Robert Earl “Kinetic” Council

Robert Earl Council has been incarcerated by the state of Alabama since 1995, most recently in St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville, Alabama.

In the decades since he was incarcerated, Council—widely known as “Kinetik Justice”—has become a leading voice in working peacefully toward reform of Alabama’s state prison system, arguably the worst prison system in America.

Upon initially entering prison in 1995, Council began a journey of personal and collective study of the history of Africa, African people, and revolutionary struggle in the United States, and eventually would help to lead a solidarity hunger and work strike in 1998 following the lead of incarcerated women at Alabama’s notorious Tutwiler prison. In 2000, Council joined “Halifax County Law School” where he taught classes on the Constitution, rules of criminal procedure, rules of evidence, and appellate procedure. In 2013, Council connected with other incarcerated organizers to co-found the Free Alabama Movement (FAM), an inside-the-walls organization that has spearheaded prison labor strikes in Alabama since its founding in 2013. Most recently, Council was the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit, Council v. Ivey, asserting that Alabama’s extremely low parole rate and reliance on incarcerated labor at all levels of the prison system are unconstitutional.

Council has been repeatedly targeted by the Alabama Department of Corrections and subjected to harsh punishment for his activism, including severe beatings and prolonged periods of solitary confinement. He is currently being held in solitary confinement as retaliation for organizing a statewide peaceful prison labor strike in Fall 2022 designed to draw attention to worsening conditions within Alabama’s prisons.