PODCAST
Kite Line
by 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.
Episodes
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November 7, 2025: The Grassroots Fight Against the Local Jail
Earlier 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...
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October 3, 2025: The Prison Struggle of Martin Sostre
After 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...
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August 29, 2025: Melting ICE- Organizing Against the Raids in Los Angeles
This 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
This 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
This 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...
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November 22, 2024: Addicted to Losing
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 context, the Pittsburgh…
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October 18, 2024: Organizing Everywhere
“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...
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October 11, 2024: Loretta Pierre and the Fight for Parole
The 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...
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August 9, 2024: Shoving From All Sides
In 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...
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July 5, 2024: Resisting the Rise of State Violence
This 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 have acted in solidarity...
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June 28, 2024: Organizing on Both Sides of the Walls with Leon Benson
After our news, we are sharing the final installment of our conversation with Leon Benson, who was recently exonerated and released after decades in the Indiana prison system. Leon is an inspiring organizer who fought for freedom for other prisoners, organized self-education circles inside, and...
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May 24, 2024: Are We Here for the Camp or for Divestment?
This week, we spoke with an NYU professor about the Gaza encampment movement there. Through this conversation, the global stakes of place-based struggles come to the foreground, as we wrestle with balancing local demands for divestment versus the way the camps themselves are resonating in Gaza;...
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May 3, 2024: The Dunn Meadow Liberated Zone
Eight days ago, students and others established a tent camp – a Liberated Zone – at IU’s Dunn Meadow, as part of a national rising tide of protest against Israel’s war in Gaza. Within hours, Indiana State Police arrived from Indianapolis and attacked the students, injuring dozens and arresting 34...
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February 9, 2024: Studies in Dignity
This week, we focus on two people who are studies in dignity in the face of state repression. Jack Mazurek was arrested in Atlanta yesterday and charged with arson. These allegations stemmed from an attack last July on police motorcycles, which was rooted in the movement against Cop City. He is...
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January 12, 2024: Leon Benson is Free
For our first episode of the new year, we wanted to begin sharing an interview with Leon Benson. In this conversation, he covers his release from prison, reflections on the treatment he received from the authorities, and his work on the outside. This is a special privilege for Kite Line, since we...
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December 8, 2023: Written from the Inside
In this episode, we have our monthly round up of prison disturbances, as compiled by Perilous Chronicle. Afterwards, we have a conversation with Sophia Johnson, also known as Candle, who is an anarchist writer who currently serving a sentence in Oregon. In this conversation, she talks about…
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November 24, 2023: Block Cop City
Since 2021, a diverse movement in has challenged the construction of Cop City, which is slated to destroy Atlanta’s South River Forest. The forest is also known by its Muscogee name, Weelaunee. The movement has created new intersections between abolitionist and environmental politics, since it is...
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October 13, 2023: Surveillance and Social Media
On today’s Kite Line, we are sharing more research conducted collectively by Micol Seigel’s Inside-Out class. Last spring, this course brought together students at Indiana University and students held by the Indiana Department of Corrections. This presentation is focused on the tension between...
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August 25, 2023: Transforming Trauma- Voices from Inside-Out
Content Warning: This episode contains references to sexual trauma and harm. We start off this episode with our monthly round up of prison disturbances, as compiled by Perilous Chronicle- followed by some recent prison news. We close our episode with a feature created by students as part of Dr....
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Advocacy Into Action
And now we return to the second part of our conversation between Micol Seigel and Amanda Hall. Last week, Hall talked to us about how her firsthand experience of incarceration led her to her current work in prisoner and re-entry support. And now she talks through her continuing advocacy through...
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July 7, 2023: Experience Into Advocacy
For this episode, we share the first part of a conversation between Micol Seigel and Amanda Hall. Hall talks to us about how her firsthand experience of incarceration led her to her current work in prisoner and re-entry support. We will air the second part of this conversation next week. You can...
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June 2, 2023: The Atlanta Solidarity Fund
On the morning of May 31st, Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Atlanta Police Department raided a house and arrested three staff members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. The Atlanta Solidarity Fund is a non profit organization that supports those arrested for protesting or otherwise prosecuted…
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May 19, 2021: Prison by Any Other Name, Part One
This week on Kite Line we air a discussion from 2021, in which we speak with prison abolitionist journalists Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law. We share the first part of our discussion on their recent book, Prison by Any Other Name: Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms. The book is an in-depth...
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April 21, 2023: Crisis and Neglect
The U.S. was shaken this week by the death of Lashawn Thompson in Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail. He had been moved to the psychiatric ward after being jailed on a simple battery charge. Physically healthy when he was arrested, he was left in a cell infested with bed bugs and other vermin. Michael...
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April 14, 2023: A History of Sexual Policing
This week, we share the final part of a conversation about policing sex. Micol Seigel talks to Anne Gray Fischer about her book, The Streets Belong to Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification. Today, their focus turns to Boston and Atlanta, discussing Boston’s vice...
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April 7, 2023: The Rising Chorus Against Cop City
First, we have our monthly round up of prison disturbances, as compiled by Perilous Chronicle. Afterwards, Angela Davis shares a statement in support of the Stop Cop City movement. And we finish sharing a panel hosted by Haymarket Books on the abolitionist struggle to Stop Cop City. In this...
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March 31, 2023: The Origins of Cop City, Part Three
This week we continue sharing a panel hosted by Haymarket Books on the abolitionist struggle to stop Cop City. In this section, we hear Hugh Farrell in conversation with Sarah Haley, a leading historian of Black feminism in the South, organizer Kwame Olufemi of Community Movement Builders, and...
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March 24, 2023: The Origins of Cop City, Part Two
This week, we continue sharing Haymarket Press’s panel, “the Abolitionist Struggle against Cop City.” In this segment, Stuart Schrader and Micah Herskind fill in the past 40 years of historical context for why the Cop City project is being pushed through specifically in Atlanta. Schrader teaches…
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March 17, 2023: The Origins of Cop City
This week we begin sharing a panel hosted by Haymarket Books on the abolitionist struggle to stop Cop City. In this section, we hear from Kwame Olufemi, of Community Movement Builders, and Sarah Haley, a leading historian of Black feminism in the South. Olufemi powerfully situates in the Cop City...
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March 10, 2023: We Have to Stick Together
During a dramatic week of action in the Atlanta forest this past week, hundreds of forest defenders sabotaged a construction site for the unpopular “Cop City” development. Police responded with an act of extreme collective punishment against the entire movement, attacking a nearby Stop Cop City...
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March 3, 2023: Knowledge is Power- The Stakes of “Cop City”
From March 4-11th, thousands of people will be converging in Atlanta’s Weelaunee Forest, as part of the abolitionist and environmentalist struggle to stop “Cop City,” a police training facility set to be built over a vast urban forest. Reflecting this unprecedented mobilization, we are focusing…
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February 24, 2023: Rolling Back Repression in Atlanta
Earlier this week, Keith LaMar went on hunger strike at the Ohio State Penitentiary. He has faced escalating harassment from administrators and guards as his execution this fall looms and as solidarity momentum builds on the outside. This harassment extends to new arbitrary rules preventing him...
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February 17, 2023: Policing Sex
This we continue our conversation between Micol Seigel and Anne Gray Fischer about her recent book, The Streets Belong to Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification, an account of gender and sexuality’s crucial role in the history and exercise of police power. [ Here are…
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February 10, 2023: We Understand Each Other- Resistance at the Norhwest Detention Center
We start this week’s episode with our monthly round up of prison protests and disturbances, compiled by Perilous Chronicle. After that, we share an Interview with Maru Moro Villalpando of La Resistencia, a project that organizes against the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. Once...
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February 3, 2022: Rikers is Deadlier Than Ever
Today’s episode highlights the campaign to close Rikers jail in New York and continues our conversation with Anne Gray Fischer about the intertwined stories of policing, the surveillance of women’s bodies, and the creation of the racialized American ghetto. Both Sy, an organizer against Rikers…
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January 27, 2023: The Problem is Policing Itself
This week, we reflect on the complex lethality of the white supremacist system in the United States, as it has dealt out death to Black people and others whose lives are devalued within this system. We are responding to the release of the footage earlier this week of Tyre Nichols’ murder by…
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January 20, 2023: A Police Murder in the Atlanta Forest
Today, we share the tragic news that police killed Tortuguita, a forest defender in the South River Forest in Atlanta on the morning of Wednesday, January 19th. We have previously covered the movement to protect the Atlanta forest in light of its history as a plantation and prison farm and the...
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January 13, 2023: Sex Work at the Birth of the Ghetto
We are pleased to continue sharing a conversation between Micol Seigel and Anne Gray Fischer. Fischer’s powerful book, The Streets Belong to Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification, was published in 2022, and is an account of gender and sexuality’s crucial role in the...
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January 6, 2023: Policing Womens’ Bodies
We are pleased to share the first part of an interview between Anne Gray Fischer and Micol Siegel. Fischer’s powerful first book, The Streets Belong to Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification, was published earlier in 2022, and is an account of gender and sexuality’s...
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December 30, 2022: In Memory of Russell Maroon Shoatz
December 17th marked two years since the passing of Russell Maroon Shoatz. He was a founding member of the Black Unity Council, a former member of the Black Panther Party and a soldier in the Black Liberation Army. After twice escaping from prison, and twice being recaptured, Shoatz was held in...
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December 23, 2022: It was a Normal Day for Us, and He Just Disappeared
This week, we speak again with Isaiah Willoughby. Last time he was on the show, he reflected on being incarcerated due to the 2020 George Floyd Uprising. He was released from prison last March, but he’s now housed once again in SeaTac Federal Detention Center on a parole violation. It took three...
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December 16, 2022: Life After Lockup with Kunta Kenyatta
This week, we feature interviews on Life After Lockup from the Kunta Kenyatta Files. Kunta Kenyatta uses YouTube to speak to a range of people in Cleveland, Ohio, often featuring videos shot from the 107 Club, a half-way house and neighborhood hub. He speaks with neighbors, former prisoners, and...
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December 9, 2022: Care Not Cages
We turn our focus this week to a local struggle. Here in Bloomington Indiana, Monroe County Government is quickly moving forward with a proposal for a new $60+ million dollar jail to replace and expand the downtown jail. With little input from community members, consultants hired by the county…
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December 2, 2022: Simply an Incarcerated Person Fighting to be Free
We start out with news about the recent execution of Kevin Johnson in Missouri, and a call to strike from Pennslyvania prisoners. Afterwards, we share an interview conducted by James Kilgore, who spoke with Albert Woodfox and Robert King of the Angola 3. After that, we will feature part of...
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November 25, 2022: Last in Rights, First in Punishment
This week, we share the second installment of a talk by Dina Alves, an abolitionist researcher and scholar who is currently visiting the US from Brazil. Her talk is simultaneously translated from Portuguese by Micol Seigel. In this feature, she talks about the findings of her interviews with…
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November 18, 2022: Blackness and Abolition in Brazil
This week, we share the first part of a talk by Dina Alves. Alves is a Brazilian lawyer with a doctorate in Anthropology, and has been an anchor in the feminist, antiracist legal scene in São Paulo since 2009. She is currently visiting the US, and recently gave this talk, generously translated by...
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November 11, 2022: Perspectives on Prison with Sincere and Jok
In our previous episodes, Sincere paints a picture of life in a women’s prison. Today, they wrap up by talking about prison conditions- such as poor food, exploitative practices, and overly harsh punishments- such as losing visits as retaliation for saying “I love you” to another inmate. They…
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November 4, 2022: Women and Incarceration, Part 2
We start this episode with our monthly round up of prison disturbances, compiled by Perilous Chronicle. You can find out more at perilouschronicle.com. This week, we share the second part of a conversation between Focus Initiatives’ Jok Huerta and Sincere. Sincere spent 13 years in Indiana…
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October 28, 2022: How it is with Us – Women and Incarceration
This week, we share part of a conversation between Focus Initiatives’ Jok Huerta and Sincere. Sincere, who spent 13 years in Indiana prisons, and now organizes in Indianapolis with other formerly incarcerated people. Sincere speaks to the experience of arriving and getting settled into prison.…
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October 21, 2022: Updates on the Alabama Prison Strike
After the news, we hear from Daniel McGowan, former political prisoner and member of the Certain Days Collective. Daniel’s been on the show before, talking to us about the Certain Days calendar- which is out now. Later on in the episode, we talk to an organizer with the group Both Sides of the...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
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.
HOSTED BY
Kite Line
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Kite Line have?
Kite Line currently has 300 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Kite Line about?
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...
How often does Kite Line release new episodes?
Kite Line publishes regularly with 300 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Kite Line?
You can listen to Kite Line on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Kite Line?
Kite Line is created and hosted by Kite Line.
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