Our third episode celebrating Women’s History Month feature includes co-hosts Dani Abdullah and Derek Ford discuss more of their women revolutionary heroes and an urgent segment of “Dispatches from Behind the Wire” where we hear from an inmate at Miami Correctional Facility about the horrendous and routine medical neglect he and his fellow inmates–including ICE detainees–face on a daily basis.
First, our Naptown Breakdown pinpoints two ways the state is preparing for possible social and political unrest. Gov. Mike Braun signed HB 1343, enabling him to command a police force that answers directly to him through our National Guard. Starting July 1, Braun can use these forces without the consent of local elected officials. The state of Indiana does not need even one more cop, especially here in Indianapolis with our regular increases to the police budget. This will give more money to the cops who tailed 17-year-old Trevion Taylor, a Black youth, and his friends after they left an anti-ICE protest at Warren Central School. They pulled the car over and immediately threatened to kill him. Out of the 11 cops involved, only one is under “internal investigation” for aggressively yelling “I will kill you!” at Taylor. As of the last reporting, the cop remains protected behind the shield of anonymity. Further, the officers involved have 809 uses of force incidents per the IMPD. We know that thanks not to the IMPD’s intentionally misnamed transparency portal but through MaskOff12.com.
Dani and Derek dive deeper into the prison boom in Indiana that’s flying under the radar of the mainstream press. When they broke ground in late 2023 on the New Northwest Correctional Facility, the budget already skyrocketed from $600,000 to $1.27 billion. DOC officials said it would replace the current Northwest Correctional Facility and the notorious Indiana State Prison just under 20 miles away in Michigan City. Now, DOC officials are walking that statement back. According to the Indianapolis Capital Chronicle, they intend to keep ISP fully operational for an indefinite period of time. That means they intend to lock even more of our neighbors for longer periods of time. The IDOC website makes perfectly clear, writing their “population numbers will go back up” and their “releases are decreasing.”
For the main segment, Dani and Derek share more of the women revolutionaries who inspire them the most. This week, Dani picked Nguyễn Thị Bình, who fought as a leader and diplomat during the French colonial occupation and later joined the National Liberation front (or Viet Cong), rising to join the Central Committee and to serve as Vice-Chairperson of the South Vietnamese Women’s Liberation Association. Once the Vietnamese won the war, she was part of the delegation to the Paris Peace Conference and is the sole woman who signed the 1973 Peace Accords officially declaring the Vietnamese triumph over U.S. imperialism. She is still politically active today.
Inspired by Haki Kweli Shakur, a New Afrikan organizer, historian, and fellow-member of the Shaka Shakur Freedom Campaign, Derek picked Queen Mother Audley Moore. Her life, which spanned from 1898 to 1997, witnessed a century of the Black (and later, New Afrikan) Liberation struggle in the U.S., and played a pivotal role in linking the earlier phase of the Black struggle in the 1920s-30s to the next iteration in the 1960s-1970s. Derek discusses the basics and social conditions of her political development, from her attraction Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association and her long membership in the Communist Party USA, which she joined after the International Communist Movement adopted the “Black Belt Thesis” in 1928. Within two years, she was one of the most important members of the CPUSA’s Upper Harlem Branch, a role she used to forefront the struggles of Black people and women. She built personal and political relationships with Claudia Jones and other leading Black women. However, as this progressive trend within the Party grew the Party leadership started downplaying the Black Belt Thesis, eventually liquidating the line altogether. She left in 1950 and the exact reasons remain unknown. After all, this was long after the Party retreated from their revolutionary line on Black and women’s liberation.
Dani and Derek discuss her key role in determining the designation of “New Afrikans.” As one former escort to Queen Mother recalled, she would often say: “Chinese are from China, Germans from Germany,” but there is no “Black country,” so our territorial basis for our nation is Afrika, but one formed throughout a particular social development. They also touch on the many ways she expressed her feminism, from her presence and command to her belief that the new nation should include polygamy and the right of men to marry multiple women. development. Finally, they touch on how the CP’s political form of organization continued to inform her organizing efforts throughout her life.
Stay with us for an urgent segment of “Dispatches from Behind the Wire,” where we speak directly with Jose “Danny” Ortiz who details the inhumane medical neglect he and his fellow inmates continue suffering at the Miami “Correctional” Facility’s medical ward. The Hoyt lifts have been down since December 2025. The first time Ortiz got out of his bed was for a visit in March where several guards had to help him into a wheel chair. Around 10 inmates have been impacted by this situation, which deprives them of attending church, interacting with fellow inmates, accessing the law library, participating in educational programs, and more. His fellow inmates are forced to lie in their own urine and fecal discharge for days.
Meanwhile, the ICE detainees don’t have access to toilets at all. The guards told them not to interact with the detainees, but in a minor yet significant act of solidarity they let them use their restrooms as they please. Their attempts to divide inmates are failing but this does nothing to alleviate the intense suffering of callous “Correctional Officers,” and prison administrators.
We can change this! See the show notes for a phone and email-zap campaign to ensure our people behind bars are treated with dignity and respect! This is a longstanding and easily-correctable issue. We won a minor victory after discovering an inmate subjected to similar treatment at the same prison in May 2025.
Events
Phone/Email Zap: End Medical Neglect at Miami Correctional Facility!
Pedagogy of the Oppressed Reading Group (pt. 2)
Sunday Liberation Center Yoga
Summer ’26: Intern with the Indianapolis Liberation Center
Show Notes
Support Naptown People’s Radio
Support the Indianapolis Liberation Center
Shop the Indy Liberation Store
Indianapolis Liberation Center
Featured photo: Nguyễn Thị Bình, Queen Mother Audley Moore, and Jose “Danny” Ortiz.