The Hollywood Theatre presents a special fundraiser benefiting Liberation Literacy, a non-profit organization bringing social justice literacy to those living inside the Oregon prison system. While this is a benefit screening, nobody will turned away at the door for lack of funds until capacity is reached.
FOR AHKEEM (2017): Beginning one year before the fatal police shooting of a Black teenager in nearby Ferguson, Missouri, FOR AHKEEM is the coming-of-age story of Daje Shelton, a Black 17-year-old girl in North St. Louis. She fights for her future as she is placed in an alternative high school and navigates the marginalized neighborhoods, biased criminal justice policies and economic devastation that have set up many Black youth like her to fail.
About Liberation Literacy:
Liberation Literacy's mission is to build social justice literacy in prisons in order to reimagine and re-articulate the relationship between incarceration, our community, and ourselves. We are a non-profit led by formerly and currently incarcerated members of our community. We meet weekly inside of Columbia River Correctional Institution to discuss readings on a range of topics, including “Studies in Mass Incarceration,” “Policing and the Criminalization of Blackness,” and “Contemporary Social Movements.” Current projects include a weekly reading group inside CRCI, a bi-annual newsletter with writing and art by members of Liberation Literacy, monthly screenings of movies about social justice issues in partnership with Cinema Project, and a Freedom Library which provides full sets of books and a variety of movies inside Oregon prisons. To get involved or find out more about our projects, visit Liberation Literacy’s website, Facebook, and Twitter.