Ford Foundation and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP Host End Plantation Prisons Campaign Event in New York City

On October 30, 2024, PJI had the honor of sharing our End Plantation Prisons campaign with friends, old and new, at the Ford Foundation in New York City. The event, hosted by the Ford Foundation in partnership with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, was an incredible evening spent listening to stories from survivors of Louisiana's historic and ongoing practices of forced labor. 

As part of our campaign, audience members enjoyed an exclusive screening of our film, Plantation and Prisons: A History of Forced Labor in Louisiana. This film documents how people in prisons, mostly Black, are made invisible to the public and forced to work under oftentimes dangerous, sometimes humiliating conditions at their own physical peril. Following the screening, Sara Gozalo, PJI's narrative storyteller and director of the film sat down for a discussion with Terrance Winn, a survivor of hard labor and prison reform advocate, featured in the film.  

The evening concluded with discussion and comment from our other panelists and moderators including Sarita Gupta, vice president of U.S. programs at the Ford Foundation; david rogers, Ford Foundation Program Officer; Jeremy Benjamin, Pro Bono Attorney at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP; and Una Dean, PJI’s Board Treasurer.   

We thank our partners at the Ford Foundation and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, all our panelists and moderators, as well as all those who attended for helping make this event a success! Narrative construction and storytelling are core to how we organize society, embody power, gain legitimacy, and understand who we are individually and as a people. We will continue to promote our film and campaign across the country as we move towards a reality in which slavery is truly in the past.  

To learn more about our #EndPlantationPrisons project visit https://buff.ly/3YL9P9G.