RATTLING THE BARS
Rattling the Bars puts the voices of the people most harmed by our system of mass incarceration at the center of our reporting on the fight to end it. The show was founded by the late Black Panther and political prisoner Marshall “Eddie” Conway, and is now hosted by Charles Hopkins, better known as Mansa Musa, who himself spent 48 years behind bars.
Rattling the Bars offers an honest look at the lives of prisoners, returning citizens, their families, and their communities. With Rattling the Bars, by presenting hard data and real-life stories, we examine and seek to shift public opinion around the misconception that incarceration, punishment, and increased policing make cities safer—the truth of which has been disproven by countless studies. The series examines the history and root causes of the current so-called justice system. It showcases individuals and communities nationwide who are grappling with real solutions to problems created by the prison-industrial complex.
Watch and listen:
Latest episode
‘Gaining consent by promising force’: Late fascism and Gramsci
“This idea that you’re trying to gain popular consent, you’re trying to win elections, you’re trying to create coalitions by promising a certain degree of force exercised against a target population,” says Alberto Toscano.
Recent episodes
From Mussolini to mass incarceration: Why Gramsci matters today
Locked up by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1926, the prison writings of Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci remain essential and terrifyingly relevant 100 years later.
The world is in crisis. William C. Anderson sees a way out
In 2026, fascism in the US is rising while “the left” descends further into powerlessness, goofiness, and irrelevance—but, author William C. Anderson argues, it doesn’t have to stay that way.
‘Alabama is a purple state if enough people turn out.’
“We’ve got to show up like never before… take control of our government and then we can finally do the work of the people.”
Basem Khandakji: ‘Genocide didn’t start in Gaza in 2023’
“It’s a war against my people. Genocide didn’t start just in Gaza in 2023. The genocide against us started since 1948,” award-winning Palestinian author and former political prisoner Basem Khandakji tells TRNN.
Do books have a future? Do we have a future without them? A conversation with radical publisher Paul Coates
“I got into publishing because I was in the Black Panther Party and we had people in jail,” Paul Coates—legendary activist, publisher, and founder of Black Classic Press—tells TRNN.
What to the slave is the 250th anniversary of the US?
“America at 250” celebrations rely on a national mythology about the American Revolution that only really includes Patriot and Loyalist elites. Through the eyes of enslaved people, the story of the birth of the US looks very different.
Freed Palestinian political prisoner Mahmoud al-Arda speaks
In this blockbuster episode of Rattling the Bars, Mansa Musa—a former Black Panther and political prisoner in the US—speaks with Palestinian political prisoner Mahmoud al-Arda after his release from Israeli prison.
Inside Israel’s Prison Regime
“There is one law for Israeli Jews and there is another law for Palestinian Arabs.”
Black anarchism in the US: A rich, radical tradition
“The prison facility itself is maximum security, but society is just an extension; it’s a minimum-security prison. And that [radical insight] is at the core of Black anarchism.”
From former slave to anarchist: Lucy Parsons’ radical life and legacy
“She was very much ahead of her time… this is a formerly enslaved Black woman who was speaking with an unfettered, unrestrained radicalism.”
Number of children in ICE detention skyrockets under Trump
The daily number of kids in ICE cages has increased sixfold under the second Trump administration, according to new reporting from the Marshall Project.
‘Mass incarceration’ is a liberal myth. The truth is far worse.
“The masses are not being policed, targeted, and incarcerated,” Distinguished Professor and author Dylan Rodríguez says; “it’s a targeted war with asymmetrical casualties.”
Stolen wealth: how Black depositors funded the nation’s capital
D.C. elites siphoned $57 million—worth $1.5 billion today—from the Freedman’s Savings Bank to enrich themselves and fund the development of the District at the expense of formerly enslaved depositors.
Manifest Destiny never ended: the domestic war for white supremacy
The US operates in a perpetual state of internal war, and the white supremacist legacy of domestic warfare has reached terrifying new heights in the Trump era, says scholar and author Dylan Rodríguez.
A $1B ‘therapeutic’ illusion: advocates fight Baltimore’s new jail
Former political prisoner Mansa Musa takes you inside the growing coalition that is uniting to stop Maryland’s proposed $1 billion “therapeutic” jail in this blockbuster documentary report.
Class action granted: Angola prisoners head to trial over slave labor
A US District Court has certified a class action for incarcerated men at Angola Prison who are forced to perform punitive farm labor under extreme, unconstitutional conditions.
Louisiana still imprisons people convicted by ‘Jim Crow juries’
“If it’s racist now in [2026], it was racist back in 1980 when my client was convicted.”
Florida’s temp industry extends incarceration into the workplace
“There’s about 900,000 people in Florida, which is about 4% of the state’s population, that are doing temp work on a yearly basis.”
Prison during the holidays isn’t what you think
From suicide spikes to solidarity, Mansa Musa explains what the holidays are really like inside U.S. prisons—and how people survive.
Nicole Porter: The US is ‘by far the world’s number one jailer’
“There really isn’t an issue with mass incarceration in other countries,” Nicole Porter of The Sentencing Project tells us. “The United States by far is the world’s number one jailer.”
‘An accountability vacuum’: How Baltimore is enabling ICE’s lawlessness
“Our neighbors are disappearing without a trace,” Kori Skillman reports at Baltimore Beat.
How prisons and temp agencies exploit the most vulnerable workers
“Historically, temp workers and prison labor… [have] been used to bust union strikes,” Katherine Passley of Beyond the Bars says. “Well, what would it look like if we were to bring those people into the union so that they can’t bust these union efforts?”
Wisconsin moves to modernize prisons—but not fast enough to save lives
“I don’t think Wisconsin can afford to drag its feet while people are dying… It is high time for there to be some political urgency around the closure of these prisons and a real, committed goal to reduce Wisconsin’s prison population.”
‘The Alabama Department of Corrections is a drug cartel’
“Alabama prisons are completely lawless at this point,” author Matthew Whalan says. “A lot of the order that is injected into them is really just from prisoners organizing themselves.”
Inside the modern-day plantation: How theater confronts incarceration
The Peculiar Patriot, performed in more than 35 US prisons, reveals the human cost of mass incarceration and the enduring ties between slavery and the prison system.
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