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entered max, you know, i would come in, i had to have a clear my i couldn't have a click wasn't allowed. i couldn't have a cell phone. i couldn't have a computer. i couldn't have phocops with, you know these little rules. i couldn't wear a bra with underwire. know, a person who wears bras like know i had i change all these things about kind of my daily routine. but when would go inside i would through a guard booth and i would sign in and i'd go thr:fghwould wait for them to unlock the first locked door. and then i would go throughhe path and then the second door and then the 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 and all of those stops really were just a tool of they.

making me. and he said i was safer. honestly, in students than i was interacting, you know, in anher 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 and they were the best students i've everue chris going to be 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 are from the outside that i know they they recognize me. remember for this, they usually can keep control of it a little bit better days. but i'll say, you know, that the just really took me by because i had been teaching these courses a while, but way that i encountered the students and inside the way they encoun, particularly the history of slavery in the united states was so proattway 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 antebellumuse. this was not a lesson had to teach. right this was th of the people in my c that one thing you know is that i never wanted to know, like why somebody was inside. i not necessarily because of their age. everybodyn they might be on paper inside because it's it's takes a lot out of you but they're i would notice their baey 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 had worn that badge every day for many many, many years, in some casesec never to know why anybody wason 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 re fact that there againncountered the history of the united states and women's history in transformative to me as a and so i guess i'll leave it there. you kn about how our program came about and why it was difft. again, i started off talking how it was a liberal arts degree program, and that was really profound much of prison education is vocational rience, have that experience. but this, this was really powerf i saw how that worked. and i will turn it over to lorenzo now, and i'll come back to some of these. do just have one question for is in all my work whether whi or it's doing oral histories or working with in people to publish their writing, i i'm always wondering what they teach. one, one question i have

about prison education is if you could quickly but maybe, you know,he 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 it's. looking for what you don't think openthe i don't know i think you know that sort of like breaking open tndn irony because again like, you know, the breaking open happened in theysically restricted that i have experienced on a regular basis. would drive out and i would be distinctly aware 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 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 humanity that goes into both teaching@w and this book, because i think that it is what it isr lorenzo, this question was on sort behind and the prison books program buti think maybe thinking,little bit about yourself and what motivates be of this project, how you right. well, that's an interesting rspective 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 p and then after time in

cuba, they threw me out. you say. and and i managed t to czechoslovakia and i was on my way tbut 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 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 and he was in new york city because he was suing the state the new york state system, where he was was suing them for the rights for prisoners to receive literature radical and controversial literature receive to actually unorthodoxto have a social and cu prisons and

so forth, all of which seemed to the prison officials and even most of the prisoners as outlandish as me in. but that 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 bea legal fight and a 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.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 new left and all of these movements that were around in 1960s and early 1970s andeeing being in the presence of and to build a national prison is

organization of prisons, movement prisons, rights movement that movement and the first of all, in the fight againsten prison, only thing you could have is the bible they'd give you. sh you a bible and send you to church. no, thank you. i'll take my my anarchist material andn're keeping in seclusion. so we had tot 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 and i went into the federal system and became a jailhouse lawyer. and i started, along with other prisoners. class lawsuit in a number of federal prisonseventually, though, they took me out, the atlanta federal penitentiary, and they sent me to a place where you're supposed killed. they called it the ku klux klan jail is federal and terre haute, indiana.

and even in that prison, the right to receive literature changed fundamentally the nature of the prison and ofone in it. everyone in it. when prison, the klan had murdere and, the pryears. and in. 70, 1970 there an anti klan rebellion. and the interesting thing about all of this preceding all of fact that we had managed to force the prison revolutionary and other literature that people had been kept, you know, covered in they we forced them the court forced them toe to us, forced them to allow us to create a cultural studies as a result of the book, the book is a is a a weapon, not just an.

it's a weapon to change the basic education, people who have been forced to ghettos. people suffered from of racial oppression in the south. book, through political education, was able to redeemlive the sorry, through living a circumstance where your life is in danger just for reading a n go to solitary confinement years. you could be beatenguards. you could be stabbed and killed by 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 was the result's case and

all the lawsuits that found after that. plenty the changed, the even change the federal judiciary. so when we talk about the and the creation of the program well, first u had to receive the books you had to fight to receive books. an understood this going in so it was a situation book a but it's the book that you want to read, not that they want yo to read. prison officials wanted to break inside by the of ideological stimulation that's what i use solitary cfineme such a degree. you had nothing to keep you going. youcould break you. they saw if they could break you and they could regime. yeah, i'm t ta 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. theytually had doctors and prison officials,same who would force you to accept whatever they were d 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 wefight 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 athey only gave you you as opposed to what you needed. you need you are you needed to know that you were hun 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. know things because they were trying to program you as a criminal in these oh well we're trump run program program i'm criminal content we try to deter them know what they're trying toe they make you stay in prison. they make you become institutionalized. so the having prison literature that was so controversial, that was wherewas even subversive, as they would say, the whole purpose of that. was that so that you would have a different way of viewing the 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 important to say, you know that these prison eren't just books they life changing

in it. that's why we were able to sacrifice and and if necessary. an 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 brokethe censorship. it almost broke down thein some respect, it did because millions of peoplega see for the first time as a result of the attica rebellion wio much and sometimes i have to say. but death isy necessary. it's like a war. a war is necessary sometimes. i don't believe in war. i'm you know, in that sense. i understand that you have tost authority and youority, if you will, if you don't believe or you're led to most iece of humanity and you have no right to resist. so from this standpoint, we cansa

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 prisone forced them to shelves and allow prisoners to check out our books. and we forced them forced. you understand what i'to allow us to take the prison books to go to solitary books to prisoners who wanted the and many of those prig2reading books were white for the first time. and reading these books. changed them. those that were.

destroy ku klux klan tyrone. i was years to my sentence. because i planned to the klan rebellion into your. i'm nothey, i'm committed 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 life sentences plus 45 years fory of resistancel5 within

the prison structure that thecensorship had a role in sustaining and maintaining prisons as an institution as an unjust institution institution. and i would do againf opportunity. i think that even today and they reinstated prison that one of my books had been banned. and the state of a book i 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 the prison officials, driven out things started to happen as a book and the book changed the 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 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 we wanted to know the truth because we understood the truth can set you free. youa 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. pened to me in prison? the struggling made me a revolution period for the rest

of my life and i came out of prison and started ted organizing against racism. i led which i did the research 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. evil. i'm just an happen if you allow people education and if you allow people to be human beings, if to have a voice. we've got to country and we got to destroy prisons as anwe take the resources that for thprison system and use that

resource for theprisoners from, which is based on poverty. we need to educate prisoners fight, get them outside so that they have life. i'm more 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. th arrange for policterrorism, police brutality to have that kind ofnce, 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 notccept it we will take the book and we are taking the booknd we going to change

their lives. and we are way. that's the lesson, to fight every step of theso if we look at this book, it's the first of its kind. it' written. it has a story that would your perspective on the prison system, on the government that allows these things to take placregime we live under. th me why people are being kept in soment 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 beat or hung by the neck 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 tool for the liberation woul book i didn't believe in at first 't understand it how this could

possibly so but then idy told me that the pen is migh tha the sword. i thought that was i thought it was until the struggle the prison books movement started inside the prisons. then i understood it. then i understood it. 's necessary. so it isn't just a question of prison education you, the prison officials in the states are not money for political expediency and for other 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 theitimate education to that they don't from federal thorities. so from that standpoint, it's really, realalntunderstand why we're doing this. we're doing thi 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. another that we're seeing. but it's alwaysand you think the book how can the book all of this a book of ideas, how can it change the people read this book. they will be changed. they'll go and tell others. they'll tell others. others will read thethey'll be discussions. just like in the prisons. outside the prisons, there were discussions about what all of this mwe've learned about what the prison officials have to people what are like. and now we are in a position to change to because we care. it matter. whdoesn'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'st slavery. we struggle in the 1970s, we proved it. we regime, we destroyedcreated social and culture prmsogra wipes or something? tissueyeah. she's got some because she's been doing all that crying. thank you you. know, lorenzo, what i really about what you're bringing everyone here transformation books as transformation and community engagement and transformation and finally transforming society. and in that way, that book each every one of those that this program and sent into the prison and in your

education, they're all an abolitionist act. but they began 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 thatly transformative for you something deeplyential, of course, the prison the prison letters of george, 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 and and i don't know there were ot were. but most of the books that really affected me were books i received fchists in and other books about that i didn't even know anything about it ever existed the the

russian war, the anarchists. the anarchists role of the russ war the the the 19th 86 spanish civil war and all these other things which had lot of blacks volunteering on behalf of the confronted with terrorism 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 blackwas put out as well, you know, that access to, as they claim, this to claiming that again. now that it was subversive literature asay institutional security and rth when. i got access to the books we used to was i would get books somebody else would get books, share the books, we'd pass them around. and prison officia like that, but they couldn't necessarily stop it is they didn't know it wa much of it. they didn't have to always be following around. so we'der and start talking

about it andvcret discussions, you know, we were eating and everything at one point the others saying is not designed you're thinking, it's designed to break your and at one point, the the it against the rules to even speak to and we defeated that by, just ignoring it. and, you know,ed 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 bei 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 peopl a similar kind of thing just by not going along with unjust you threw the officials intofrenzy

you threw themt 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 producta oc 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 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 readi letters loud, when you're sharing the artwork that you receive from incarceratedalso, you know, and then the other side of it, where you're trying to h'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 they're busy and they're an artist in a different way. and what they can do is theya flier, right? that's how they can contribute and be a part of thatvaluable. right. and they're excited to do that. and you're they can interact with the. and then also in terms of the families@/ed people. families of send books tote personally. they need an intermediary. it has come from a booksto and approved source. and if they don't have the resources do that. or if they don't want to purchase through 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 , them because we're to consider thing that you may know someone who's incarcerated 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 i get to start to do this and my 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 ofose of us that are in classrooms now or can remember from our own, you know 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 responsive when i said we need for teaching these courses and donations that we needed. and then i started teaching when i actually created a women's class, in part inspired bysort of subversive attempts to make women's historyt, this is a, this needs to be its own separate course.course. and, and then i had the textbooke.ally had is tracking acourses 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 theich the bureaucracy of prison is ended to break humanity of the people their they're lesser know, in that hierarchy of power. sowas that our books kept getting lostsplaced. and some of that was is i think, another wayirectly or indirectly right through the kind of chaos machineeny that access. so i a semester where i taught

women's where half of my students had a book that ended semester right they had like the volume one and when we volume. and so i had to figure out how to deal with that. and i, i know, for these, these students that like, they literally like to stop at eight. anwe going to chapter 15 or whatever and but we, you ' e in me trunk and i was always every semester i was always tracking wherere because i knew how valuable they were. and then i was always to get more 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 realounow, college connection, that connection to an intellectual world which they part and, i think, you 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 addreat would these graduation ceremonies inside and again speaking to the academics room, in the audience, you know, graduation is in some ways, right? i mean, for the peopleting special. but like when you do, you do it each and there's it's a bit of a well that all the words that you say at a meaning that inside a graduation inside was it was all true you know all true. and actually our valedictorian that out because so if she's ou wiley because students i ever had, she 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 ofand that's where she is. i hope maybe if she's out there,

to to reconnect with her but i want to sayyou know, that some of the things that were meaningful about really were, you know, someone like brenda comes to mind is because is one of the things that, activism is like. so i went and testified in front jersey when aated people were denied their constitutional right torelease that was still you know on the books as of i'm not sure how many maybe i think it was around 2 bill up to restore voting rightsy! to formerly incarcerated people in new and iestified in that in those you know in front of the legislatureintimidating someone who doesn't normally feel intimidated by most cases and there i i reunited witwho who i had taught in max and that was that was pretty special. and i think though that, you know, in part like was you know, the experience

transferred me into i think what in some degree what mac was talking about as a person who takes it know in ways that are i hope you know made a difference but you know the other way that thischanged me and changed maybe my community and the outside rate was program i took i was very, very adamant that anybody who taught excuse me history inside did it with that that there s absolute no difference between inside outside courses and in particular that thsk and of the historian were essential and that they were practiced in course and that the students were taken seriously as historians in the course. and then it wasn'tdown in any way or simplified in any way, which again had been the rience. and as far as i'm aware, right is really an unfortunate of inside education and that was super important me so i did a lot of gatekeeping of who was teaching those courses and a lotersations with those

instructors a lot of observations. i went inside and observed. i once already, you know, but i. i think the mentoring and the conversations 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 a professors, as instructors. so i'll say know, think that in leadership of tthat 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. missions a long time, i'm no longer there, but one of my big missns really to try to bring the community, y know,he experience of community college 3000 students right to elevate that and help to d the prejudices and the stereotypes that existed which in some ways otally 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 ideasut 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 incluscholars, students and other people who might be, you know, who might access field through a community college. so i'll you know, i'll say that is one thing that'proud of and that i think is inspired in part by this work 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 ac final or so questions i over to the audience and maybe, maybe don'tly unless it's a

good intersection. one, because t sponsored by lockjaw. i want to talk about the relationship between theook 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 trike in 2016 and then again in 2018. sofabout relationship to this book and to this project to labor and working classife a second i just want to talk about artists creativity. thisk just littered with we were talking earlier it think mack had pointed out in his introduction also read the proposal for this book i mentality behind it. so if we could talk artistic creation by theboth within the book and to those creating that i also want to try and

touch because the boo what means for lgbtq communities within, the prison of which there are many, in fact, that's a growing. as our publicthen 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 over to the audience and maybe they'll be some conjunction or if wish to address any of those for sounds will coming to folks we have a there we are so i'll be asking you to speak into this microphone directly so let me open the then so whileple 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 currently incarcerated person, and it talks aboutidentified in theou

choosing y and. also the trm and material that the st faced in gaining access to that material and this is a common and growing problem wi y this is happening on the outside in the outside then becomes more concentrated and more difficult on inside. i don't i don't think i really needthat much further than that. it makes a lot of sense. and so tco we have that many prison books programs areth 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?

ryakes 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'e, in fact, speaking at in conjunction with avidgeorgia in about a week or so. an has a lawsuit fighting the censorship matetrying us and inside. so this is a growing, owingproblem we. back i'll touch on your 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. point that what is is not

uniform within the system, right? what's bannwhere you're at and the lead to when new leadership comes in. and itfrustrating to sort of navigate who lets what and when. you advise programs who are trying to get boinside about how to navigate all the little nuances that come with every individual facility? yeah, that that's a great very short because i'm sure mark has a lot more to say. so you know, i had a differe role, right? we weren't responding to individual requests for, but we were often trying to get rials were not typically use documentary ese. i regular access to the right textbook and current textbooks you know, that weren't yanzhou out of date. wso know, an education office and dossier and new jersey drrections or has an education division. and so sometimes wnding on who was in that seat there was, there was a 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 ofnd chirpy and nice and know all the all those nice, little sweet things that i'm usually not in, in trying to to books where they needed to go and find outcould get through? and i was able and, you know, it took a long time but the pressure of and that and kind of like legwork was did yield somelts although not always. and when i do write a situation where i thought i was doing something helpful to have a actually ended being a big problem inside. so that stepping back sometimes and realize that i couldn't make things happen. f>y i could on the outside and i needed to respect people's roleshey were inside and they had to live within that regime. so the carceral is huge. there's currently i think the thousands different prisons

the united states. and there's multiple levels. right. and e 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 isn't even including when i'm talking about systems incarceration in the united states and the system may have certain guidelines then that depends upon is itit a medical institutions on and so forth. but then once you if you able to navigate all of that,kasuccessful navigating all that it does ul oftentimes come down to the person in the room h 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 telephonerk to where i've been able to actuallyquestion why a particular package, parwas was being kept. our program had blacklisted by an institution ou know, it's because you're not real. you're not a real bookstore. check. you know, this is this is who are and and they were like okayll and so now i see that it is a brick and mortar store. in, you know, and so and those the through. but that's not always the case. s you just get a package back and it just says rejected. and there's no information ted and you have to pay to get that package back and then youpackage back in. and these are programs that do not have a lot of m you for the same package three times and you're not even there on the third time. all right. and 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 wes saying, hey, listen that was so great. i, i understand you didn' that i requested and i was a littmed when didn't get the books i requested. but it turns out you made so great choices and really loved what i read, so thank you for sending. so we know that, you kno ings happen that they do get through and that they do make a difference. but it is navigate that system. some states have bannedme states do or at least do not to. sometime' a warden. other times you can, you know, 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 avidíh now. and there's other people also engaging in lawsuits. we have a about he the right to send books on the inside 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 banning this. and then all of a sudden, you get a letter, oops, we made a but but that's all extra work. that's al 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.other things that they do and they've already tried to send this package in, it's just extra we do the best we can and we try to challenge these things as we can. and assometimes other organizations who we'or legal help and advice, and then we communicate through with on about in the text. right? we have a listserv. we'know currently is everybody, you know, having trouble particular institution? how have you been able to you know, what's helpful, what's not? and so once one person figures it out, now e navigate that. but it's maddening in short to

we do we have maybe quest 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 with the last word i did that question about the book and of this larger pr to the labor movement, to contemporary struggles. you've got astory of that, maybe. do you want to leave us with some cloug about. what books through bars again re mac you're and the press you'remeimportant work as i think lorenzo h leave with some thoughts about what project means for the current moment and our struggles in thislectn and moving forward beyond this electionnd in our prisons and without

question the moment that i was talking about in moment are similar but period now repression learned from our struggles and they apply censorship differently. they make a different for in my book. well the bookman they they made the argument that it advocated racial superiority of people being whites that no there's no way that's truegument and that's the argument that's being used in the streets as well. that is we'retime when i tried to do some time ago in creating a m a opposed book banning was to help people understand that the against banning books is fascism because period, the the right wing

is using book banning to try to control what people think on the outside. they talked about what they whthey on the inside. well, now they're doing it on the outside to t to control people's views, to try to silence people and to try to make you politicallytever the word is. i'm looking for. but to stop you. they stop you make you think that that the power of the government of the power authorities that there so-called black literature. there sh b no no no, you know what they call it this period, theck thought a black well, what is this program they've got. they want they don'yo matter but they don't want you to look at black lives matter as an impmovement. don't want you to think that black people had a histoas a civil rights in this country.

even. they want to make youall of this is outlawed by those in and they want to get in power to be able to do we're facing now a prospect of thislectrson who is a megalomaniac but more importantly, producing him with with a program that 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 they'll come into power with an agenda that will change the fundamental institutions of government. itinstitutions, the government that exist now and and, of courns will. just be one of those things that they'll that will have used to power to gain their power base. and that's what's happening the election is is is important. i'm not telling you to vote for this group for that. i don'm an anarchist. first of all, i don't i believe you knowi have a whole different belief system.

but the point is that we're facing fascism, whatever we beliy5 in. and i think that people be fighting in the street whatever now, to be quite honest. but the majority people don't being planned for them at simple fact of l this election could lose people's lives, lose people'whole to survive in this count kind of repression that goes on in a prison. they'll turn into prison, in other words. and from that standpoint, it's extremely important to understand the things that i'm talking about 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 fundamentallyitutions of the country, including widespread voter discrimination and voter suppression. so we're looking at the very thing that we're fighting against, that and we now have to understand that as a real lives, to our lives and our livelihood and everything, so that we are.

thank you, lorenzo. that's veryíu powerful. mac, this is your incredible production. and as ao you have a final thought? and then we'll close. couldn't have been done without you. gaylly my coeditor moira all the contributors whochapters and all of the people who have fe rights of incarcerated people and all of the people who volunteered for prison booksgram. this is an introduction. we hope and we hopeisspur people to help us uncover the rest of hi why important this inde document the history of this social that's been in existence i want to thank all of you. i want to thank for taking the time to cover thisoo i think it's so valuable that we get this message beyond thisroom. so thank you for being thank you saying the entirety of the time. and let's thank panelts who stay incredible personal and porful testing it.

thank you yeah barry make sure we. said who is thisi founded the clare

boothe luce over 30 years ago. our mission was to prepare and promote conservative women leaders. our primary focus