The Prison Books Collective is a Chapel Hill, NC-based anti-prison group that sends hundreds of books to prisoners in the South each month, maintains an extensive radical ‘zine catalog, widely distributes a monthly poster promoting political prisoner support, and publishes prisoners’ art and writing. We also work to raise awareness about the prison-industrial complex in our own community and connect with others seeking to abolish this brutally racist and repressive system. We are an official commercial distributor and publisher affiliated with Internationalist Books and Community Center.

Our collective formed in early Spring of 2006 with the purpose of getting reading materials into the “gulag archipelago” that is the US prison system. In geographic coordination with similar groups, we ended up reaching out primarily to prisoners in Mississippi, Alabama, and central and eastern North Carolina. Through this process, our group has become something of a lifeline for thousands upon thousands of people who otherwise are completely disconnected from any support base whatsoever. With the goals of providing vital political and self-educational resources to prisoners, as well as spreading a radical critique of the prison system on both sides of the wall, our group has expanded to include several different projects. These now include the free books program, our ‘zine catalog, our Words of Fire publication of prisoners’ work, political prisoner birthday posters and our regular prison abolitionist reading group.

Carrboro Really Really Free Market

According to Wikipedia, the Really Really Free Market is a “non-hierarchical group of individuals who form a temporary market based on an alternative gift economy. The RRFM movement aims to counteract capitalism” and “holds as a major goal to build a community based on sharing resources, caring for one another and improving the collective lives of all.” At a really really free market, you’ll encounter any number of goods and services, brought by other participants, all of which are completely free. Though participants are encouraged to bring a skill or items to give away, this is by no means required.

The Really Really Free Market has been happening in Carrboro since the spring of 2005, making it one of the oldest markets in the country. They take place on the first Saturday of every month from 2:00 to 4:30 pm at Carrboro Town Commons near Town Hall. Participants are encouraged to bring furniture, clothes, books, records, and other useful items, as well as cooked food, groceries, games to play, musical instruments (bring your band!), and skills to share, from fortune-telling to bike repair, screenprinting, or even auto mechanics. Everything is free, nothing is for sale!