Calling All Crows, a nonprofit organization for musicians and music-lovers wanting to create social change through hands-on activism, is conducting its second of eight livestream concert fundraisers to educate the public on the rising pandemic of mass incarceration within the United States. As of now, one in two adults has immediately family members locked away and as much as one in three women face housing displacement as a result of an incarcerated family member. Those numbers are staggeringly high. Thus, Calling All Crows has partnered with Nine Athens Music to bring about the traveling Unlocked Voices online concert series, combatting criminalization through music.
With awareness, we can improve the lives of women, girls, LGBTQI/LWHIV people everywhere.
Focusing on how mass incarceration affects women, the Unlocked Voices concert series migrates north to Boston from its inaugural Tennessee locale, taking place at the ONCE ballroom in Somerville, MA on October 8th, 2020. In between anecdotes and testimonies will be live performances by Boston natives Anjimile, Hawthorn, Will Dailey, Ripe, Brandie Blaze and Chadwick Stokes (of Dispatch). The livestream is entirely free, albeit with suggested donation, with proceeds going to Black & Pink Boston and the MultiFaith Initiative to End Mass Incarceration.
Calling All Crows co-founder Chadwick Stokes comments on the second event: “We started the Unlocked Voices campaign with the MultiFaith Initiative to End Mass Incarceration because we believe that mass incarceration is the key racial and civil rights struggle of our generation and we want to support musicians and music fans in finding their voice and their role in this fight. Sometimes people get complacent living in Massachusetts and point to other states as the evil oppressors of Black and brown people, but we have a lot of work to do right here. Black & Pink is an incredible leader that we feel lucky to march and make art alongside.”
Black & Pink representatives further add, “Our most urgent work involves housing support and court support for LGBTQI/LWHIV people. Due to COVID-19, there is more demand than ever for housing support for formerly incarcerated and court involved Queer & HiV+ people. Black & Pink Boston has been able to support six people, thus far, in paying their first month’s rent and we are committed to supporting more of our siblings when we have funds to do so. Court support is the practice of just being with someone through the terrible and dehumanizing experience that is a court appearance. It’s also a chance to connect members to a network of other LGBTQI/LWHIV people who get what they’re going through as they navigate the violence of the court system and to help assess other help they may need.”
Watch this one-of-a-kind live online performance this Thursday, October 8th from 5 PM PDT – 7 PM PDT via the links below.
Join the cause:
Watch the Unlocked Voices Massachusetts virtual benefit concert:
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