Four former political prisoners—Eric King, Susan Rosenberg, Herman Bell, and David Gilbert—discuss their experience behind bars and how today's activists can prepare themselves for political repression and the possibility of incarceration.

Recently published by AK Press, Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners is a project of abolitionist Josh Davidson and Eric King. The book is filled with the experience and wisdom of over thirty current and former North American political prisoners. It provides first-hand details of prison life and the political commitments that continue to lead prisoners into direct confrontation with state authorities and institutions.

Eric King is a father, poet, author, and activist. Last December, he was released after spending nearly ten years as a political prisoner for an act of protest over the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. He was held in solitary confinement for years on end and has been assaulted by both guards and white supremacists. Eric has published three zines: Battle Tested (2015), Antifa in Prison (2019), and Pacing in My Cell (2019). His sentencing statement is included in the book Defiance: Anarchist Statements Before Judge and Jury (2019).

Herman Bell is a former member of both the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, and he was imprisoned for forty-five years. Herman was captured in New Orleans in 1973, and eventually he, Jalil Muntaqim, and Albert Nuh Washington were convicted of attacks on police. Herman was also implicated in the San Francisco 8 case and pleaded guilty to a lesser offense. He spent five years imprisoned in the federal system, in the Marion control unit for two of those years, before spending decades in various New York State maximum security prisons. While imprisoned he was committed to community work, and he is a founding member of the Victory Gardens Project and the Certain Days Collective. He was released in 2018, after his eighth parole hearing.

David Gilbert is a lifelong anti-imperialist who was captured and imprisoned as a result of an attempted expropriation of a Brinks truck in Nyack, New York, in 1981. He was sentenced to seventy-five years to life but his sentence was commuted by outgoing Governor Cuomo, and he was released from prison after nearly forty years in November 2021. While in prison, David was a cofounder of the Certain Days Collective, and he also helped pioneer AIDS awareness programs that saved thousands of lives in prisons across the country. David wrote numerous zines, including Our Commitment Is to Our Communities: Mass Incarceration, Political Prisoners and Building a Movement for Community-Based Justice. He also wrote three books, No Surrender: Writings from an Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoner (2004); Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond (2012); and Looking at the U.S. White Working Class Historically (2017).

Susan Rosenberg spent sixteen years in high security federal prisons for her involvement in the anti-imperialist armed actions that culminated in the Resistance Conspiracy Case of the mid-1980s. Her sentence was commuted by outgoing president Bill Clinton in 2001. Susan was imprisoned at the Lexington High Security Unit at FCI Lexington, the first maximum security prison for women in Marianna, Florida, and FCI Danbury, and she also spent time in the DC jail. She was involved in the May 19th Communist Organization, the Puerto Rican independence movement, the movement to Ban the Box, and the successful fight for the release of longtime political prisoner Dr. Mutulu Shakur. Susan published the book An American Radical: Political Prisoner in My Own Country in 2011.