In 2009, black farmer and prison abolitionist Jalal Sabur helped to start the Freedom Food Alliance, a collective of farmers, political prisoners, and organizers in upstate New York who are committed to incorporating food justice to address racism in the criminal justice system. In this address he will discuss how the Freedom Food Alliance is building a movement to use the power of food and food justice to address mass incarceration and the inequities of the criminal justice system.

Jalal is a community organizer with WESPAC and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and  co­created Potential 2 Power Project in East New York, Brooklyn where we taught young people

gardening skills, cooking and nutrition skills and did trainings on knowing your rights when you encounter the police.

In 2011, Jalal started farming with
Wassaic Community Farm to grow produce for Farmers Markets, run a Community Supported
Agriculture (CSA) program and to do a gleaning project.  While in Wassaic co­founded the Freedom
Food Alliance, VROOM Cooperative and Victory Bus Project.  The Freedom Food Alliance is a
collective of small rural and urban farmers, activists, artists, prisoners and prison families who use food
as an organizing tool. The alliance started the VROOM Cooperative and Victory Bus Project to connect
urban and rural communities and to support families of prisoners with transportation to prison in the
Hudson Valley and a box of farm fresh food. For this season Jalal is continuing the work of the Alliance,
plus starting Sweet Freedom Farm in Germantown, NY doing farm education, a maple syrup operation
and working on turning decommissioned prisons to farms.