Who We Are
BAR NONE by DeSign encourages those impacted by incarceration to dismantle the prison industrial complex and design a just, ethical, and equitable criminal legal system.
What
We Do
(PROGRAMS)
EDUCATION:
Our Education element has many levels to it as it serves to prevent children from entering the prison system, intervening in the juvenile injustice system, making the school to prison pipeline obsolete, fighting to ensure that a quality, ethical, just, equitable, education is available to all youth and adults.
We believe in literacy and know that it is impossible to do anything if you cannot read or write. In order to be an effective and successful entrepreneurial servant leader, being literate is vital.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
The leaders in us see the leader and YOU!
- Help you to identify your gift and skill that can be financially rewarding
- Teach you navigate the waters of business 101, 2 and so on…
- Ensure that you understand the push and pull method and the importance and generational, communal wealth
CONNECTIONS:
We honor and hold dear our partnerships with other organizations and agencies whose missions and visions align with ours. They are critical to our work in this movement and appreciate that we are able to support one another.
Community-driven Justice:
Community involvement is imperative to any movement. Understanding that when the whole of the community is equipped with the necessary to effectively organize in numerous forms is the win!
* Education (Holistic and Political)
* The Process and Purpose of Black Policy (interpretation, understanding, writing, advocacy, lobbying, passing, voting)
* Putting the Neighbor back in Neighborhood
* Exonerations
* Free All Political Prisoners Initiative
EQUIP-EDUCATE-EXECUTE= TOGETHER
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What we do matters because children are supposed to matter most. Those same little people will be responsible for our way of life sooner than we think. Right now we have the opportunity to be on the side of humanity and guide them and humility because we love them. ~ Tuere Burns, Executive Director, BAR NONE by DeSign
HITTIN’ YOU WITH THE HOT FACTS
- The United States is 24th in the industrial world in reading and writing comprehension
- The state of Louisiana locks up children as young as ten years old
- In Orleans Parish, all of those children are Black
- In Orleans Parish it is difficult to get accurate literacy numbers because there is no operating school system; charter management organizations operating school at full autonomy
- Most children are incarcerated in Orleans Parish via crimes committed on the streets that are a direct result of school pushout
- There is a larger police presence at schools than there are school counselors, social workers, child psychologists and/or psychiatrists (please be advised that this doesn’t include MHP visits and/or placements)
- Children are repeatedly traumatized and criminalized by the new adaptive school culture that focuses more on disciple that child development, levels and different variations of understanding do to race, culture, and socioeconomic backgrounds
- Children are not able to focus do to horrible lunches and prison culture that refuses to allow them to communicate above a whisper, if at all
Our children are failing by DeSign and we, the people have a responsibility to them, long before they have a responsibility to anything. And until we exhaust everything, Black people will continue to be *mass incarcerated and an active part of the prison industrial complex.
#TIMESERVED CAMPAIGNS
Righting/Writing Our Wrongs Commission addresses the holistic, monstrous and on-going trauma that has impacted Black people specifically, at the hands of the prison industrial complex, via the criminal legal system, that is based in racism.
Black Philanthropy is the New Social Justice and BAR NONE by DeSign is moving into the foundation lane to ensure that those who are dedicated to the ending recidivism, dismantling the prison industrial complex and justly redesigning the criminal legal system, regardless of name, who they’re connected to, politics and money are easily and equitably funded so that they may continue their heart work.
#BNbD believes that “everybody knows somebody that knows somebody that incarcerated.”
LEGACY: In the Fight for Our Freedom Fighters
–Photo By Gus Bennett
Political Prisoners are people who are incarcerated for their political beliefs and/or actions. People like members of the Black Panther Party have been incarcerated for years because they exercised their rights under the law to ensure that Black people were recognized and treated like human beings. Some have been incarcerated for as long as 60 years in the most horrible of conditions, sick and far away from family and other loved ones. They are all our elders! It is now our responsibility to fight for their freedom the way they lawfully fought for us to enjoy some of the freedoms we do today!
View Incarcerated Political Prisoners
Testimonials
“I heard about BAR NONE through a childhood friend. They invited me to attend an event and I did. I think this program is amazing! Art is one of the best forms of expression. It is very therapeutic, especially for those who are incarcerated. I was moved by what I witnessed and accepted the invitation to become a board member.”
Danielle Metz, Formerly Incarcerated; only woman to be Granted Clemency By President Barack Obama
“My experience with BAR NONE has been helpful because it gave me a chance to build as an artist and work with other kids who were in situations similar to those I had been in previously. While working with BAR NONE, I began preparing for my next project, “Audible”, the inspiration from which came from New Orleans/Summertime energy. I’m also working on an EP to released once the proper groundwork has been laid for my musical career.”
Gerald “G-Dot” Davis, Formerly Incarcerated; #BNbD First Music Artist in Residency
Our Partners



SO YOU KNOW
Visit: https://www.arkrepublic.com/- BLOG SITE
TUERE JONES ACTIVIST ROOTS– ARTICLE
BLACK PANTHERS PRISON INTERVIEWS- ARTICLE
LEADERS OF COLOR– NEWSLETTER ARTICLE
After Half-Century in Prison, Elderly Black Panther Should Not Be Left to Die
Web Master: lelandjohnson.myportfolio.com