STANDING OUR GROUND WEEK OF ACTION: JULY 25 – AUGUST 1, 2014
Raising Our Voices against Reproductive Oppression, Gender Violence, & Mass Incarceration
Jacksonville, FL & Everywhere!
The Free Marissa Now Mobilization Campaign is partnering with SisterSong and many other grassroots groups to host Standing Our Ground Week of Action, a celebration of exercising our civil and human dignity rights. Hundreds of national members and organizations collaborating with Free Marissa Now will attend week-long festivities in Jacksonville from Friday, July 25, 2014 until Friday, August 1, 2014.
Standing Our Ground Week is also an opportunity for supporters of Marissa Alexander all around the world to mobilize their communities around ending domestic violence, ending mass incarceration, and supporting all women's right to defend their lives!
Who is Marissa Alexander & why does she face twenty years in prison?
Marissa Alexander is a proud African American mother of three, a loving daughter and sister, she has earned an MBA, she’s a woman of faith, and she’s a survivor of domestic violence. In 2012, Marissa was sentenced to twenty years in the Florida criminal correctional system for defending herself from her abusive estranged husband. Nine days after giving birth to a premature daughter, she fired a single warning shot upwards into a wall to halt her abusive partner during a life-threatening beating. Despite the fact that Marissa caused no injuries and has no previous criminal record, and despite the fact that Florida’s self-defense law includes the right to “Stand Your Ground,” she was arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated. Her sentence was set at 20 years in part due to the state’s mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Marissa successfully appealed the trial, overturning the guilty verdict on 9/26/13. On 11/26/13, Marissa was finally released on bond and is currently under house arrest. Her new trial is scheduled for 3/31/14.
What is Free Marissa Now?
Free Marissa Now is an alliance of organizations and activists working to free Marissa Alexander. The Free Marissa Now Mobilization Campaign engages people in the US and all around the world with projects that help support the call to free Marissa Alexander and organize towards ending domestic violence and mass incarceration.
For more information on how to support the Free Marissa Now mobilization campaign go to: http://www.freemarissanow.org/standing-our-ground-week.html