In the center of an empty stage, in an empty room backlit in red and blue, west-side artist, organizer, and prison abolitionist Bella Bahhs spoke into the camera.
Her first in-person performance of this poem, which was commissioned by WJI, was for a small group of women at Logan Correctional Center, a women’s prison about 30 miles north of Springfield, in mid-March. Bahhs and two of her WJI colleagues, Melissa Hernandez and Alexis Mansfield, drove down to the prison to perform the poem and talk about the impact of the census with the women, who were set to be released within the next 30 days. (This was just before the shelter-in-place order went into effect; Mansfield says they were one of the last groups to be allowed into Logan before the prison went into lockdown.)
“The census is so important for Illinois and for communities so that they are properly funded and resourced,” says Mansfield, a lawyer and adviser with WJI. “And we know that for people who are justice-involved, the main way they get counted is if they are in jail or prison.”
For women returning to their home community who don’t have stable housing, they might be doubled up with another family, or moving between households or shelters. Trying to reach people who might be experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity is a challenge, Accurso says, and it’s been especially challenging in the middle of a pandemic, as the possibility of in-person outreach is limited, and Internet or phone access may be limited for someone who’s struggling with housing and work.
Meanwhile, their message continues to spread online. Bahhs’s video performance on the WJI Facebook page has garnered 1,400 views to date—and the mayor’s Facebook Live youth concert, just 13 minutes into which Bahhs performs, has 37,400 views.
