Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion

Joy James

Rowman & Littlefield, 2003 - Social Science - 373 pages

Prisons constitute one of the most controversial and contested sites in a democratic society. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world, with over 2 million people in jails, prisons, and detention centers; with over three thousand on death row, it is also one of the few developed countries that continues to deploy the death penalty. International Human Rights Organizations such as Amnesty International have also noted the scores of political prisoners in U.S. detention. This anthology examines a class of intellectuals whose analyses of U.S. society, politics, culture, and social justice are rarely referenced in conventional political speech or academic discourse. Yet this body of outlawed 'public intellectuals' offers some of the most incisive analyses of our society and shared humanity. Here former and current U.S. political prisoners and activists-writers from the civil rights/black power, women's, gay/lesbian, American Indian, Puerto Rican Independence and anti-war movements share varying progressive critiques and theories on radical democracy and revolutionary struggle. This rarely-referenced 'resistance literature' reflects the growing public interest in incarceration sites, intellectual and political dissent for social justice, and the possibilities of democratic transformations. Such anthologies also spark new discussions and debates about 'reading'; for as Barbara Harlow notes: 'Reading prison writing must. . . demand a correspondingly activist counterapproach to that of passivity, aesthetic gratification, and the pleasures of consumption that are traditionally sanctioned by the academic disciplining of literature.' Barbara Harlow [1] 1. Barbara Harlow, Barred: Women, Writing, and Political Detention (New England: Wesleyan University Press, 1992). Royalties are reserved for educational initiatives on human rights and U.S. incarceration."

Contents

• III: 1
• IV: 3
• V: 29
• VI: 31
• VII: 34
• VIII: 48
• IX: 51
• X: 62
• XI: 64
• XII: 78
• XIII: 81
• XIV: 84
• XV: 88
• XVI: 94
• XVII: 97
• XVIII: 104
• XIX: 107
• XX: 114
• XXI: 117
• XXII: 122
• XXIII: 125
• XXIV: 135
• XXV: 138
• XXVI: 165
• XXVII: 169
• XXVIII: 176
• XXIX: 179
• XXX: 185
• XXXII: 187
• XXXIII: 190
• XXXIV: 198
• XXXV: 201
• XXXVI: 216
• XXXVII: 219
• XXXVIII: 227
• XXXIX: 231
• XL: 239
• XLI: 242
• XLII: 248
• XLIII: 250
• XLIV: 261
• XLV: 266
• XLVI: 279
• XLVII: 281
• XLVIII: 292
• XLIX: 295
• L: 303
• LI: 307
• LII: 311
• LIII: 314
• LIV: 321
• LV: 333
• LVI: 337
• LVII: 357
• LVIII: 371
• LIX: 372

Popular passages

Page 191 - Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a) killing members of the group; b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) forcibly transferring children of the...‎

Page 39 - I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order...‎

Page 37 - We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was "well timed," according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "wait...‎

Page 37 - I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick...‎

Page 36 - Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and halftruths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.‎

Page 45 - They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for...‎

Page 278 - For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.‎

Page 41 - But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:21-24; emphasis added).‎

Page 39 - One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.‎

Page 40 - I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the...‎

About the author

Joy James is a professor in the Africana Studies Department at Brown University.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion; Transformative Politics Series, Ed. Joy James Series; Transformative politics series
• Editor: Joy James
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003
• ISBN: 0742520277, 9780742520271
• Length: 373 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Criminology; Social Science / Penology