Diane Lopez Hughes: Looking Back on Jail

Pace e Bene trainer Diane Lopez Hughes was sentenced to 45 days in prison for taking nonviolent action calling for the closure of the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia.  She was released on Tuesday, March 11.

At this point in time, I’ve been out of jail almost as many days as I was in jail for crossing the line at the School of the Americas in November, 2007. 

Most likely I jumped back into a life of activism here in Springfield, Illinois sooner than advisable. 

It’s hard to stay out of the picture for too long:  the opportunities for telling the SOA story to high school, college and church groups, organizing vigils and writing letters to the editor to close the School are just too important to pass up.  But there is a crying need for time and space for some deep breaths and a good deal of processing.  I know this now. 

And I tell myself that I probably need more time in jail to learn this and other lessons remaining.  It’s sort of like having another run through with a second pregnancy, which happens to be an accurate analogy for my jail experience in general. 

And in the midst of an overfilled life-as-usual, I just learned that a former cell mate, C, is probably being released today but has nowhere to go, no money, no identification, and no one to help her.  While I can’t imagine what that must feel like, and feel frustrated that I have gotten some of the information she needs but can’t get it to her, I know the desire to just get out of that place. 

I want her – and everyone there — to have something better, and I know how hard that will be to find. 

So, with the aid of a legible-enough journal, I look back on some of my experiences in the Muscogee County Jail. 

Yard Call! – Muscogee County Jail 

Out by oh eight hundred
in no later than nine
and only if it’s sixty degrees or above,
and only Monday through Friday.
In the yard, there’s
nothing green to see, to touch -
just a montage in gray:
gray floor, ceiling, walls, razor wire, even sky;
gray breeze moves damp
through an opening shorter than a littleperson –
and yet
the air is fresh, the breeze a memory of freedom. 

2/25/08 
 
 
Today, trying to find a local resource in case C called, I reached W, one of the week-enders (serves her sentence from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon.)  God, it was good to here her voice – the first person I’ve spoken with from jail – and feel that connection.  Isn’t it funny?  Only forty five days of my life, and the intensity can be felt in the depth of my heart.  How does that happen?  Stories told, relationships formed, common bonds sought and nurtured, indignities commiserated – for that time it was the world.

Jail Blessings – Muscogee County Jail 

Rising at 4 am – not a blessing –
thanking God for another day of breath;
getting through dorm cleaning
without a spat;
the Word, for hope and challenge;
heartfelt hymns remind us whose we are.
After breakfast, perhaps
another hour of quiet and soft lights
before six a.m. head count -
the guards who do not yell or berate -
cherished sleep, if it comes; if not,
legs to walk, arms to stretch,
eyes to read,
books delivering us
from drab-cemented monotony.
Visits:  cards, letters televiewer,
for some, phone calls home;
contact with those we wish to see again.
Those sisters
bringing depth and dignity here;
the love of those we love;
prayers from those who pray for us;
hope inspired by mutual support;
patience in waiting;
peace in the promise of community. 

2/21/08 

 

As I share my impressions of doing nonviolent civil resistance and spending time in jail, I urge anyone who will listen to get involved in prison/jail justice by corresponding with inmates and see the connection between economic injustice and the prison industrial complex.  And, more specifically, as I currently fast to close the SOA, I also implore folks to contact their Congressman to co-sponsor or at least vote for HR 1707, which suspends the activities of the School while it is investigated. 

Pace e Bene! 

- Diane Lopez Hughes