Kite Line

Kite Line is a radio program devoted to prison issues around the Midwest and beyond. Behind the prison walls, a message is called a kite: whispered words, a note passed hand to hand, or a request submitted to the guards for medical care. Illicit or not, sending a kite means trusting that other people will bear it farther along till it reaches its destination. On the show, we hope to pass along words across the prison walls.

November 7, 2025: The Grassroots Fight Against the Local Jail

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 39.9MB)Subscribe: RSS | MoreEarlier this fall, the grassroots organization Care Not Cages won a decisive victory against the large new jail proposed for Monroe County.  Ignoring financial warnings and public outcry, county officials were moving forward with selecting a greenfield site northwest of Bloomington for jail construction, until mobilization at …

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October 3, 2025: The Prison Struggle of Martin Sostre

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.9MB)Subscribe: RSS | MoreAfter decades of neglect, Martin Sostre is finally receiving his due as a pioneer of prisoner organizing and Black anarchism.  Garrett Felber’s powerful biography, A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre, excavates his many contributions as well as the work of his support committee in …

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August 29, 2025: Melting ICE- Organizing Against the Raids in Los Angeles

Podcast: Play in new window | Download ()Subscribe: RSS | MoreThis episode focuses on the ICE raids still accelerating across the country, and the resistance spreading in response. We speak with K, an organizer in Los Angeles, who reflects on the ICE invasion and the movement against it, which has become a beacon for struggles across the US. Since Trump’s …

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January 17, 2025: Tip of the Spear with Orisanmi Burton

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:48 — 87.7MB)Subscribe: RSS | MoreThis week, we interview Orisanmi Burton on his book Tip of the Spear- Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt. The Attica prison uprising was a monumental rupture emerging out of the movements for black liberation of the 60s. Burton reflects on his conversations with …

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January 3, 2025: More From the Pittsburgh Anti-Repression Convergence

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.9MB)Subscribe: RSS | MoreThis week we return to the Pittsburgh Anti-Repression Convergence. From this unprecedented cop city RICO indictment to the nation-wide retaliation against students and others protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the repression of social movements has become a shared experience for activists across North America. In this …

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November 22, 2024: Addicted to Losing

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:45 — 51.9MB)Subscribe: RSS | MoreFrom this unprecedented cop city RICO indictment to the nation-wide retaliation against students and others protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the repression of social movements has become a shared experience for activists across North America. In this context, the Pittsburgh Anti-Repression Convergence (or, PARC) was organized …

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October 18, 2024: Organizing Everywhere

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.9MB)Subscribe: RSS | More“Organizing Everywhere” was a panel discussion at Redbud Books organized by the Monroe County anti-jail activist group, Care Not Cages. It convened four organizers involved in related struggles: two organizing against new county jails in Indiana, one in Fort Wayne and one in Bloomington; one Kentucky-based activist …

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October 11, 2024: Loretta Pierre and the Fight for Parole

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.9MB)Subscribe: RSS | MoreThe Mississippi Five are the last remaining women sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after ten years, before Mississippi virtually abolished parole in 1995. Although they have been parole-eligible for three decades, the state has routinely denied their release without reasonable justification. They have been …

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August 9, 2024: Shoving From All Sides

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.9MB)Subscribe: RSS | MoreIn this episode we air a recording from the final talk of the Pittsburgh Anti-Repression Convergence, which served as a space for activists, political prisoner supporters, and former political prisoners to strategize against repression in the context of social movements, with an eye towards total liberation for …

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July 5, 2024: Resisting the Rise of State Violence

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.9MB)Subscribe: RSS | MoreThis week, we are sharing a piece created for Montreal community radio station CKUT, on the show Other Worlds on Earth. The piece provides an excellent analysis of the case against Krystal and Peppy, two organizers in Pittsburgh targeted by the FBI and who are alleged to …

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