Protest Hits CNN For Failure to Cover Prison Strike

Some 30 people gathered in front of the Time Warner Building at Columbus Circle in New York on Dec. 17 to protest the failure of television news channel CNN to cover a strike of prisoners across Georgia during that week. Demonstrators emphasized their solidarity with the unity of the Black, Latino, white and Native prisoners in raising demands for education, pay, medical care and decent working conditions, and pointed out how these were similar to demands by workers outside the prisons.

One of the demonstrators was Bob Zellner, a professor at the Southampton College of Long Island University who teaches the history of the Civil Rights Movement and related subjects. Zellner, shown above left, told Workers World he was one of the early activists in SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) in Georgia in the early 1960s. “I was arrested quite a few times in those days demonstrating against discrimination, and I spent some time on the Georgia chain gangs. Once I heard about the strike and that there would be a protest tonight, I had to come in from Long Island to participate.”

— Report and photo by John Catalinotto