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Community Alliance June 2019 Fundraiser - KEEP FREE SPEECH ALIVE!

An event in support of the Community Alliance newspaper. KEYNOTE SPEAKER and recipient of this years Mike Rhodes Writers Award is BOSTON WOODARD, a jailhouse journalist for decades. There will be a cocktail buffet during the social hour with an opportunity to talk to the speakers and others in the progressive community.

Woodard has been writing about the prison systems failures and abuses for nearly three decades in both free world and prisoner publications. Woodard's writing embarrassed and angered prison officials. For exercising his First Amendment right to define his surroundings he was put in the hole/solitary confinement (administrative segregation), had his mail tampered with, was subjected to verbal threats, had his personal property stolen or destroyed, nearly died from medical neglect, and was illegally and adversely transferred from prison to prison.

Woodard has been a contributing writer for the Community Alliance newspaper since 2005. His book is Inside the Broken California Prison System is a compilation of his articles written for the newspaper while in prison. The book will be available for purchase at fundraiser. Woodard is currently working on a second book about notorious inmates who he met while serving time. Go to the Community Alliance website https://fresnoalliance.com/ and search: Boston Woodard to read his articles

Marvin Mutch, a formerly incarcerated prison reform activist and co-founder of both My Brothers Keepers and the Mens Advisory Council, a prisoner advocacy group which was first established inside San Quentin to represent the collective needs and grievances of California's prisoners. Mutch served 41 years of an indeterminate 7-year to life sentence for a wrongful conviction suffered in 1975. He was freed in February of 2016. Today, he is a criminal justice reform lobbyist.