Black People. A Nation Behind Bars. Smash Colonial Violence! Build the African National Prison Organization (ANPO). Attend the Nov. 18-19 Mass Meetings. [Drop title].

San Francisco: [African National Prison Organization], [1978]. 22-1/4 x 17-1/2 inches. Broadside. Cream stock printed in red and black. Light crease to lower corner; minor soiling; slight edgewear. Very Good.

A rare poster promoting two days of mass meetings held in San Francisco in November 1978, organized by the African National Prison Organization (ANPO). The poster features an illustration of a family made up of a Black woman, man, and child in a prison cell, with the lock plate of the cell door made up of fourteen stars, such that the image resembles an upside down American flag with vertical prison cell bars instead of horizontal stripes. Each day's schedule of events is printed in the red background between the bars on either side of the family.

ANPO grew out the campaign to free Dessie Woods and, like that campaign, was anti-colonialist in nature and included significant involvement from the African People's Socialist Party (APSP). A position paper issued by APSP on November 3, 1977, "On Building an African National Prison Organization," notes that the first meeting of what would become ANPO was held on September 4, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia, following a national mobilization to free Woods. At the meeting, five key principles were decided on for building ANPO: self determination, political independence, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and self defense. A host of proposals is offered in the paper, primarily focused on prison reform, political prisoners, and the abolition of the death penalty. (See https://www.freedomarchives.org.)

OCLC locates one holding at the University of Michigan, and we note one other at OMCA.