Richmond, Virginia) is a revolutionary, writer, artist, social activist, founding member of the

New Afrikan Black Panther Party The New Afrikan Black Panther Party (NABPP) is a Black Power Marxist–Leninist–Maoist organization in the United States, largely based out of the Red Onion State Prison in Wise County, Virginia and referred to as the New Afrikan Black P ...

, founding member of the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party (which split from the NABPP in December 2020), member of the

Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) is a prison-led section of the Industrial Workers of the World. Its purpose is 'a union for the incarcerated,' with the goal of abolishing prison slavery, as well as fighting to end the exploit ...

, and prisoner in the

Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC or ODRC) is the administrative department of the Ohio state government responsible for oversight of Ohio State Correctional Facilities, along with its Incarcerated Individuals. Ohio's pri ...

. Johnson, a former drug dealer, was convicted of murder in 1990 and sentenced to life in prison. He maintains that he is innocent and was wrongfully convicted.

Imprisonment

According to his official biography, he has spent some 18 years in solitary confinement, during which he studied law and subsequently filed a number of lawsuits against the prison system. In 2017, Johnson was transferred from the

Texas Department of Criminal Justice The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) is a department of the government of the U.S. state of Texas. The TDCJ is responsible for statewide criminal justice for adult offenders, including managing offenders in state prisons, state jails ...

to the

Florida Department of Corrections The Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) is the government agency responsible for operating state prisons in the U.S. state of Florida. It has its headquarters in the state capital of Tallahassee. The Florida Department of Corrections oper ...

for allegedly having a weapon in his cell, although he claims he was transferred as the result of "persistently publicizing the abuses of the Texas prison system". Johnson was charged with inciting a riot on January 10, 2018, after helping to organize a prison strike centered in Florida, and after publishing a related article on the anarchist website '' It's Going Down''. In the piece, entitled ''Florida Prisoners Are Laying It Down'', Johnson detailed what he views as the "objectionable conditions" of prisoners, including unpaid labor,

price gouging Price gouging is the practice of increasing the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair by some. This commonly applies to price increases of basic necessities after natural disaste ...

, and the "gain-time scam that replaced parole". Although the state of Florida maintains the strike never occurred, prison rights groups released statements claiming that "prisoners in more than a dozen facilities either went on strike or were preemptively punished to prevent them from doing so." Johnson's lawyers have alleged he was tortured in retaliation while held in

solitary confinement Solitary confinement (also shortened to solitary) is a form of imprisonment in which an incarcerated person lives in a single Prison cell, cell with little or no contact with other people. It is a punitive tool used within the prison system to ...

, and was confined in an unheated cell in freezing temperatures. In August 2021, a statement from the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party noted that Johnson had been moved from

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

to Ohio, where it was alleged that he had been threatened with

lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of i ...

and prevented from writing or communicating with supporters.

Writing and political views

Johnson is a frequent contributor to the newspaper ''

San Francisco Bay View The ''San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper'' is an online and print newspaper, published in San Francisco, California. It covers events from an African-American perspective, with a focus on Black liberation and coverage of what it cl ...

''. Johnson maintains that

prison labor Penal labour is a term for various kinds of forced labour that prisoners are required to perform, typically manual labour. The work may be light or hard, depending on the context. Forms of sentence involving penal labour have included invo ...

is a form of modern slavery, writing in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'':

At the end of the civil war in 1865 the 13th amendment of the US constitution was introduced. Under its terms, slavery was not abolished, it was merely reformed. Anybody convicted of a crime after 1865 could be leased out by the state to private corporations who would extract their labor for little or no pay. In some ways that created worse conditions than under the days of slavery, as private corporations were under no obligation to care for their forced laborers – they provided no healthcare, nutritious food or clothing to the individuals they were exploiting.

Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party

In December 2020, Johnson and five others declared they were splitting from the New Afrikan Black Panther Party, alleging that the leadership outside the prison system had "purged all critics" including most non-incarcerated members. Johnson said he would be forming a new "Revolutionary Intercommunal" Black Panther Party which would pursue

Huey P. Newton Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989) was an African American revolutionary and political activist who co-founded the Black Panther Party in 1966. He ran the party as its first leader and crafted its ten-point manifesto with ...

's ideology of Intercommunalism.

Publications

Books

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Articles

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Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Kevin Rashid 1971 births Living people African-American communists African-American feminists American Maoists American people convicted of murder American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment American revolutionaries Anti-revisionists Minority rights activists Prison abolitionists American prison reformers American male feminists American political party founders People convicted of murder by Virginia Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Virginia