Originally published in the Winter 2024 edition of the Virginia Defender, issue 74, printed February 21. Reproduced here for accessibility and archival purposes. To find other stories in the Winter 2024 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For other issues dating back to 2012, see the Full Issues page.

By Phil Wilayto

Last year, a lot of incarcerated folks in Virginia thought the General Assembly had passed a law banning the use of solitary confinement in the state’s prisons. That was not the case. In fact, the law that was passed actually made the situation worse in some important ways.

Fed up, a group of men at the notorious Red Onion Supermax prison in far-western Wise County decided to take matters into their own hands.

On Dec. 26, they started a hunger strike. At least 14 and as many as 30 prisoners may have taken part. In addition to demanding an end to long-term solitary, several had particular demands of their own.

The Defenders had been planning to hold a press conference on Jan. 10, the opening day of the 2024 General Assembly, to try and get the GA’s attention on prison issues. When we heard about the hunger strike, we decided to combine the press conference with a support rally, which we held in front of Richmond City Hall, across Broad Street from the new GA building.

Defenders Ana Edwards, Joseph Rogers and Phil Wilayto spoke, followed by an Open Mic.

And there was a special added feature: We teamed up with the folks who garnered worldwide attention during the 2020 George Floyd protests for projecting antiracist images onto Richmond’s Robert E. Lee statue.

This time, they projected slogans and images onto the front of the GA building: “Prison Justice Now,” “Support the Red Onion Hunger Strikers,” “End Solitary Confinement” and “Stop Guard Brutality,” as well as images, including a self-portrait by hunger striker and longtime prisoner activist Kevin “Rashid” Johnson.

The action resulted in coverage about the strike in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond Free Press, (Harrisonburg) Daily News Record and Virginia Public Media’s Radio IQ.

Then we wrote to the 14 strikers whose names and prison numbers we had; brought up the hunger strike at a GA House subcommittee meeting where we were asked to testify in support of bill promoting more transparency about deaths in custody; sent emails to the delegates who had supported that bill, asking them to contact Department of Corrections Director Chadwick Dotson about the hunger strike; and sent an Open Letter to Dotson, signed by more than three dozen organizations and individuals, calling for transparency about the hunger strike and especially Rashid’s condition. (See the Open Letter here.)

We also put together a fact sheet about Rashid’s case (see the fact sheet here) and sent it to key reporters in Virginia and are sending it to all 140 state legislators.

As the Defender goes to press, we have yet to hear from VADOC Director Chadwich Dotson.

Stay tuned.