Men Who Read Books in Prison

Men Who Read Books in Prison and transformed their lives

This Saturday, the Journal of Pan African Studies and Chauncey Bailey Book Fair will have Bay Area Black Authors selling books that will be donated to juvenile hall, county jail and prisons, also after school programs. The public is invited to attend to help decrease illiteracy and promote literature as a tool of transformation in the lives of incarcerated men and women.

Festival organizer, author, poet, activist Marvin X says, "Many imprisoned brothers write to me for books. And I don't mind sending books because they have come by Academy of da Corner and told me books have transformed their lives. Ideally, I wish they would, as Paul Cobb says, crack a book before they are booked for Crack.

FYI, the American prison movement began at Soledad Prison's Black Culture Club that championed reading conscious literature. Eldridge Cleaver was a member of that club, along with Alprentis Bunchy Carter, both became radical activists upon their release, joining the Black Panther Party. George Jackson was a petty criminal before incarceration but became self educated from books. The author of Soledad Brother, he is regarded as the messiah of the prison movement. Books elevated his consciousness.

My brother, Ollie, a lifelong criminal, said he was never the same after reading John Hope Franklin's From Slavery to Freedom. We know Tookie Williams gave up the gang life and after reading began a writing career that got him nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature. The world knows how books changed the life of Malcolm Little, the man who became Malcolm X after reading.

The short time I spent in prison for refusing to fight in Vietnam, I read. One of my friends at the federal prison made an announcement to the brothers, "Listen up, brothers, if you want a book on any subject come to Marvin X's locker. He's got books on every subject!"

The Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Festival and Chauncey Bailey Book Fair is Saturday,
February 19, Noon til 6pm. Admission free. The will be an open mike/speak out, along with music, exhibits and performance by the Academy of da Corner Reader's Theatre.

Program

12 Noon
Social/refreshments/music

1pm
Walk for Chauncey Bailey
2pm
Open Mike
3pm
Authors speak
3:30
Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Reading & Reader's Theatre

Participants: Jerri Lange, Michael Lange, Al Young, devorah major, Geoffrey Grier, Ptah Allah El, Eugene Allen, Renaldo Ricketts, Anthony Spires, Paradise Jah Love, Tureadah Mikell, Ramal Lamar, Hunia Bradley, Alona Clifton, Mechelle LaChaux, Timothy Reed, Fritz Pointer, Aries Jordan, Phavia Kujichagulia, Ayodele Nzingha, Itibari M. Zulu, Niyah X, Maisha, Cecil Brown, Marvin X. Music by Kwic Time, Augusta Collins, Rashidah Sabreen.

Sponsors: Post Newspaper Group, Black Bird Press, Journal of Pan African Studies, Academy of da Corner, Hug a Thug Book Club, It's About Time, East Side Arts, Kakakiki Slave System, San Francisco Recovery Theatre, Lower Bottom Playaz, Oakland Local, Black Hour, Black Dialogue Brothers, San Francisco State University Ethnic Studies Department. email: jmarvinx@yahoo.com. www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com