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Writings by twentieth-century imprisoned authors examining confinement, enslavement, and political organizing in prison.
This collection of essays and interviews provides a frank look at the nature and purposes of prisons in the United States from the perspective of the prisoners. Written by Native American, African American, Latino, Asian, and European American prisoners, the book examines captivity and democracy, the racial "other," gender and violence, and the stigma of a suspect humanity. Contributors include those incarcerated for social and political acts, such as conscientious objection, antiwar activism, black liberation, and gang activities. Among those interviewed are Philip Berrigan, Marilyn Buck, Angela Y. Davis, George Jackson, and Laura Whitehorn.
Preface
Acknowledgments
Pancho Aguila
Folsom, August 11th: A Question of Races
Introduction
Joy James
Democracy and Captivity
Part I: Penal Democracy
1. Dachine Rainer and Holley Cantine
Prison Etiquette
2. Bernard Phillips
Notes on the Prison Community
3. Jalil Muntaqim
The Criminalization of Poverty in Capitalist America (Abridged)
4. Bill Dunne
Control Unit Prisons: Deceit and Folly in Modern Dungeons
5. Raymond Luc Levasseur
Trouble Coming Every Day: ADX—The First Year
6. Paul St. John
Behind the Mirror's Face
7. Tiyo Attallah Salah-El
A Call for the Abolition of Prisons
Part II: Gendered Captivity
8. Assata Shakur
Women in Prison: How We Are
9. Susan Rosenberg
Women Casualties of the Drug War
10. Angela Y. Davis
Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves (Abridged)
11. Prince Imari A. Obadele (Shemuel ben-Yahweh)
Killers
12. Ed Mead
Men Against Sexism
Part III: Revolt
13. Little Rock Reed
The American Indian in the White Man's Prisons: A Story of Genocide
14. Imari Abubakari Obadele I
A People's Revolt for Power and an Up-Turn in the Black Condition: An Appeal and a Challenge
15. Prince Imari A. Obadele (Shemuel ben-Yahweh)
To My Baby's Children
16. Antonio Fernandez (King Tone)
King Tone's Diary
17. Yaki (James Sayles)
Let's "Gang-Up" on Oppression: Youth Organizations and the Struggle for Power in Oppressed Communities
18. Mumia Abu-Jamal
A Life Lived, Deliberately
Part IV: Dialogues in Resistance (Interviews)
19. An Interview with Charles Baxter, Wayne Brown, Tony Chatman-Bey, H. B. Johnson Jr., Mark Medley, Donald Thompson, Selvyn Tillett, and John Woodland Jr. (with Drew Leder)
Live from the Panopticon: Architecture and Power Revisited
20. An Interview with Angela Davis (with Leslie DiBenedetto)
On Prisons and Prisoners
21. An Interview with George Jackson (with Karen Wald)
22. An Interview with Geronimo ji Jaga (Elmer Pratt)
(with Heike Kleffner)
23. A Conversation with Viet Mike Ngo (with Dylan Rodríguez)
"You Have to be Intimate with Your Despair"
24. An Interview with Marilyn Buck and Laura Whitehorn (with Susie Day)
Cruel But Not Unusual—The Punishment of Women in U.S. Prisons
25. An Interview with Shaka Sankofa (Gary Graham)
(with Larvester Gaither)
26. Alan Berkman on Prison Health Care (as told to Susie Day)
Engaged in Life
27. An Interview with Philip Berrigan (with Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill)
It's Too Bad the Soil Couldn't Cry Out from the Blood Shed Upon It
Appendix 1: The Attica Liberation Faction Manifesto of Demands and Anti-Depression Platform
Appendix 2: Attica: Thirty Years Later
Selected Bibliography
About the Editor
Index