By Magaly Muñoz

Over 600 people packed Grand Lake Theater in Oakland last week for a screening of ‘The Strike,’ a documentary about the longest hunger strike in U.S. history, conducted by incarcerated men living in solitary confinement.

The film follows different men who are part of a generation of inmates subjected to solitary confinement for years at a time, and in some cases, decades. Many of the men were housed inside Pelican Bay State Prison, a solitary housing unit or SHU built in the 1980s, which was considered one of the toughest confinement prisons in California.

These men endured years with little to no human contact, aside from interactions with prison guards, during their confinement. They were stuck in an 8’ by 10’ box for 23 hours a day with only one hour of outdoor recreation in a slightly longer cell that was isolated from the outside world. Some recreation boxes didn’t even provide an open concept for inmates to get fresh air and sunlight.

In 2011, inmates went on a 19-day hunger strike to protest the living conditions inside the prison. Inmates decided to end the strike after leaders with the California Department of Corrections promised they’d make strides with changing policy. Two years later, when no significant changes had been made, inmates went on a second hunger strike, this time, for 59 days.

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The documentary shows clips of policy makers and California prison leaders both defending the choices of putting inmates in solitary confinement indefinitely, and those with regret for being part of a system that further oppressed an already vulnerable group of people.

The Post spoke with a participant of the hunger strike and the directors of ‘The Strike’ after the screening.

Director Lucas Guilkey said it was a special experience being able to document the lives of the families and formerly incarcerated men who were affected by the prison system.

An up-and-coming filmmaker at the time of the first strike in 2011, Guilkey was meeting with activists, often mothers, sisters, and wives, who were finally seeing what involuntary confinement was doing to their loved ones.

“The hunger strike was in many ways folks bringing their family members back to them. Demanding to be seen as humans deserving of dignity. And it was a powerful story,” Guilkey told the Post.

Lorenzo “Dadisi” Venton, a hunger striker, spent 31 years in solitary confinement at Pelican Bay. He told the Post that it was surprising how much life outside of prison, specifically his family, could change.

Venton said his sister would send him pictures of their family but had to label who everyone was because he didn’t recognize anyone after so many years inside confinement.

“It really shocked me that I seen pictures of my brother because I hadn’t seen him in a long time. I didn’t recognize my own brother,” Venton said. “I could even look back right now and look at pictures of me when I was younger, and I don’t see me.”

When asked how he did not succumb to the loneliness of being in solitary confinement, he said he held onto hope, even when everyone else gave up.

“I felt that eventually they would have to come to the conclusion that I no longer posed a threat or potential threats to society, and age might be a factor for a lot of us who was released, [and it did] become a factor,” Venton said.

Venton shared that it’s difficult maintaining a job and having to pay bills now that he’s out of prison. He’s living paycheck to paycheck due to the lack of savings or safety net a lot of incarcerated folks lack because of the time spent behind bars.

Even with the difficulties, he said nothing will drive him to ever go back to incarceration because he has so much he wants to do with his life.

Co-director JoeBill Muñoz said that while significant changes to the California corrections system are still a long way off, the shift in policy from where it started to the present, is drastic.

Even if the film does not resonate with people personally, it’s been amazing to see how crowds have reacted to the different stories, Muñoz said.

“There’s a big central message of the film that is about unity and coming together across differences,” Muñoz said. “It’s really powerful that [the film] isn’t just limited to what happens inside prisons, but that it’s applicable in everybody’s lives here on the outside across a spectrum of different issues.”

The Strike will be available for free streaming on PBS for three months starting Feb. 3, 2025.

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