Abra Media (AM) is a queer-run platform producing leftist educational media. Our first project is a feature-length documentary about former political prisoner Eric King.
To be able to cross the finish line with this project, we need funds to pay for editing footage, licensing music, color correcting, audio mixing, media lawyer consultations, additional gear requirements, etc.
We are living in a time where education, free speech, and freedom of the press are severely at risk. The Trump administration is also deeming anti-fascism and trans people as “terrorists.” Although the threats are immense, AM remains dedicated to creating a world worth living in by producing queer-run leftist educational media.
This organization is new, but the experience and expertise behind it is not — our founder was an editor, reporter, and collective member of Unicorn Riot for 9 years. We want our own media landscape, not a sliver of the one created by legacy media.
With your support, you are helping a small media company have the resources to share underrepresented stories and educational materials at a crucial time.
Who is Eric King?
Eric is a published author, poet, paralegal, and loving father and husband who grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. He's always been an active community member who goes out of his way to fight against fascism, racism, transphobia, etc.
He became a political prisoner on September 16, 2014, five days after he attempted a firebombing of a congressman’s office in Kansas City, MO in solidarity with the anti-police uprising in Ferguson that year. Although no one was harmed (he made sure no one was in the building), he was charged with one count of using “explosive materials to commit arson of property used in or affecting interstate commerce" (18 U.S.C. § 844).
Nearly three months later, he was sentenced to ten years in federal prison.
Throughout Eric’s prison sentence, he spent time teaching yoga, practicing mindfulness, writing poems and letters, doing legal work for himself and others, going to the chapel, and taking classes. Despite keeping busy and trying to steer clear of trouble, he was repeatedly attacked and threatened by white supremacists and correctional officers because of his outspoken anti-fascist and anarchist political beliefs.
He’d been held in different prisons in various states throughout his sentence, but while being held at FCI Florence in 2018, he was attacked by a lieutenant correctional officer and forcibly tied to a concrete four-point restraint for over seven hours.
Eric was eventually charged with assault on a federal officer causing bodily injury, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 111(a)(1), (b). The trial began 4.5 years after the attack, lasted four days, and ended with the jury finding Eric King not guilty on March 18, 2022.
After spending nearly 10 years behind bars, on December 12, 2023, Eric walked off the Florence Federal Correctional Complex property toward a small crowd of family, friends and supporters.
Since his release almost two years ago, Eric's appeared on dozens of podcasts, done countless talks and panels, worked on many cases as a paralegal, and wrote a book about his time in prison.
The documentary will show Eric as the multidimensional being he is, along with sharing the realities of the U.S. prison system far and wide.