Prison

A powerful debut memoir from a published poet and emerging writer.

At the age of sixteen, R. Dwayne Betts- a good student from a lower-middle-class family-carjacked a man with a friend. He had never held a gun before, but within a matter of minutes he had committed six felonies. In Virginia, carjacking is a "certifiable" offense, meaning that Dwayne would be treated as an adult under state law. A bright young kid, weighing only 126 pounds- not enough to fill out a medium T-shirt -he served his eight-year sentence as part of the adult population in some of the worst prisons in the state.

A Question of Freedom is a coming-of-age story, with the unique twist that it takes place in prison. Utterly alone-and with the growing realization that he really is not going home any time soon-Dwayne confronts profound questions about violence, freedom, crime, race, and the justice system. Above all, A Question of Freedom is about a quest for identity-one that guarantees Dwayne's survival in a hostile environment and that incorporates an understanding of how his own past led to the moment of his crime.

A founder of Columbia University SDS, and a veteran of the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War Movements, David Gilbert joined the Weather Underground Organization in the late í60's. After more than 10 years of clandestine resistance, he was captured in the course of an armed action in 1981. Gilbert has been a revolutionary political prisoner for 22 years, continuing his work as an AIDs activist, and author from behind the walls. This first collection of David Gilbert's prison writings is a unique contribution to our understanding of the most ambitious and audacious attempts by white anti-imperialists to build an underground movement "within the belly of the beast." With unsparing honesty (and unfailing humor), he discusses the errors and successes of the WUO and their allies; the pitfalls of racism, sexism and ego in revolutionary organizations; and the possibilities and perils facing today's growing anti-imperialist resistance. Includes forewords by political prisoners Marilyn Buck and Sundiata Acoli. "This book stands alone in the growing number of books about the 1960s, the anti-Vietnam War Movement, and the Weather Underground Organization because of David's willingness to own it and analyze it. His discussion of the strength's and weaknesses of this history, the role of armed struggle, the rise of terrorism, the continued aggression of the U.S. government speak directly to the concerns of everyone working for justice anywhere. David's discussion of these topics is freer, more alive, and more honest than any I have read. This book should stimulate learning from our political prisoners, but more importantly it challenges us to work to free them, and in doing so take the best of our history forward." [Susan Rosenberg, former U.S. political prisoner] "David Gilbert is a warrior in the most profound sense of the term. Imbued with a near-crystalline clarity of principle, the indomitable courage to live his life in accordance with the values he holds true, and, most importantly, his every action guided by the immensity of his love for the wretched of this earth, he is truly an inspiration. Predictably, given the strength of Gilbert's character, his writings are offered as tools -- nay, WEAPONS -- in the ongoing struggle for liberation. They are thus of incalculable value to each of us who aspires to the attainment of freedom, justice and dignity for ALL people." [Ward Churchill

Prison writing has a long and illustrious history in the United States - home of the modern correctional system. In the first decade of the 21st century, this country also garnered the distinction of having more prisoners per capita than any other nation in the world. We need to hear from the incarcerated writings of incarcerated men and women. The largest state prison system is in California with some 175,000 people behind bars in close to 35 facilities. Yet the only approved Honor Yard in the Department of Corrections is at the California State Prison, Los Angeles County, in Lancaster, California. These are the men that despite often-horrendous crimes - many are lifers, with a few going on three decades - have proven their capacity to dream, to create, to write, to change. From poems, to stories, to novel excerpts, to reportage, to personal essays - and a few drawings - "Honor Comes Hard" depicts what can happen to people who are given, as Clarence Darrow expressed many years ago, 'a chance to live'. The work is drawn from writing classes that Lucinda Thomas helped organize in the Honor Yard over several years, and from workshops conducted by Luis J. Rodriguez on most Sundays, for eight hours a day, through eight months in 2007-2008.

Jarvious Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole.
--FROM THE NEW JIM CROW

As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status--much like their grandparents before them.

In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community--and all of us--to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.