Stevie Walker-Webb to Stage HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS: A 24-Hour Public Demonstration

Hundreds of Thousands will take place Saturday, August 22.

By: Aug. 19, 2020
Enter Your Email to Unlock This Article

Plus, get the best of BroadwayWorld delivered to your inbox, and unlimited access to our editorial content across the globe.




Existing user? Just click login.

Stevie Walker-Webb to Stage HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS: A 24-Hour Public Demonstration

This Saturday, August 22, Obie Award-winning theatre artist and activist Stevie Walker-Webb (Director of Ain't No Mo' at The Public) will stage HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, a 24-hour public demonstration, relegating himself to a 6i??9 foot space on the grounds of the McLennan County (Highway 6) Jail in Waco, Texas, to mark the 122nd day that his brother, Steven Waday Walker-Webb, has spent in solitary confinement.

The demonstration will be live-streamed via The Public Theater's YouTube channel and is a response to the wrongful incarceration of his mentally impaired brother Steven "Waday" Walker-Webb. The demonstration will begin this Saturday, August 22 at 4pm CST/5pm EST and continue through Sunday, August 23 at 4pm CST/5pm EST.

Hundreds of Thousands aims to make visual the suffering and inhumane treatment of incarcerated mentally ill people and the policies that adversely impact their lives.

On April 22, 2020, Waday had a bipolar schizophrenic episode. As Waday was in crisis, the Walker-Webb family called the Mental Health Mental Retardation (MHMR) facility for emergency mental health assistance. Instead of dispatching the requested mental health emergency response team, the Waco Police were sent. Despite the family's pleadings for mental health specialists and their explanation that Waday was in crisis, the police tasered Waday, arrested him on his family's front lawn, and loaded him into a police car. Waday is being held on charges related to resisting arrest. Since his arrest Waday has been denied access to proper mental health care, and the conditions of his solitary confinement worsen with each passing day. Currently, Waday is not allowed time outside of his 6i??9 ft cell because the McLennan County Jail is experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak, and Waday's underlying health conditions make him vulnerable.

The demonstration brings awareness specifically to the injustice that Waday is facing but also points to the national failure of our mental health care system and its use of incarceration and solitary confinement as treatment for mental illness. Solitary confinement is inhumane but particularly brutal for people suffering with mental illness as studies show it exacerbates their condition. As of 2019, approximately 34% of the U.S. prison population suffers from mental illness. Mental illness is not a crime, and the hundreds of thousands incarcerated as a result of their mental illness are not criminals.

Hundreds of Thousands takes place in concert with Black August, a commemoration that began in the 1970s to uplift efforts to dismantle mass incarceration, the prison industrial complex, police brutality, and the many social ills that disproportionately affect the African American community. The demonstration is also in alignment with the Poor People's Campaign as it is poor people of all colors who are incarcerated as a result of the failures of our mental health care system. The profiteering of prisons from the suffering of mentally ill people is a national human rights issue.

There are many ways that you can help bring focus to this moral injustice and help the Walker-Webb family get justice and proper care for Steven Waday Walker-Webb. His situation is dire and urgent, and the mistreatment of mentally ill people won't improve unless we commit to improving the systems that criminalize them.

Hundreds of Thousands takes its title from the following James Baldwin quote found in his seminal text, The Fire Next Time:

"I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it."


OTHER WAYS TO SUPPORT:

  • You can view and share the link to the livestream of the 24-Hour Demonstration.
  • You can make a donation. All funds raised during this demonstration will go toward Waday's placement in a long-term private treatment facility:
    Go Fund Me - Free Waday
    Facebook - Free Waday

Vote Sponsor


Videos