Most of the prisoners took this display in stride. It was viewed as everyday and regular because of the type of corrosive environment that was cultivated there. Prisoners there see death and violence brought by “correctional staff” on a regular basis. Records will show how often people are killed there with “undetermined” autopsy results. Somehow murder at the hands of the uniformed officers isn’t murder.

To date, these officers have faced no consequences for their actions. They are still employed and overseeing the prisoners in which they terrorized regularly. How do correctional staff teach accountability when they themselves commit crimes with impunity? Administrators turn a blind eye and support these ideals because it helps maintain control. 

The changes necessary at SCI-Rockview won’t happen without the everyday people, the tax payers that fund the prison, speaking out and acting out against the atrocities that have become everyday in their name. By not speaking against them, you’re enabling and supporting their actions. Your inaction allows the racial and hateful violence to live and breed. How many more people have to die at the hands of these murderers before you speak up and say that this isn’t what we’re funding? Til you speak up a nd say that this isn’t okay and we’re against this?

Kaona Colibri

[Alejandro Rodriguez-Ortiz]

by some abolitionists in L.A.

What is Peace Policing?

This is a term for individuals whose self-appointed role at political demonstrations is to regulate the conduct of protestors in the name of “protecting” them, serving as the police’s representatives within the crowd. We call these practices policing because that is their function. Peace policing strips protests of power. Peace policing is also tactically dangerous. This is where the figure of the protest marshal comes in. Protest marshals are an extension of riot police. Protest marshals are the police state’s keffiyeh-wearing (“safe, welcoming physical presence” as the Department of Justice puts it) front line against the people. Peace policing is a weapon of counterinsurgency. The goal is to divert, redirect, and contain the people’s insurgent energy into protests that the state can tolerate.

Zine download options:

Screen reading:

Formatted for printing (use settings: horizontal, double sided, short-edge bind)

Since 2017, True Leap publishing collective has facilitated a Zine Distro that creates and mails free radical zines for people locked up in U.S. prisons and jails. Unfortunately, our printing rotation and distribution network cannot sustain itself given the limited funds/resources we have. We are asking for help to raise $1000, to pay rent-owed to the print shop we work from and to continue gathering the materials we need for this year’s run. This will ensure we can keep moving, remain consistent, and reply to orders in a timely fashion. We have already filled over two dozen orders in the first week of 2024.

Despite ongoing censorship, increasing mail digitization, and obstacles posed by racist/homophobic/transphobic content bans, this year we still mailed hundreds of zines to readers in over a dozen states. We also have printed an inordinate amount of zines this past year for local collectives and events supporting prison activism, including letter writing nights, study groups, and community forums. 

The primary goal of this project is to serve as a reliable point of access for people who are locked up to receive literature on critical topics and subject-matter. Offering this literature at no charge is also a key part of our praxis, as abolitionists working in traditions of revolutionary solidarity and prisoner support. 

While we continue to prepare for this year’s run, our collective is asking for your support to sustain the following tasks and infrastructure:

Printer toner:  $200

P.O. Box fee/ stamps:   $300

Rent owed to print shop $400

GTL/phone/correspondence costs $100

If you would like to contribute funds toward the printing and distribution of radical zines for readers in prison and jail, you can send money to the following links:

paypal: [email protected]

paypal.me: @abolitionfundrazing

venmo: @zinemachine

if you would like to make a cash donation, we can be reached by mail at

True Leap Press: Prison Zine Distro, P.O. Box 6045 Concord, CA 94524

To learn more about the distro, please check out our 2024 digital catalog. The introduction explains what we’ve been up to the past year!

We are sharing these materials (anti-copyright), for study and widening access to autonomous printing and distribution.

( If you enjoy these zines, please check out the catalog of our Prison Zine Distro and the new local East Bay publication Bay Area Newsreel )

True Leap is a mostly informal radical publishing collective, originally based in the Midwest and currently hosts a P.O. Box in the East Bay. We have a journal project that is temporarily on hiatus, and we host a zine distro that creates, prints, and circulates print materials specifically for imprisoned people and autonomous groups fighting against the prison-police state. The materials in our catalog have been curated by revolutionary abolitionists who are engaged in resistance from within U.S. gulags and use the materials to organize study groups in facilities across multiple states. Heavy input has also been provided by friends with extensive experience in “outside” support roles.

The new ’24 catalog introduction contains update and writing in reflection on the past two years, with news on what to expect from us moving forward and instructions on how to make requests from the catalog or find the support you need. We are sharing publicly to increase access to our collections for organizers. We are sharing what is permissible by authors and security purposes. If you know someone inside prison who can benefit from receiving a catalog and some zines, please feel free to print/mail this in, or send us their snail-mail address to [email protected].

Screen reading version :

imposed for print :

When requesting zines from prison/jail/detention (or for someone who is imprisoned) there are two options:

1. Choose a theme from our “topics” list to learn more about. The list is included in the catalog. Upon request, we will send zines on the chosen topic(s).

OR…

2. List the specific title and # from the catalog list for order. Please only pick 3 zines max. per order.

Digital Table

We do not sell these materials – they are reproduced and shared anti-copyright for public educational purposes. Not all items below are original works. When printing, please adjust computer settings to ‘double-sided’, ‘short-edge bind’ and use 8.5” X 11” paper for best quality.

❀ some things to keep in mind

Published in January, this zine offers an introduction into the topic of censorship and book banning in U.S. prisons, as well as some ideas toward how to build a larger campaign and autonomous movement against it. 

Contributors include: Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, JoNina Abron-Ervin, Oakland Abolition and Solidarity, Midwest Books to Prisoners, Wayland “X” Coleman, Steven J. Levy, Panda Insurgente, Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity, True Leap Zine Distro, and South Chicago ABC Zine Distro; with front cover art by SKS-Heruglyphx.

We are all part of a growing coalition seeking to band together and coordinate a campaign against prison censorship and book bans.

Hundreds of thousands of books, magazines and other materials are currently banned in prisons. Simultaneously many prison systems are increasing their grip over correspondence, seeking to block physical mail altogether and replace it with scans or tablet based messaging; both of which are tools facilitating surveillance and control. These moves are similar to what is going down with oppressive legislatures, school districts, and mainstream media throttling what can be taught, read, and discussed. 

At the moment, efforts to push back against censorship and book banning are disconnected and uncoordinated; from one author somewhere suing to get their book in, to someone locked up over their filing a grievance against a mailroom block. Of course, there are many groups already resisting, involved in their own locally situated struggles. The basic idea encouraged by this zine is to connect these different struggles together into a stronger constellation of abolitionist insurgency. Some contributors also touch on the link between book bans in prison and the escalation of racist, homophobic, and transphobic bans by other state institutions, including schools and libraries. Three of the contributors listed by name are currently imprisoned.

This is the first in a series of publications that we hope can provide a forum for discussion and debate around the politics, principles, strategies/tactics, and trajectory of abolitionist struggles against censorship and book banning. Copies of the zine have been printed and distributed to imprisoned people across several states, accompanied with a survey. Please print it out, share it with friends, mail it to people you know who are locked up, and join us in building this campaign.

If you are part of a crew that is already engaged in such struggles and have updates on your own fight against book bans, mail scanning, and other forms of information censorship (including writing, emails, library use, creative expression, study, etc.), please reach out and share updates to be included in future issues of this zine series.

True Leap publishing collective

[email protected]

THIS CATALOG IS NO LONGER IN PRINT OR OF USE IN CIRCULATION. WE ARE CURRENTLY CREATING A WEBPAGE THAT WILL HOST THE 2024 CATALOG WITH PDF DOWNLOAD OPTIONS FOR ALL ORIGINAL TLP ZINES ~ TO BE MADE PUBLIC IN DECEMBER.

text from 12/2022 post:

Below is the digital (printable) version of our 2022 Zine Catalog. We only mail orders to people in prison, jail, or detention. If you would like us to mail a catalog to a loved one or contact who is imprisoned, please send their address to [email protected] or have them write us at True Leap Press (cc: Zine Distro) PO Box 6045 Concord CA 94524.

The catalog is digitized below for your printing/sharing. Previous years’ catalogs can be found archived on our homepage, as well as some sample selections of zines we’ve carried over the years.

Our extended 2022-23 catalog additions can be found here

Recently, our P.O. Box has been relocated to Concord, California. All requests for literature and questions can be directed to True Leap Press Zine Distro, P.O. Box 6045 Concord, CA 94524.

with a reader’s manual and suggestions for organizing study groups around this pamphlet in your circles, community, and across prison walls.

To the Ones Who Can Fly: A Message from the Whirlwind aims to foster a culture of Black revolutionary learning, healing and movement building that advances the liberation of the most marginal.

We have four guidelines for the correct use of this document: study, solidarity, spirit, and struggle. 

1. Study

Get some homegorls/homies. Two to five other Kats. More if you’re cool with that. Form a political education circle. 

At the end of the text are some resources you can learn from while you read the Message. Dive into everything. 

Ask each other who the author is. What is their community and environment? How do they relate to their context? What is the conflict and antagonism being addressed by the text? What does the author and their movement want to achieve? How are they trying to get to those goals? Why is what is being said important to them or to us?

These questions can help you go over the different historical, cultural, political ideas raised by all of them, together.

Strive to use your study to arrive at a cohesive ideological, theoretical, material, and historical understanding of the conditions that Black people, especially Black trans people are facing. 

Take your time. Don’t rush and don’t pressure yourself.

Finally, look up the Flying African myths. Try to create artwork like visuals, performances, music, poetry, rap based off the flying African myths. Use this to help you remember and communicate what you have learned from your studies of Message from the Whirlwind. Have fun.

2. Solidarity 

The Message from the Whirlwind is to be distributed into the prisons and on the streets, for no cost.

Anyone reading it from the outside should get a crew and start writing letters to our incarcerated kinfolk, especially Black trans and queer folk. 

How to send this zine into prison and jails?

Mailing the Message to someone in prison takes only a few items: one medium sized booklet envelope (5 1/2 x 8 1/2) and two to three stamps. Most facilities accept white envelopes with black ink, and if you write a letter enclosed with the zine please be sure to use white paper (no stationary) with black ink as well. This is to minimize the chance of rejection, as mailroom censors are often strict.

Unfortunately, the price of supplies is unrealistic for many. So if you are unable to obtain your own materials, True Leap Press has offered to mail the zine to an imprisoned contact for you, at no charge. Requests to mail this zine to a prisoner you already know can be sent to [email protected]. If you are Black and do not already have contact with someone incarcerated, reach out to this email address as well, and our friends can match you with someone. 

What does collective study with an imprisoned pen-pal look like?

When engaging study across bars, there are a few simple things to keep in mind when you are exchanging words and ideas.

First, be sure you are operating through a consensus-model of decision making with your incarcerated contact. Moving from consensus is key to not overstepping your comrade’s boundaries. This also includes finding out what things your comrade likes to to hear, write, talk about. 

Second, avoid writing in a way that may provoke retaliation by guards. This could happen regardless of what words you choose. This also might not even be a concern for your comrade on the other side of the wall. However, it is important to consult your contact and ask them for their comfort level with regards to language and materials shared. Staying mindful of censors does not mean water down your analysis, nor does it mean share less revolutionary content. It simply means at times you will be forced to use less obvious language to describe a given point. This means working together with your pen-pal/contact to ensure their safety through the course of study, coming to consensus around best practices to beat the censor’s odds. 

Another word of advice is DO NOT OVERTHINK THE PROCESS. After all, you are building conciousness together with comrades trapped in the belly of a colonial settler state. The very act of maintaining a relationship of solidarity with someone locked up is defiance, especially in the instance of sustaining care and political community with Black trans prisoners. If you are feeling stuck here, maybe you can write poems, rhymes, stories based off the flying African myths to your pen pal, something entertaining or relaxing that might ease the pressure of the letter writing experience. Writing in group settings can also be a great source of encouragement. 

Final things to keep in mind:

For the most part, you are not going to be able to send things with stickers, markers, crayons, glue, construction paper, etc. inside. This does not mean, however that you can’t create such materials with other Kats, especially with kids and young folk, as part of keeping engaged in prisoners’ struggles. Plenty of comrades create graphics for use offline and online, including with inspirational slogans, to raise awareness about the things Black folk, especially Black trans folk go through behind bars. Of course, never share information or the likeness/image of your pen pal unless they give consent to it. Even then, be mindful of what information should not be made public (such as your trans comrade’s deadname, certain details of their legal experience, etc.). 

With that in mind, understand that some prisons will require you to include your pen pal’s deadname ON THE ADDRESS of the envelope. This may not be true in all cases, but it is an unfortunate part of prisoner solidarity work at times with trans comrades. Never use someone’s deadname (government name/given name/slave name) in your direct correspondence with them, or when talking about them to others. Respecting our comrades’ right to self-determination by honoring their chosen names and pronouns (if they use pronouns) is essential to the work of this Message. The address of the envelope will be the only place you use their deadname (government name. Legal name, given name, slave name) and simply as a way to navigate delivering materials. 

Additionally, always include a return address on the envelope. If there is no return address on the envelope, it may get disposed of or sent back to you, and therefore never reach your comrade(s) on the inside. If you yourself do not have an address to include, perhaps coordinate with one of your study partners or a family member or some other Kat you know and ask to use their address. 

3. Spirit

The Message talks about some heavy subjects. Sometimes radical work can be exhausting. We want people to find time to rest and reflect. 

The text is broken up with negro spirituals about flight, because the flying African myth comes from Black religious traditions. Use them to invoke a sense of escape, relaxation.

If this is not for you, take time to honor our transcestors in ritual. You can pour a libation and recite the words at the end of the Message (ex. “for those forgotten and unprotected”). 

But one does not have to use the songs or ritual to reflect on the themes of the Message, especially if you are someone who doesn’t hold any beliefs. You can also just take time to yourself, to do some breathing exercises, and meditate on the idea of a ‘Whirlwind’ that many Black radicals, from Marcus Garvey to the BLA have discussed. Think about how this whirlwind (or your breath) allows Black trans folk to fly.

Some people might combine the spirituals with ancestor reverence and the breathing meditation on the whirlwind. 

Do what allows you to be able get in touch with your inner self and nurture that feeling of escape. Imagine what it’s like to fly and go beyond.

4. Struggle

Form networks or join organizations so that you can be accountable to a community of folk applying what you learn to practical forms of resistance.

We must oppose the carceral state, racial capitalism, and military/imperial domination of African people worldwide, and specifically destroy the ways that Black/Trans Autonomy is blocked by queerphobic and ableist institutions and practices both from within and outside Black life. 

The politics of the Message is an approach that:

1) integrates anti-hierarchy politics with 2) an understanding of how all forms of domination are interlocking oppressions, and 3) emphasizes the need for a class conscious struggle against the colonial forces imperiling African people (and which made transphobia and ableism global in the first place). Build accordingly. Look to the history of Marsha P Johnson in STAR and Kuwasi Balagoon of the BLA for contemporary Black revolutionary QTGNC thought and practice to implement. 

Academics and all others placed in bourgeois institutions should be leery of trying to engage in the praxis of Study, Solidarity, Spirit, and Struggle in relationship to Message From the Whirlwind. We do not want to see any co-option, or any links drawn between the Message and an individual career-track. Before hasting to bring/reference the Message + its praxis in these settings, put material support to working class and incarcerated Black trans folk and organizations. 

Follow the leadership of the most vulnerable engaging with the Message in Study, Solidarity, Spirit, Struggle—by passing your access, resources, the mic, etc over to them. Help them develop cultures of learning and movement building on their terms, that are outside of the dictates of the academy and other industrial complexes. 

by the Lewis Lemon Committee for Revolutionary Abolition