media & activism

August

Melvin Ray and Kinetik Justice founded F.A.M., the Free Alabama Movement, to protest mass incarceration, forced labor, and inhumane prison conditions in Alabama and across the nation.

December

F.A.M. begin publishing videos on a YouTube channel, exposing for the first time the horrific living conditions inside the ADOC (Alabama Department of Corrections).

January

Free Alabama Movement launches their first peaceful work strike, with labor stoppages at two major facilities. Kinetik Justice organizes the work stoppage at Holman Correctional Facility. The strike would last 21 days, and Kinetik would be placed in segregation for his organizing.

April

Three months later, they staged another work strike at the same facilities which received national coverage from Salon and MSNBC. While in solitary, Kinetik organizes a hunger strike to protest the unsanitary food.

Free Alabama Movement begin networking with prison labor organizers across the U.S., helping to form the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, the Free Mississippi Movement, and the Free Ohio Movement

May

Kinetik Justice and Melvin Ray stage a May Day labor strike, affecting five prisons in Alabama. They experience retaliation from ADOC, in the form of restricted feeding schedules. 

May

Kinetik Justice is interviewed on Democracy Now, live from his solitary cell, to discuss the Free Alabama Movement’s demands for prison reform.

August

Prison organizers across the U.S. hold a nationwide strike on the anniversary of the Attica prison uprising. Dozens of facilities across the country experience work stoppages. The Free Alabama Movement led a strike at the Holman Correctional Facility.

September

Kinetik Justice gives an interview live to Al Jazeera from his solitary cell to discuss Free Alabama Movement’s participation in the strike. Melvin is interviewed by Vice News.

October

Kinetik participates in a hunger strike to protest retaliation and his indefinite placement in solitary confinement.

April

Kinetik Justice and Melvin Ray participate in Al Jazeera’s in depth report on Alabama’s prison labor and Free Alabama Movement’s organizing efforts.

February

Kinetik’s family and activists protest his continuing placement in solitary confinement outside Limestone Correctional Facility.

September

Two years after the 2016 strike, organizers stage another nationwide prison strike, advocating for restoring voting rights. Kinetik is solitary confinement preemptively, along with Melvin Ray, diminishing their ability to lead the strike.

March

Kinetik initiates another hunger strike over ADOC’s unconstitutional use of solitary confinement.

June

As parole rates drop, Free Alabama Movement organizes a series of protests outside the Alabama board of Pardons and Paroles. They are protesting for parole reform.

February

Kinetik Justice is severely beaten by correctional officers after attempting to defuse an altercation with a mentally ill prisoner. He suffers permanent damage to his left eye, causing partial loss of sight.

September

After homicides and drug overdoses reach record highs in ADOC, Free Alabama Movement organizes a state-wide work strike, the largest in Alabama’s history. A majority of the facilities shutdown and the strike ends after three weeks of organizers enduring harsh retaliation by ADOC

November

Kinetik files a lawsuit against a prison gaurd, alleging they encouraged other prisoners to murder him in retaliation for his activism.

December

Kinetik files a class-action lawsuit against the state of Alabama alleging it’s prison labor system is a “modern-day form of slavery”

January

A documentary made in collaboration with Kinetik Justice and Melvin Ray, The Alabama Solution, premieres at the Sundance Film Festival. It’s described as “one of the most powerful exposés of the inhumanity of the American prison system.”