Ethical Guidelines for Engaging the Archive
15Interviews
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Joe Moreno(Chicago, IL)Joe Moreno reflects on his involvement with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, his work as an alderman from the 1st ward in the Chicago City Council, and his work to secure the Chicago reparations for Burge Torture Victims Ordinance.
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Denise Spencer(Chicago, IL)Community organizer, gospel singer and wrongful conviction advocate
Denise Spencer discusses her son’s wrongful incarceration and her organizing through MAMAS, outlining her advocacy for policy reform and continued support for incarcerated people and their families.
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Marilyn Mulero(Chicago, IL)
Marilyn Mulero reflects on her experience of wrongful conviction and being on death row to her organizing work on the outside concerned with providing reentry support to formerly incarcerated women.
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Marketta Sims(Chicago, IL)
Marketta Sims reflects on her incarceration in Illinois, her development as an organizer while inside, and her continued advocacy for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women through reentry, expungement, and community-based support.
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Renaldo Hudson(Chicago, IL)
Renaldo Hudson reflects on his incarceration on death row and his involvement in the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, clemency efforts, and initiatives such as Stateville Speaks and the Building Block Program.
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California Coalition for Women Prisoners7 InterviewsExplore
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Calandra Cali Hulit(Chicago, IL)
Calandra “Cali” Hulit narrates her experiences in Cook County Jail and Illinois women’s prisons, focusing on organizing, mutual care, and advocacy during and after incarceration.
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Dana Talbot(Chicago, IL)
Dana Jo Talbot reflects on her involvement with the American Indian Movement, her experiences of incarceration, and her commitment to substance abuse recovery and Indigenous-centered advocacy.
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Erica Bentley(Chicago, IL)Legislative reform and healing justice advocate
Erica Bentley narrates her experiences teaching yoga in prisons and organizing with abolitionist groups in Chicago.
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Taquittee Sheree Cross(Chicago, IL)
Taquittee Cross narrates her experiences of incarceration in Illinois prisons and her subsequent advocacy and organizing focused on supporting incarcerated women, families, and community reentry.
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Maria Moon(Chicago, IL)Filmmaker, poet, and community organizer
Maria Moon reflects on her experiences in Illinois women’s prisons and her organizing work, including advocacy for the Cook County Just Housing Amendment and working in a transitional living program.
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Leroy Orange(Chicago, IL)
Leroy Orange reflects on surviving police torture and decades on Illinois’s death row, his role in the Death Row Ten and anti–death penalty organizing, and his post-release advocacy for Chicago police torture survivors.
Ethical Guidelines for Engaging the Archive
In preparing these histories for the public, each interview has passed through an extensive review process and received narrator approval. These oral histories will be physically archived at the Schomburg Center in Harlem, NY, and subsets of the archive will also be accessible at the Freedom Archives in the East Bay, CA, and at the Invisible Institute in Chicago, IL.
Movements Against Mass Incarceration is a public archive, and we encourage the use of these materials for public and community education and advocacy, journalism, research, and other endeavors that serve the public good and constructive social change.
Equally important, we wish to stress the ethical standards that all visitors to the archive are called to uphold. We are honored that you are taking time to explore this archive and ask that you enter the archive with the following principles in mind:
Respect the lives and stories of the narrators.
- Engaging in oral history is often a vulnerable process – we are deeply thankful to our narrators for entrusting us with their stories and hope the process of sharing these stories offers a kind of healing that only telling the truth can. Visitors to the website should recognize that our narrators are active, vital members and contributors to their communities; they have loved ones who care deeply about them. We entrust you to use the material respectfully and thoughtfully. As a witness, please refrain from misrepresenting their stories or taking things out of context, and please do seek out more context to better understand the issues and circumstances that narrators discuss. Witnessing the archives also comes with the expectation that you will not use this material as a mode for justifying harm or retribution. We hope that this project will inspire us to reconsider what real “justice” might look like.
Recognize that some of the content is difficult, and take care accordingly.
- Prison is a fundamentally violent institution, but people’s experiences with violence usually happen long before they experience incarceration. Therefore, some content explored in the archive may be distressing to some readers. We encourage visitors to read our full statement on these matters, and to take heed: we offer a general warning that the personal histories in archive do touch on themes of violence (physical, domestic, sexual, carceral, and self harm), substance abuse, injustice, and more that may be found across the archive. Please practice discretion when engaging the archive and take space as you need it. In particular, please take care when introducing younger audiences to the material or audiences for whom this material may be triggering.
Reference the archive and narrators appropriately.
- Our narrators own the copyright to their oral histories. When citing this material, please attribute it appropriately as: "Oral History of [Narrator First Name and Last Name]" by Interviewer First and Last Name, Movements Against Mass Incarceration. Month, Day, Year of publication, URL (accessed date). And as a courtesy, please inform us of how you are making use of this archive by filling out this short 4-question online form. It is helpful to us and our narrators to know how the archive is being used.