well, it is my great pleasure to

be part of this panel. although role is mostly just as so that we can talk about this important pathbreaking and fantastic looking book. i must say books through bars, stories from the prison books movement. an effort to bring books to incarcerated readers and to build communities is both within our vastly overseas sized racialised prison system to build communities within and without. my name is robert chase. i associate professor history in

the department in the department of history. obviously and also africana studies at stony brook university, new york. and i've written a book on the prisoners rights movement in texas called we are not slaves, and that is how i encountered mac markie, who put together this incredible book. but let me take a moment to introduce the three panelists and. this is a really rare opportunity to bring together not just teachers in prison education scholars and, activists, but also people who have experienced the degradations of incarceration. itself. and then risen above it. through their activism and their writings. so i want to begin by introducing lorenzo cumbo ervin.

lorenzo is an anarchist, a civil rights activist and an author. he was a member of the nonviolent coordinating committee, the black panther party and concerned citizen for justice. and in response to many credible threats to his life stemming from his political activity, ervin then fled to cuba and then czechoslovakia. he was later extradited to the united states, where he served time in the federal prison system. but this did not deter ervin. he remained politically active while inside as many incarcerated do. for we know, we not just create politicized prisoners. but we also, within our prisons, political prisoners themselves. through public support, his own legal challenges as prisoners

often themselves as, writers or what we call jailhouse attorneys, urban lorenzo secured his own release after 15 years. and course, he remains politically active. and i'm very excited to learn about the chapter that he wrote this book and his activity. i also want to introduce you to lauren braun, strom fils, an associate professor at cedar crest college. lauren has taught us and women's history to incarcerate rated people for over eight years. a really monu mental important task. one thing we know about prison education is that even though as the states reduce it, it is the number one reason to number one issue that reduces recidivism and people to prison. she was a fulbright scholar at the university of rome, and she

is the author of partners in gatekeeping how italy shaped the u.s. immigration policy over ten pivotal years. 1891 to 1901. she is also the editor and contributor to managing migration in italy and the united states. and her work has appeared in labor studies and working class history perspectives on history, world history connected and most recently, the journal of american ethnic history. and let me also say this panel is sponsored by lotsa an we want to acknowledge the labor and working class origins of this book. and last but certainly not least is david, although we all know him as mac markie, who is the coeditor of books through bars story, he's from the prison books movement.

and mac is a lifelong activist as well as an academic. he has worked with concerned family and friends. mumia abu-jamal. earth first, the ashmore bill global report. and in memorable other organizations, small and large. he has volunteered at several prison programs, out of which this book has arisen, and he helped establish the ashville prison books as well as he sample sucks file prison books. mac has served as the book review editor for h. labor was a board member of the southern labor studies. the executive assistant for the labor and working class history association, and he is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the university of south carolina now where he is working on a graphic history of the brotherhood of timber workers in production

with the historic new orleans collection. so we're going to ask a series of questions and then invite all of you to be in conversation with us about what this book published through the university press of georgia 2024. can tell us about the effort to bring prison education and prison literacy to incarcerate it people. and i. i would start with three quotes that have always sort of inspired me and i think might be a good way to get at the philosophy of behind this project. the first is by george jackson who said about reading in prison that quote, he met marx lenin, trotsky engels and mao when he entered prison and they redeemed him. the idea of reading and

education as redemption. and of malcolm x said something similar when he said i've often reflected upon the new vistas that reading has opened to me. i right there in prison that reading had changed forever. the course of my life as see it today the ability to read a walk inside made me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive. and then finally, mumia abu-jamal, who said that just because your body is in prison, doesn't mean that your mind isn't free. and even though this thought might be trite, there is some truth in it because we are our minds in the deepest sense. we are spirits. when you think a person or of your own body is not this a prison in sense? are we not in a prison of time? we age, we lose our facility

ease. but that doesn't mean we cannot overcome and do that by the power of mind and spirit. we reach beyond. and it strikes me that this exactly what this book does, it reaches beyond. so let me start this conversation by asking each you to reflect on how you came to this project, the philosophy behind work in this project. and to talk a little bit about the scope of the book itself. great. i can i can start here and i think there does need to be a moment where we talk about what books, programs are, right? so we can kind of get to the heart of the text and i do want to take a second and thank the uah, thank the labor working class history association, uga press and nathaniel holley for making this happen. i also want to that this book

would not have been possible without my coeditor moira and all of the people who contributed chapters, including my fellow panelists. right, lorenzo and lauren and also to the people who volunteered for prison books programs over the years. and, of course, to all of the people have fought for the rights of incarcerated people, including incarcerated people themselves. and when you crack open this book, i hope that you'll be struck by the art and stories. it's an attempt to the people who have been involved, this movement or are affected by to tell the story of the movement and why they think it matters. i do want to make it very clear that the people whose who are served by this movement are disproportion only poor and working class people. and i also want to stress that the overwhelming majority of the people who volunteer for these programs are also poor and working class. in short, this is who we do. this is what we do when we're not working for hire right? many of us have other interests.

and in order to understand poor and working class people more fully, you have to be able to acknowledge and look beyond our paid time and our paid service, as it were, so on to what are prison books, programs like give that general framing and then i'll kind of hand it off to lorenzo and lauren. so this is a book about a social that in many ways has flown under the radar for 50 years. the prison movement is comprised of a disparate group of people who send free books to incarcerated. and over the last several decades, this movement has sent hundreds of thousands of free inside hundreds of thousands of letters from people inside answered hundreds of thousands letters from people inside, asking for free books collectively. these programs are the single largest secular, not for organizations that endeavor to get reading material into the hands of incarcerated people. and to the best of our

knowledge, there's been no work that has attempted to document this movement and to introduce this movement as a whole, to the general public. so one of the reasons why this movement has probably fallen under the radar is because of the population that we serve right. this population is designed to remain invisible, designed to be forgotten by the public. and of course, i'm talking about incarcerated people. but the people in this movement to not see and refuse to forget our fellow citizens and this is particularly important because the united states has the largest incarceration rate per capita in the world. in other words, we imprison our citizens at a higher rate than any other country. and i just think, even though i'm sure many you are aware of this, it bears repeating, according to the prison policy institute, there's currently 1.9 million people incarcerated in the united states. and black and brown people disproportionately incarcerated.

and some states like new jersey, have discrepancy rates as high as 12 to 1, meaning black. brown citizens are 12 times as likely to be incarcerated in those states as white citizens. well, let's shift back to the book. the first part of the book. our author is talk about some of the needs for prison books, programs clarifying that these programs are indeed and serve the needs of the people on the inside, and that those needs are not currently being met by the state or through private enterprise. in other parts of the book, we discussed censorship and some obstacles to teaching and learning. inside their sections. written by vickie law, giving a general overview and michelle delong and rebecca ginsburg and others on censorship. we discuss the experience of teaching inside as well as the perspective of formerly incarcerated. speaking about the obstacles to and the relationship between the student and the teacher while inside, we also talk about the origins stories of some of these programs, including asheville

prison books and appalachian prison books project. i was one of the co-founders of the asheville prison books program, and we were the first prison program, prison books program in the entire south. we naively tried to serve the entire southeast and were quickly overwhelmed. we operated on a shoestring budget and we didn't give up. actual prison books is still books to incarcerated people. 25 years later. in fact, there are now multiple programs operating in the south and several of those can connect their origin story directly back to asheville prison, which we can talk about, if you like. we talk about some of the efforts of the movement as a whole that we've made to cooperate one another and work with one another, learn from one another. and, of course, we have interviews with some formerly incarcerated people expressing the need for the importance books on the inside. we give various insights into the ways in which people can start their own prison books program, including a wonderful comic that gives step by step

instructions right showing that you can do this. we want to make this clear that that there's exceptional about us that makes this happen. you can do this and there's a place you in these movements. so that's pretty much what we do at prison books programs. i can get into the logistics of how they work, but i don't want to take away time from my fellow panelists at the moment. we do send other reading materials in addition to books. we send materials that are important about. we be the national prisoners resource list that allows incarcerated people to get contact names and addresses for people that may for things that we can't help them with, requests that they may have, that we can't help them with. and this really runs the gamut. they might get access to reading and writing programs about college classes while incarcerated, art programs, health programs such as aids and hiv support. pen pal organizations like organizations and so on. these are important.

there's also we do send in reentry guides. many people are not given adequate information about what to do upon release and how to access programs upon release rate. and this also leads directly to the high recidivism rates in the united states. so we do our best to fill that gap, right? we do what we where we can, but also, i want to say that in this book, i think you'll notice that we incorporate and we try to tell the story and we make this something that's easily digestible. and to show that this is a part of life. and yes, you know, this is that we do because we love it and we don't have to be you know, when you do this work in these social justice movements, you don't have to engage in the martyrdom complex. right? you can actually try to make these things enjoyable. and that joy actually brings in more volunteers and the incarcerated that you are connecting with. they will recognize that. and so we try to incorporate art and artists throughout the book.

we do not separate it into a different section. right. it's much like life. we allow that interaction to flow in the book. so without to, i will turn it over to my fellow panelists. all right. okay. so i came to this work as a professor of history at ryerson valley community college in jersey and we were the we were definitely the only college in new jersey. and i and i think, you know, even rare within the nation to deliver a liberal arts degree program entirely, students who are incarcerated. so that meant that you could earn the degree completely inside. there was there no course requirements or anything that you had to fulfill in order to earn that degree and that the degree itself was also a liberal arts degree, which was meant that students were taking

courses in history, which is how i encountered them. and the role that i played. but but in a broad swath of of the liberal arts including things like studio art art and other topics that were not typically taught inside made for a variety of of institutional, i think it paternalistic reasons. so that was really the the you know the biggest thing for me was that i'll use a phrase so my students referred to it as real college was their phrase, you know, that they were, they were going to a real college class and they were very proud of that. and it was a it was a an aspect of their day that was like totally just for them and just between me as their professor and and them it was it was really, i think in some ways and, you know, maybe my sense was that it was like the only of

their day that wasn't heavily controlled and dictated in which they could make choices of their own within the setting right of the classroom environment. so i ended up teaching, i taught the u.s. history survey, which was a core requirement. i ended kind of making it a women's history course. i was primarily teaching at a man correctional facility for women which, if you are incarcerated, the state of new jersey and you're a woman and. so it can be really, you know, anything from shoplifting to to capital charges. you're you are sent to ed and a man and and every person who is sent there initially begins their sentence in the maximum security section of the prison. so that was where i taught. i started in what they call max and in my experience in in max initially was really one of incredible privilege of having not been inside a prison and having not known incarcerated

people directly in my coming up or, at least not being aware that maybe somebody might been formerly incarcerated, perhaps when i encountered them on the outside. so i walked in with a lot of stereotypes. and i also, you know, i remember early on, you know, when i went to my first training, which took place in max, was at a roundtable where we student leaders the program and then we had, you know, other professors who are going to be teaching in the program all sitting around within the classroom where i would later teach, which we called the fishbowl because it had glass on all sides. and sitting within the fishbowl, you know, was really the first time i realized, like, there's nothing to be afraid of in here. you know, it's emotional because it's a place for a tool to be afraid of. right. and the people we're supposed to be afraid of that. but what i realized was that even though i would each time i entered max, you know, i would

come in, i had to have a clear plastic bag for my i couldn't have a click pen. this wasn't allowed. i couldn't have a cell phone. i couldn't have a computer. i couldn't have photocopies with, you know, certain like staples that i had. there were all these little rules. i couldn't wear a bra with underwire. and so if you're, you know, a person who wears bras like know i had i had to change all these things about kind of my daily routine. but when would go inside i would go through a guard booth and i would sign in and i'd go through the metal detector and then i would wait for them to unlock the first locked door. and then i would go through the and then i would walk down the path and then the second door and then the third locked door. and then i would see the officers in the kind of panopticon style booth and, and within that facility. and then i would go into my classroom and thing that at first i realized was like that all those layers, you know, those layers of security and all the barbed wire and all and all of those stops really were just

a tool of power and control. and they. they were no, you know, they were not making me. and he said i was safer. honestly, in that room with those students than i was interacting, you know, in any other way. and so it really humanized, i would say deeply, the people and then the students that i encountered especially that first semester, they so hungry, so hungry for real. and they were the best students i've ever had. this is like chris going to be recorded broadcasts and you know but this is they used to joke with me that i always needed tissues actually. so if they're watching out there, i hope some of them are from the outside that i know they they recognize me. i remember for this, they usually can keep control of it a little bit better days. but i'll say, you know, that the emotional connection was one that just really took me by

surprise. um, because i had been teaching these courses a while, but the way that i encountered the students and inside the way they encounter it, particularly the history of slavery in the united states, was so profound that it changed the way i taught on the outside and, you know, the dynamics when we talk about, you know, the tools of mastery. right. that that people in the antebellum south attempted to use. this was not a lesson had to teach. right this was the lived reality of the people in my classroom. and i will say also that one thing you know is that i never wanted to know, like, why somebody was inside. i would a sense they had been there for a while, not necessarily because of their age. everybody honestly, probably a bit older really than they might

be on paper inside because it's it's takes a lot out of you but they're i would notice their badges that they had to wear and the photograph on the badge would just be a of a younger person or would be old like, you know, you could tell they had worn that badge every day for many many, many years, in some cases decades. so i never to know why anybody was inside. like if you were in my classroom on campus, i wasn't like, what's your backstory? why are you here? you know? and that i found allowed me to have really, really deep relationships with students on the inside and to really see the fact that there again, there, the way they encountered the history of the united states and women's history in particular was so transformative to me as a practitioner and and so i guess i'll leave it there. you know, i do want to talk a little bit about how our program came about and why it was different. again, i started off talking how it was a liberal arts degree

program, and that was really profound because so much of prison education is vocational or is, you know, is like collections of courses like take this, take that, have experience, have that experience. but this, this was really powerful. and i saw how that worked. and i will turn it over to lorenzo now, and i'll come back to some of these. i want to go to lorenzo, but i do just have one question for you, which is in all my work, whether or it's doing oral histories or working with incarcerated people to publish their writing, i i'm always wondering what they teach. and so one, one question i have about prison education is if you could tell the audience quickly, but maybe, you know, connecting to all the teaching you've done, what it was that they've taught you? if there one singular thing.

maybe it's don't expect that my expert you know like like that it's. looking for what you don't think you're going to see be open to the i don't know i think you know that sort of like breaking open and that's such an irony because again like, you know, the breaking open happened in the place that was the most physically restricted that i have experienced on a regular basis. and every time i left, you know, i would drive out and i would be distinctly aware that i was able to leave. so i think it's maybe echoed in one of the quotes that you read, you know, in abu-jamal's quote, thinking about the freedom that we are capable of inside the most. the most secluded, the most

oppressive places. and that would be the lesson. thank you and thank you for reminding us of the humanity that goes into both teaching and this book, because i think that it is what it is and poor lorenzo, this question was on sort of the philosophy behind and the prison books program, but important for you, i think maybe thinking, telling us a little bit about yourself and what motivates you to do this work and to be of this project, how you came the project right. well, that's an interesting perspective i was arrested in. 1969 as a 19 year old. a lot of black civil rights organizer. and i eventually i had run amok all over the world. if you the fbi, tell a story had been to had hijacked a plane to

cuba and then after time in cuba, they threw me out. you say. and and i managed to find my way to czechoslovakia and i was on my way to africa. but was captured by the the fbi was not the fbi. the state department's agents, the state department's arrested me and brought me back to united states in september 1969. i got to. new york. they put me in a federal house, a detention, and at the federal house, a detention met martin sastry, who i know anything about. martin sastry i'd never about him, but he was one of the foremost prison organizers for prisoners rights in the united states. and he was in new york city because he was suing the state officials at the new york state system, where he was located. and he was suing them for the rights for prisoners to receive

literature radical and controversial literature receive to actually unorthodox relations to have a social and cultural society inside the prisons and so forth, all of which seemed to the prison officials and even most of the prisoners as outlandish as just impossible to me in. but that impossible would certainly become the inside the prison system. so i'm talking about is the fight the fight to establish prison literature and it was a fight that had to be done, first of all, a legal fight and a you know, strategic fight in terms of strikes, whatever else, protests that had to be done. but out of that process and that of me coming into the prison system, i didn't know anything about prison. i've been in prison my life. i was like, lauren, in some respects, i'd never been in

prison, didn't have a tough upbringing, but having come prison and having come to prison at a historical moment, the moment of the civil rights movement, black power, the the new left and all of these movements that were around in 1960s and early 1970s and seeing being in the presence of and to build a national prison is organization of prisons, movement prisons, rights movement and that movement and the rights won was initiated. first of all, in the fight against censorship. because when i came to prison, only thing you could have is the bible they'd give you. they'd be happy to furnish you a bible and send you to church. no, thank you. i'll take my my anarchist material and instead that you're keeping in seclusion. so we had to fight, file a

lawsuit based on martin sophocles case in new york, which he and gave all these rights to the new york state prisoners and so we talked about the sastry the lawsuit method. and i went into the federal system and became a jailhouse lawyer. and i started, along with other prisoners. we filed a class lawsuit in a number of federal prisons and eventually, though, they took me out, the atlanta federal penitentiary, and they sent me to a place where you're supposed to get killed. they called it the ku klux klan jail is the federal and terre haute, indiana. and even in that prison, the right to receive literature changed fundamentally the nature of the prison and of everyone in it. everyone in it. when i went to that prison, the

klan had murdered people there, both the guards and, the prisoners. and it had been covered up for years. and in. 70, 1970, there an anti klan rebellion. and the interesting thing about all of this preceding all of this was the fact that we had managed to force the prison officials to give us the revolutionary and other literature that people had ordered for years and they'd been kept, you know, covered in the in the warden's office. they we forced them the court forced them to give to us, forced them to allow us to create a cultural studies program. as a result of the book, the book is a is a weapon. a weapon, not just a tool of education. it's a weapon to change the

world because people who have not had basic education, people who have been forced to live in ghettos. people who have suffered from of racial oppression in the south. through the book, through political education, was able to redeem themselves. live the sorry, through living a circumstance where your life is in danger just for reading a book, you can go to solitary confinement years. you could be beaten to death by guards. you could be stabbed and killed by racist prisoners. and you had to be willing accept it for the book. the right to receive the book.

the right to read the right to talk about what you have, what you have read. this was the result of martin scorsese's case and all the lawsuits that found after that. and there were plenty the changed, the even change the federal judiciary. so when we talk about the prison and the creation of the program well, first of all, you had to receive the books you had to fight to receive books. and we understood this going in so it was a life threatening situation situation or a book a but it's the book that you want to read, not that they want you to read. prison officials wanted to break

inside by the of ideological stimulation that's what i use solitary confinement to such a degree. you had nothing to keep you going. you they could break you. they saw if they could break you and they could force you to accept the regime. yeah, i'm not talking about. nazi germany. i'm not talking about the soviet union or, you know, north korea. i'm talking about the united states. they created progress camps, behavior modification. they called it well, they actually had doctors and prison officials, many times as one of the same who would solitary confinement to break you to to force you to accept whatever they were doing. and they didn't always didn't have to beat they could force drug you and all these things. so when you look at it i a fight

to get this done to get these books what we to the books however and we were able to fight lead a nationwide legal we were able to forced officials to give us as i said the right to have free discussions and cultural studies groups and educational programs they educational programs were a joke they only gave you what they felt like giving you as opposed to what you needed. you needed to know who you are you needed to know that you were a human being. you needed to know that can get out of prison and lead a prosperous life, could get out of prison and and raise a family. you needed to know things because they were trying to program you as a criminal in these oh well we're trump run program program i'm away from

criminal content we try to deter them know what they're trying to do is to make you come back. they make you stay in prison. they make you become institutionalized. so the whole purpose of having prison literature that was so controversial, that was where it was even subversive, as they would say, the whole purpose of that. was that so that you would have a different way of viewing the world so that you, as george jackson used to say, would dispense of the criminal mentality before the revolutionary and cultural mentality. and from that standpoint, you know, it was important to say, you know, that these prison books they weren't just books, they were life changing instruments. that's the way we saw it.

that's why we were able to sacrifice and and if necessary. and times came that was it was almost on the verge of death some people did die in prisons just for the right for people to have these books because these books broke down the regime. they broke down the censorship. it almost broke down the walls. and in some respect, it did because millions of people were able to see for the first time as a result of the attica rebellion with so much death. and sometimes i have to say. but death is necessary. it's like a war. a war is necessary sometimes. i don't believe in war. i'm you know, in that sense. but i understand that you have to oppose unjust authority and you can't oppose unjust authority, if you will, if you don't believe or you're led to believe that you're the most

despicable piece of humanity and you have no right to resist. so from this standpoint, we can say, you know, that, that, yes, the entire program where we started out getting the books, forcing the officials, first of all to give it to us, to give us a prison library piece of the prison library. these all of our books, but we we had more books than they did in the prison library and we forced them to put our books on the shelves and allow prisoners to check out our books. and we forced them forced. you understand what i'm saying to allow us to take the prison books to go to solitary confinement and give those books to prisoners who wanted them and

many of those prisoners started reading books were white for the first time. and reading these books. changed them. those that were. helped us destroy ku klux klan in tyrone. i was given 45 additional years to my sentence. because i planned to the klan rebellion into your. i'm not ashamed.

hey, i'm committed, thankful that i could play that role if i had not fought to get out of prison, if i had not had help to get out of prison, i would be getting out of prison this year. i to spend the remainder of my life two life sentences plus 45 years for my of resistance so i learned early on within the prison structure that the books censorship had a role in sustaining and maintaining prisons as an institution as an unjust institution institution. and i would do it again if i had the opportunity. i think that even today and they

reinstated prison censorship, that one of my books had been banned. and the state of a book i wrote in anarchism and the black revolution has been banned, but it brought back to me what we have done and made me understand after so many years, how we had defeated government and defeated the prison officials, driven out racist guards, and all of these things started to happen as a result of us getting the book and the book changed the world for us and and for this country and then it respects at that time the prison movement was based on the civil rights movement. they had seen it for years. it seen they seen the protests. and so on. they understood that they had the power to transform the conditions they lived under and transform their own lives. some of them would never get out of prison.

i could have been one of them. be quite honest. but some of we knew we we may never get out of prison, but we wanted to know the truth because we understood the truth can set you free. you go. a lot of years in your life. i'm sorry. that you didn't ever do this sort of, but you can go a lot of years in your life. and you never discover what you. were meant to do. hi. what happened to me in prison? the struggling made me a

revolution period for the rest of my life and activists. i came out of prison and started organizing police brutality, started organizing against racism. we filed a lawsuit, which i led, which i did the research for. we sued the government of the city of chattanooga because for 90 years, black people never had any rights. in. that city. what i learned in prison is what i used in the streets to bring justice to black people in chattanooga, tennessee tennessee, i'm just an example. i'm not a evil. i'm just an example of what can happen if you allow people education and if you allow people to be human beings, if

you allow people to have a voice. we've got to transform this country and we got to destroy prisons as an institution. we take the resources that for the prison system and use that resource for the community from the communities that those prisoners from, which is based on poverty poverty. we need to educate prisoners inside, yes, but we need to fight, get them outside so that they have the chance to have a life. i'm more worried. the officials in government is being killers than i am about these people in the prisons that i was in prison with with. those people have no choice in many respects they are led down the path to do criminal activity. but the governor, government officials arrange for poverty. it's it's systematically created

it. they arrange for police terrorism, police brutality to have that kind of presence, an occupying army. and so when they go to prison, it's what they expect. they're told that this all they're good for. we have to say that we will take the book, will not accept censorship even in this period, we will not accept it we will take the book and we are taking the book and we are reaching people and we going to change their lives. and we are to fight the officials every step of the way. that's the lesson, to fight every step of the way. so if we look at this book, it's the first of its kind. it's exceptionally well written. it has a story that would your perspective on the prison system, on the police and even on the government that allows these things to take place this is supposedly a democratic regime we live under.

then how can you explain to me why people are being kept in solitary confinement for years on end when? the united nations is this it's in violation of international law? can you explain to me why people are being beaten in key or hung by the neck neck and the prison guards are let go? is it happens is a normal thing. we've got a problem in this country with the prison system. you would not think that the to the tool for the liberation would be a book i didn't believe in at first i couldn't understand it how this could possibly so but then i remember somebody told me that the pen is mightier than the sword. i thought that was i thought it was insane until the struggle the prison books movement started inside the prisons.

then i understood it. then i understood it. sometimes this is what's necessary. so it isn't just a question of prison education alone. and although i'm going to tell you, the prison officials in the states are not willing to spend the money for political expediency and for other reasons to even give a basic education to people. and so this is why we have to help these books to pass, because we to give the education, the legitimate education to that they don't get from the state or from federal authorities. so from that standpoint, it's really, really important understand why we're doing this. we're doing this because we're trying to save people. we're trying to change people. we're trying to give communities and people a chance we're trying

to challenge the authorities that continually justice upon communities. police terrorism is just another that we're seeing. but it's always been. and you think the book how can the book all of this a book of ideas, how can it change the world? people read this book. they will be changed. they'll go and tell others. they'll tell others. others will read the book and they'll be discussions. just like in the prisons. outside the prisons, there were discussions about what all of this meant. we've learned about what the prison officials have to people we've learned about what are like. and now we are in a position to change to change it because we

care. it matter. who doesn't care about who does care? and this is how change societies, how you build movements and is the fundamental order of things where you think nothing can change in an environment where it seems like it's just slavery. we proved from our struggle in the 1970s, we proved it. we defeated, the prison regime, we destroyed censorship, we created social and culture programs. can i get some wipes or something? tissues, tissue? yeah. she's got some because she's been doing all that crying. thank you you. know, lorenzo, what i really love about what you're bringing everyone here is, the idea of transformation books as

transformation and individual transformation and community engagement and transformation and finally transforming society. and in that way, that book each and every one of those that this program and mac and others have sent into the prison and in your education, they're all an abolitionist act. but they began with seed. right. that mind, as mumia said to reach beyond so it's very profound. i want to turn to mac in a moment. lorenzo, i'm curious. you tell us when you were first encountering books during your incarceration, what could you name a couple of books that were really transformative for you something deeply influential, of course, the prison the prison letters of george jackson, but also some of james baldwin's

book, books by by even eldridge cleaver, who was a tremendous writer, he might have been a lunatic, but he's a tremendous writer. and and i don't know there were others. there were. but most of the books that really affected me were books i received from abroad anarchists in and other books about subject that i didn't even know anything about it ever existed the the russian war, the anarchists. the anarchists role of the russian civil war, the the the 19th 86 spanish civil war and all these other things which had lot of blacks going to spain volunteering on behalf of the the the spanish people who were being confronted with terrorism by the fascists. you know, franco and the fascists, all these things. i didn't know anything about it. i didn't receive that education. and of course, a variety of black literature, which is in

abundance during that period because of the black power was was put out as well, you know, that prisoners were not given access to, as they claim, this subversive, you know, you back to claiming that again. now that it was subversive literature a threat to states to say institutional security and forth when. i got access to the books what we used to was i would get books somebody else would get books, we'd share the books, we'd pass them around. and prison officials didn't like that, but they couldn't necessarily stop it is they didn't know it was just too much of it. they didn't have to always be following around. so we'd get and just pass along each other and start talking about it and having secret discussions, you know, we were eating and everything at one point the others saying is not designed to for mitch, you're thinking, it's designed to break your mind and at one point, the

prison tried to go back to the silent treatment, which meant that it against the rules to even speak to anybody and we defeated that by, just ignoring it. and, you know, they threatened to take you in solitary confinement as a form. but if everybody opposed them, they take anybody. that's the thing. it's like the whole thing of when somebody is being arrested in civil rights demonstrations, people would go and grab them and arrest them, pull them away from the racist police and the sheriff and so forth. and they them back into the ranks of the people and this was a similar kind of thing just by not going along with an unjust you threw the officials into frenzy you threw them into situations they didn't know what to do.

thank you, lorenzo. i mean, that all goes into the that this program creates both within and without. i'm thinking about a book, not as a product, a process. mac, i wanted to ask you and lauren, you as well. i thinking back to the orange ends of this project, could you tell us a little bit about what made you what made you attracted to the idea of doing this and bringing knowledge and books to incarcerated readers? what does it mean to you personally and intellectually to do this and teaching as well and then the third part of that is that what is it? what does it mean to the community you work with outside of the prison? and what does it mean to the reader within those prison cells? what kind of community does that create? what brought you to this project and how did it so great

questions and i do want to make a quick point that the most requested book from that, there's dozens of prison books, programs throughout the united states and hands down the most commonly requested book is a dictionary hands down. it's not even right. and many people are quite surprised by that. and says something about people's lack of understanding that, you know, many people in who are incarcerated are working to understand the material that they get and are working to kind of make a change in their lives. right. and this access to a dictionary is critical to that. and the fact that we get many requests for dictionaries nationwide shows the need for for these programs and. and, you know, in the lack of education on that and the funding in the educational system, i kind of lead people down this path to incarcerate nation right now. i think the latest statistics

are approximately 60% of incarcerated people are functionally illiterate. right. so but back to your back, your question. what drew me personally to the movement think that i started out, uh, looking to do support work for political prisoners and then after a short period of time i kind of began to realize that in a system that is so unjust that really incarcerated people are prisoners of a political system. right. and so then that made me kind of look and move to a more general manner in assisting incarcerated people, helping them get the things that they are asking for, that they're articulating that they want and they need. and in terms of community there is a lot of community that prison books, programs foster and and there's multiple ways to look at this and can look at it in terms of the communities that the programs foster on the

inside which lorenzo has kind of talked about a little. and and to think, you know, getting access to the books on the inside, people share, books on the inside, when and where possible. they also share the ideas they receive in the books and there's chapters on that in the book where other formerly incarcerated people rock, tornado and then in the gallon are kind of talking that experience. quinn had a harris as well. so there's you know it's a fostering a community on the inside. right. and that's important. but it's also letting people on on the inside know that they're not forgotten. right. and that's an important aspect of community for some people. this may be that letter that they get in conjunction with receiving a book or the book that they get maybe the first outside contact they've had in years. years. right. and letting them know they are not forgotten that a set that is community building at its core. right.

and then in terms of the community on the outside, there's multiple ways and that works right. and one of the one of the ways to look at that is this is fighting a system that seems so overbearing and so over powerful, so, so powerful that coming together to do something right and action that you're able to take action in this way really does foster a sense of community in that you are functioning to work through this system and you know, for many people are involved in this movement, it isn't the be it isn't everything that they do. right. they're not they may be involved in other social movements. this is just one thing that they do. right. but in this in this one thing, they can come together. and there is a sense of community through the book packing parties that you might have or through, you know, the meeting days where looking for where you're, looking for books to package up these letters. when you're reading the letters, the letters loud, when you're sharing the artwork that you receive from incarcerated people. and also, you know, and then the

other side of it, where you're trying to have community building events where you're that that may be fundraisers. right. we talk a little bit about about that as well. and in the book, you know, and you're trying to kind of incorporate people into this project or maybe some of these they're busy and they're an artist in a different way. and what they can do is they can they can contribute a flier, right? that's how they can contribute and be a part of that process that's valuable. right. and they're excited to do that. and you're involving people in the community in the ways that they can interact with the. and then also in terms of the families of incarcerated people. families of incarcerated, they cannot send books to incarcerate loved ones personally. they need an intermediary. it has come from a bookstore and approved source. and if they don't have the resources to do that. or if they don't want to purchase through one of the big conglomerates, what have you, prison books, programs, offers

the ability to do that. and then but it also fosters the sense of community where they're able to come to a place where they might feel more understood and thus isolated from the other people, them because we're to consider that shameful thing that you may know someone who's incarcerated, right. and so this is a way to break down that barrier. so there's many ways in which we we foster community through these programs. um, thank you. yeah so i was actually kind of trying think and remember like, how did i get to start to do this and my entry and my you know relationship to and books and you know books bars is really a bit different than than than mac's in the you know of the contributors to the book in that i was i was working to get my textbooks inside which you know i'm sure we can all kind of you know, those of us that are in classrooms now or can remember from our own, you know,

we sometimes the textbook just like is like the last thing you might to read. but i found so i use the eric foner is give me liberty and you know i got to give a shout out to w.w. norton. they were really responsive when i said we need for teaching these courses and they got us the donations that we needed. and then i started teaching when i actually created a women's class, in part inspired by my sort of subversive attempts to make women's history for inside. and i thought, this is a, this needs to be its own separate course. the curriculum as a required course. and, and then i had the textbook there. but one of the issues that we actually had is tracking and sure that then the people in the courses have the books that they needed, which is another layer kind of to the story you know, and we've been talking a lot, i think about the way in which the bureaucracy of prison is meant is intended to break humanity of the people inside and to

reinforce their they're lesser than their you know, in that hierarchy of power. so one of the issues that we had was that our books kept getting lost and, misplaced. and some of that was is i think, another way to either directly or indirectly right through the kind of chaos machine is of deny that access. so i a semester where i taught women's history where half of my students had a book that ended halfway through the semester right they had like the volume one and when we were teaching the whole full volume. and so i had to figure out how to deal with that. and i, i felt awful, you know, for these, these students that like, they literally like to stop at eight. and we were going to chapter 15 or whatever and but we, you know, we figured it out. i mean, there's one point where the books were like in somebody's car, in the trunk and i was always every semester i was always tracking where are

they? were they where are they? because i knew how valuable they were. and then i was always to get more donations. and that's something that i really tried hard to facilitate because the you know, my students used to tell me particular that the library, they were like the library isn't anything good in it for us. and but the what you know what the textbooks brought right again was like, i'll say that real you know, that real college connection, that connection to an intellectual world which they were a part and, i think, you know, the other thing to i was just kind of thinking about what it meant to me on the outside. i didn't hear, you know, again, like i actually gave they picked me one year to give the address. we graduated people so we would these graduation ceremonies inside and again speaking to the academics in the room, in the audience, you know, graduation is in some ways, right? i mean, for the people graduating special. but like when you do, you do it each and there's it's a bit of a can be a bit of a rigmarole. well that all the words that you say at a graduation about all

the things of its meaning that inside a graduation inside was it was all true you know it was all true. and actually our valedictorian that year want to shout out because so if she's out there somewhere brenda wiley because she was one of the most amazing students i ever had, she herself sued the state of new jersey to overturn law because she was sentenced as a 16 year old to life and to overturn that sentencing. right. that um, that minors cannot be sentenced to life in prison. and i just heard through the grapevine that she has been released as of, i think, two months ago. and that's where she is. i hope maybe if she's out there, can come and find me. i would really love to to reconnect with her, but i want to say, you know, that some of the things that were meaningful, you know, thinking about really

were, you know, someone like brenda comes to mind is because is one of the things that i, i ended up doing and changing my activism is like. so i went and testified in front of legislature of the city of new jersey when a because. 4 million cars rated people were denied their constitutional right to vote after their release that was still you know on the books as of i'm not sure how many maybe i think it was around 2019 that a bill up to restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated people in new and i testified in that in those you know in front of the legislature which was very intimidating someone who doesn't normally feel intimidated by most cases and there i i reunited with a former student who who i had taught in max and that was that was pretty special. and i think though that, you

know, in part like that it was you know, the experience transferred me into i think what kind what you know in some degree what mac was talking about as a person who takes action and does it know in ways that are i hope you know made a difference but you know the other way that this you know changed me and changed maybe my community and the outside rate was in of, i'll say some leadership within the program i took i was very, very adamant that anybody who taught excuse me history inside did it with that that there was absolutely no difference between inside outside courses and in particular that the skills and of the historian were essential and that they were practiced in the course and that the students were taken seriously as historians in the course. and then it wasn't dumbed down

in any way or simplified in any way, which again had been the experience. and as far as i'm aware, right, is really an unfortunate hallmark. a lot of inside education and that was super important me so i did a lot of gatekeeping of who was teaching those courses and a lot of conversations with those instructors a lot of observations. i went inside and observed. i observed math class once already, you know, but i did take these as opportunities as well. i think the mentoring and the conversations around, what it means to teach and what it, you know, also to teach within a setting where. that again, the dynamics of power are so different and how we can let go of our need to kind of, you know, control that as as professors, as instructors. so i'll say that. and then, you know, think that in leadership of the program

that i also try to while i'm not actively teaching inside anymore, you know, when i started my career to college and i think in some ways still, you know, within. one of my big missions a long time, i'm no longer there, but one of my big missions really was to try to bring the community, you know, the experience of community college 3000 students right to elevate that and help to diminish the prejudices and the stereotypes that existed which in some ways not they're not totally dissimilar. maybe there's a bit of a venn diagram overlap with some of the prejudices around who attends or the prejudices who who might be incarcerated and have the class dynamics. and then, you know, in the in those ideas about who those students are, i'll say with eric. so some of that direct activism which has resulted in policy changes and it's in the labor and working class history association as one, one place, you know, where we're really to

build access and inclusion for scholars, students and. and other people who might be, you know, who might access the field through a community college. so i'll you know, i'll say that is one thing that i'm pretty proud of and that i think is inspired in part by this work and and so that's what i want to leave time i know for that. well i do also want to leave time for the audience and. i'm mindful of the time. so here's what i think i'm going to do. i'm just to package together the final or so questions i had. then i want to really turn it over to the audience and maybe, maybe don't immediately respond to my questions unless it's a good intersection. one, because this is sponsored by lockjaw. i want to talk about the relationship between the book and this book's through bars program and the labor movement and the working class struggle that is embodied within our

prisons and our in our jobs. and of course, the prisoner rights movement is also a labor movement. we had the first ever nationwide prison strike in 2016 and then again in 2018. so if if someone wants to talk about relationship to this book and to this project to labor and working class life a second i just want to talk about artists creativity. this book just littered with we were talking earlier it reads a zine and i think mack had pointed out in his introduction and i also read the proposal for this book initially that it had a kind of punk mentality behind it. so if we could talk a little bit about what artistic creation by the incarcerated means both within the book and to those creating that art. and then i also want to try and touch because the book as a chapter, what means for lgbtq

communities within, the prison of which there are many, in fact, that's a growing. as our public spaces policed and then last question is what challenges did you have thinking particularly about the role of of censorship. so any of those four questions are my final four but why don't we turn it over to the audience and maybe they'll be some conjunction or if you wish to address any of those for sounds good to me and i will coming to folks we have a there we are on so i'll be asking you to speak into this microphone directly so let me open it up to the then so while while people are ruminating on the questions, i'll go ahead and some of the last question that you asked. we do have the book does contain

an interview instance with zoe laurence, a currently incarcerated person, and it talks about zoe's struggle to be identified in the manner of your choosing and. also, the to information and material that the struggle that zoe faced in gaining access to that material and this is a common and growing problem within the right you think about how this is happening on the outside in the outside world and think about how that then becomes more concentrated and more difficult on inside. i don't i don't think i really need to explain that much further than that. it makes a lot of sense. and so this a common fight that we have that many prison books programs are currently involved with in terms of, you know, and there's there's a long history here. i know that asheville prison books when i think i don't remember the exact year is sometime around 23 perhaps when

transmission books grew out of the asheville books program. and their their mission is to queer folks on the inside with the material of their right. and they specialize in that material. so there are there are programs who indeed specialize in that? and almost every prison books program that i know makes an effort to make sure that queer folks on the get access to the information that they need. and indeed, there is a growing censorship. and censorship is another aspect of this project that prison books, programs, often fighting censorship a regular basis. i'll be, in fact, speaking at in conjunction with avid books in georgia in about a week or so. and avid books currently has a lawsuit fighting the censorship material that they have been trying us and inside. so this is a growing, growing problem we.

back i'll touch on your censorship point for just a second and it goes back to something that mr. lorenzo said about, how his book was banned inside and and it probably wasn't banned everywhere. inside, right. it was probably banned maybe in one or two places, maybe 20. but my point that what is is not uniform within the system, right? what's banned depends largely on where you're at and the leadership and sometimes what's banned gets to when new leadership comes in. and it can be incredibly frustrating to sort of navigate who lets what and when. so how do you advise programs who are trying to get books inside about how to navigate all the little nuances that come with every individual facility? yeah, that that's a great

question. i'm going to say something very short because i'm sure mark has a lot more to say. so you know, i had a different role, right? we weren't responding to individual requests for, but we were often trying to get materials were not typically use documentary ese. i was a tough one even again having regular access to the right textbook and current textbooks you know, that weren't yanzhou out of date. so we had, you know, an education office and dossier and new jersey department of corrections or has an education division. and so sometimes would experience that where like depending on who was in that seat there was, there was a lot of resistance or, you know, or it could be smoother. so i found a lot strategies of finding, you know, of just trying to find where the water would flow right? how who i could go to and how i could. and and even against my nature of being sweet and chirpy and nice and know all the all those nice, little sweet things that i'm usually not in, in trying to to get those books where they

needed to go and find out again, where were the cracks that i could get through? and i was able and, you know, it took a long time but the pressure of and that and that kind of like legwork was did yield some good results although not always. and when i do write about a situation where i thought i was doing something helpful to have a student screen a film and it actually ended being a big problem for student because of the power dynamics inside. so that also stepping back sometimes and realize that i couldn't make things happen. the way i could on the outside and i needed to respect people's roles and and the fact that they were inside and they had to live within that regime. so the carceral is huge. there's currently i think the latest estimates are about six thousands different prisons,

jails and whatnot throughout the united states. and there's multiple levels. right. and so you have the federal system within there's multiple tiers in the federal system, sorry. and then each state has their own carceral system and then each county, so on and so forth online and then states, i mean not states and then even, you know, there's little holding cells in jails. and and this isn't even including when i'm talking about ice, so on. so there's lots of systems incarceration in the united states and the system may have certain guidelines then that depends upon is it a institution, is it a medical institutions on and so forth. but then what really ultimately once you if you able to navigate all of that, okay, if you were successful navigating all that it does ultimately, oftentimes come down to the person in the mailroom how they are in terms fitting those guidelines and.

sometimes i've had success in the old fashioned style, just calling the figuring out and it is in infuriatingly difficult to actually someone on the telephone but i've had it work to where i've been able to actually get on the phone and question why a particular package, why a particular book was was being kept. one time our program had blacklisted by an institution and they said, well, you know, it's because you're not real. you're not a real bookstore. and i said, well, go ahead and check. you know, this is this is who are and and they were like okay. well, i'm looking at google maps now. and so now i see that it is a brick and mortar store. now, you will be accepted in, you know, and so and those the good stories, right, where you're able to navigate through. but that's not always the case. sometimes you just get a package back and it just says rejected. and there's no information about it was rejected and you have to pay to get that package back and then you pay to send that

package back in. and these are programs that do not have a lot of money trouble in fundraising. so you for the same package three times and you're not even certain going to get there on the third time. all right. and so have to try and figure out and ascertain why something was banned. and sometimes we are aware things we don't even know that things get rejected. right. that's just when we happen. know we do our best. sometimes we're able to check and see if people are getting things and we know that people are getting some packages because we get people writing letters saying, hey, listen that was so great. i, i understand you didn't have the books that i requested and i was a little bummed when didn't get the books i requested. but it turns out you made some great choices and really loved what i read, so thank you for sending. so we know that, you know, these things happen that they do get through and that they do make a difference. but it is very difficult to navigate that system. some states have banned books lists. some states do or at least do not have ones that they're

willing to admit to. sometimes you're able to work things out with a particular warden. other times you can, you know, try for years and it's never going happen. it is infuriating. and that's the power of the lawsuit as lorenzo has talked about. and you know, which is also what avid books is engaging with now. and there's other people also engaging in lawsuits. we have a piece in the book about he laughs, challenging the right to send books on the inside and sometimes that's what it takes is it's not the actual lawsuit itself. it's the threat of the lawsuit. it's finding a or a legal representative who's willing to stand, who's suing and say, okay, we'll write this letter, we'll try and make sure that they, you know, force them to articulate their rationale for banning this. and then all of a sudden, you get a letter, oops, we made a mistake. right. but but that's all extra work. that's all extra work.

and that's actual work for people who are doing this in their free time. oftentimes getting paid. right. and they're already maxed out. and all the other things that they do and they've already tried to send this package in, it's just extra work. and we do the best we can and we try to challenge these things as we can. and we have the assistance sometimes other organizations who we're able to rely on for legal help and advice, and then we communicate through with one another, which we talk about in the text. right? we have a listserv. we're able to say, okay, you know currently is everybody, you know, having trouble with this particular institution? how have you been able to navigate that? you know, what's helpful, what's not? and so once one person figures it out, now everybody how to navigate that. but it's maddening in short to we do we have maybe question from lorenzo where we're nearing at time but i'd like to get another question. the audience.

they're free to i'll start well lorenzo maybe you should help us with the last word i did that question about the connection of this book and of this larger project to the labor movement, to working class movements, to contemporary struggles. you've got a long history of that, maybe. do you want to leave us with some closing thoughts about. what books through bars again really just amazing mac you're and the press you're to complimented on this it's important work as i think lorenzo has attested but maybe if you could leave with some thoughts about what project means for the current moment and our struggles in this election and moving forward beyond this election and struggles in our prisons and without well easy

question know, you know the moment that i was talking about in this moment are similar but different in this period now repression learned from our struggles and they apply censorship differently. they make a different for in my book. well the book they stopped it man they they made the argument that it advocated racial superiority of people being superior to whites that no there's no way that's true but it's argument and that's the argument that's being used in the streets as well. that is we're at a time when i tried to do some time ago in creating a movement in a way that opposed book banning was to

help people understand that the fight against banning books is the fight against fascism, because the, as you said, in this period, the the right wing is using book banning to try to control what people think on the outside. they talked about what they what they on the inside. well, now they're doing it on the outside to try to control people's views, to try to silence people and to try to make you politically i question or whatever the word is. i'm looking for. but to stop you. they stop you to make you think that that the power of the government of the power of of of the authorities that there should be no so-called black literature. there should be no no no, you

know what they call it this period, the black thought a black well, what is this program they've got. they want they don't you to look at black lives matter but they don't want you to look at black lives matter as an important movement. don't want you to think that black people had a history. they don't want you to think that there was a civil rights in this country. even. they want to make you think that all of this is outlawed by those in and they want to get in power to be able to do it. we're facing now a prospect of this election producing a person who is a megalomaniac, but more importantly, producing him with with a program that the wing has drawn up. this project 2025, that conservative groups have created so that when their man is elected or woman, which, which

advocates may be over the course of time, they'll come into power with an agenda that will change the fundamental institutions of government. it'll change all the institutions, the government that exist now and and, of course, censorship will. just be one of those things that they'll that will have used to gain their power to gain their power base. and that's what's happening now. the election is is is important. i'm not telling you to vote for this group for that. i don't believe in that. i'm an anarchist. first of all, i don't i believe, you know, i have a whole different belief system. but the point is that we're facing fascism, whatever we believe in. and i think that people be fighting in the street, protesting whatever now, to be quite honest. but the majority people don't know what's being planned for them at simple fact of losing this election could lose people's lives, lose people's whole to survive in this country

will be confronted with that kind of repression that goes on in a prison. they'll turn this country into prison, in other words. and from that standpoint, it's extremely important to understand the things that i'm talking about books and do bars is not materially the book is. the idea the idea is what they're trying to repress. and so they keep, you know, to the point where they want to change fundamentally all the institutions of the country, including widespread voter discrimination and voter suppression. so we're looking at the very thing that we're fighting against, that we've talking about. and we now have to understand that as a real living to us, to our lives, to our lives and our livelihood and everything, so that we are. thank you, lorenzo. that's very powerful. mac, this is your incredible production. and as a book, do you have a final thought? and then we'll close.

just to reiterate that it couldn't have been done without you. gay press nate holly my coeditor moira all the contributors who all the people who contributed chapters and all of the people who have fought for the rights of incarcerated people and all of the people who volunteered for prison books program. this is an introduction. we hope and we hope that this book will spur people to help us uncover the rest of histories of these programs and show why important this indeed the first attempt to document the history of this social that's been in existence for over 50 years. well, i want to thank all of you. i want to thank for taking the time to cover this book. i think it's so valuable that we get this message beyond this room. so thank you for being thank you for saying the entirety of the time. and let's thank panelists who really stay incredible, personal

and powerful testing it. thank you. yeah, barry, make sure we. said who is this