Chicago Reader Features My ‘Oral History’ of Stateville Speaks
My “oral history” of Stateville Speaks was published by the Chicago Reader this week. With a circulation of 60,000, it is my most widely read piece to date. It uses the best of my skills as a historian and a journalist. It’s just the kind of writing I want to be doing.
I’ve been wanting to work on an abolitionist newspaper produced by and for people in prison.
I had a job as managing editor of Prison Legal News, and while I learned much from my time there, I had a vision that was beyond the strictly legalistic focus of that paper. I wanted to be explicit about featuring individual writers, where they were from, their achievements while incarcerated, and their dreams of a world beyond prison. I wanted to interview family members to find out what it was like to have a loved one go through the system. I wanted to write about things like hunger strikes, collective actions taken by people inside who had exhausted all their appeals in the courts. This was all frowned upon, as it was outside the legal focus of the newspaper.
I came up with the idea for Sentences late one night when I was up with insomnia after losing my job at Prison Legal News. I was trying to dream up something new. I wanted to humanize the individuals I knew who were in prison or who had gotten out. The years in prison had hardened them, but they still held their humanity intact and looked at the world with fresh eyes. They understood the system better than any of the academics I had been around.
Stateville Speaks was created out of the sheer will of people inside who had few other places to express themselves. As Renaldo Hudson told me, “People need to start to hear our brilliance. People need to see our creativity.”
In the coming year, I hope to tell more of the stories that capture the beauty of those impacted by mass incarceration. The stories that make the news are of people who have committed horrible acts. Despite protests and policy changes, these narratives continue to tell us prison is the only option. In more of my work, I want to give flesh and blood to these people.
I love the above artwork sent to me from prison by Joshua Smith of the open hand letting go of “anger,” “fear,” and “hate.” By telling more of these stories, maybe we can break free from the ideas that cage our imaginations.