Download or read book Earning Freedom written by Michael G Santos and published by . This book was released on 2020-05 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Santos helps audiences understand how to overcome the struggle of a lengthy prison term. Readers get to experience the mindset of a 23-year-old young man that goes into prison at the start of America's War on Drugs. They see how decisions that Santos made at different stages in the journey opened opportunities for a life of growth, fulfillment, and meaning.Santos tells the story in three sections: Veni, Vidi, Vici.In the first section of the book, we see the challenges of the arrest, the reflections while in jail, the criminal trial, and the imposition of a 45-year prison term.In the second section of the book, we learn how Santos opened opportunities to grow. By writing letters to universities, he found his way into a college program. After earning an undergraduate degree, he pursued a master's degree. After earning a master's degree, he began work toward a doctorate degree. When authorities blocked his pathway to complete his formal education, Santos shifted his energy to publishing and creating business opportunities from inside of prison boundaries.In the final section, we learn how Santos relied upon critical-thinking skills to position himself for a successful journey inside. He nurtured a relationship with Carole and married her inside of a prison visiting room. Then, he began building businesses that would allow him to return to society strong, with his dignity intact.Through Earning Freedom! readers learn how to overcome struggles and challenges. At any time, we can recalibrate, we can begin working toward a better life. Santos served 9,135 days in prison, and another 365 days in a halfway house before concluding 26 years as a federal prisoner. Through his various websites, he continues to document how the decisions he made in prison put him on a pathway to succeed upon release.

Download or read book Prisoners of Freedom written by Harri Englund and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006-09-12 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description

Download or read book The Black Poets written by Dudley Randall and published by Bantam. This book was released on 1985-04-01 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The claim of The Black Poets to being... an anthology is that it presents the full range of Black-American poetry, from the slave songs to the present day. It is important that folk poetry be included because it is the root and inspiration of later, literary poetry. Not only does this book present the full range of Black poetry, but it presents most poets in depths, and in some cases presents aspects of a poet neglected or overlooked before. Gwendolyn Brooks is represented not only by poems on racial and domestic themes, but is revealed as a writer of superb love lyrics. Tuming away from White models and retuming to their roots has freed Black poets to create a new poetry. This book records their progress."--from the Introduction by Dudley Randall

Download or read book Jailed for Freedom written by Doris Stevens and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Freedom without Justice written by Chol Soo Lee and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2017-06-30 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freedom without Justice is the compelling story of Chol Soo Lee’s wrongful imprisonment and his years of survival in prison, while political activists fought to win his freedom. His saga took place against a backdrop of great historical change in Asian American communities following the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act. In 1973, less than a decade after he immigrated to the United States from Korea at the age of twelve, Lee is convicted of murder and given a life sentence. Four years later, his case became a nationwide rallying point for an extraordinary pan–Asian American movement during the late 1970s and early 1980s, bringing together people from a broad spectrum of social backgrounds for a common political cause. This diverse grassroots activism organized a six-year “Free Chol Soo Lee!” campaign that led to his release from San Quentin’s Death Row in 1983. While the case inspired newspaper headlines, TV specials, and even a Hollywood movie, until now the full story has never been told in Chol Soo Lee’s own voice. Freedom without Justice reveals the race and class dimensions of US correctional institutions from the perspective of convicts who fiercely refuse to be victims. As a chronicle of the life of a youth at risk, during a time when Asian American inmates were scarce, and Korean Americans even scarcer, Lee's memoir draws readers into a variety of worlds—war-torn Korea, the streets of San Francisco, the criminal justice system, prison gang politics, and death row.

Download or read book Exit to Freedom written by Calvin C. Johnson, Jr. and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2005-09-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The only firsthand account of a wrongful conviction overturned by DNA evidence"--Cover.

Download or read book Freedom Is a Constant Struggle written by Angela Davis and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Activist, teacher, author and icon of the Black Power movement Angela Davis talks Ferguson, Palestine, and prison abolition.

Download or read book Path of Freedom written by Kate Crisp and published by . This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Path of Freedom is a mindfulness-based emotional intelligence (MBEI) curriculum originally developed for prisoners. In this book, anyone will find powerful tools for discovering and freeing yourself from the internal prison of mental conditioning, habitual emotional reactions, and impulsive behaviors. You can use these tools to find the freedom to make new choices and create a new life-a life of courage, self-respect and possibility. Discovering peace within is the starting point for becoming a peacemaker, and our world sorely needs more peacemakers. It's up to you. This book is all about choice and the power of choosing. Prison Mindfulness Institute's Path of Freedom (PoF) program teaches self-transformation and personal development.

Download or read book A Prisoners Freedom written by Ivan Pyers and published by . This book was released on 2014-02-01 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Earning Freedom written by Michael G. Santos and published by . This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On August 11, 1987, when I was 23 years old, DEA agents arrested me. I served the next 9,135 days in federal prisons of every security level. On August 13, 2012, authorities released me. EARNING FREEDOM shows readers how I began to transform my life from inside of a county jail. It shows the steps I took to develop values, skills, and resources that would empower me through a quarter century in confinement. My disciplined and deliberate adjustment began with a principled plan, a commitment to serve my sentence with dignity. I thought about law-abiding citizens and wondered what I could do to earn their forgiveness for the bad decisions I had made during a reckless transition between adolescence and adulthood. Those thoughts led to a three-part plan: I would work to educate myself, I would work to contribute to society, and I would work to build a support network that would have a vested interest in my success upon release. By embarking upon the first prong of the strategy and sticking with it, I earned a bachelor of arts degree from Mercer University and a master's degree from Hofstra University. For the second prong of the strategy, I wrote numerous books to help others understand prisons: the people they hold, how they work, and strategies for growing through confinement. With regard to the third prong, I worked every day to build a support network that would help me succeed upon release as a law-abiding, contributing citizen. To build my support network, I created a document that I called "my portfolio." It was a binder that included copies of my degrees and letters of recommendation that I asked my professors to write on my behalf. Whenever I read of someone whom I thought might have an interest in my work, I reached out by sending a letter and a copy of my portfolio. For every 100 letters I wrote, I received one or two responses. Some of those people were distinguished scholars who wrote extensively about the prison system. People like Norval Morris, from The University of Chicago, John DiIulio, from Princeton, and Joan Petersilia, from Stanford Law School. They became mentors to me, opening numerous opportunities that few would think possible for a man serving a lengthy prison term. It worked so well that I met the love of my life, Carole, while serving a quarter century in prison. We married in a prison visiting room and nurtured our marriage through my final decade of imprisonment. Using blank pages of paper, I drafted a design for a website that I wanted Carole to build. The purpose of the site was to help others understand prisons, the people they hold, and strategies for growing through confinement. I wanted to document my journey, to show others the values-based, goal-oriented approach I took to the adversity of my life. I wanted others to see that with deliberate action steps, an individual could triumph over his environment. Efforts that Carole and I made to live transparently, using the Internet to memorialize our journey, helped to broaden my support network and opened opportunities that I could leverage upon my release. They enabled me to earn an inner freedom, even if I remained in prison. On August 13, 2012, Carole picked me up from prison and drove me to a halfway house in San Francisco. This book tells the story of my journey. The context of my story may be prison, but my message is decidedly human, as we all face adversity of one kind or another. Mine is a message of hope, perseverance, and deliberate action. It shows that regardless of what challenges an individual or business faces today, that individual can set a principled plan to overcome those challenges. That is the essential message of EARNING FREEDOM.

Download or read book Finding Freedom written by Jarvis Jay Masters and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are many forms of liberation—some that exist at the mercy of circumstance and others that can never be taken away. In this stirring and timely collection of stories, essays, poems, and letters, Jarvis Jay Masters explores the meaning of true freedom on his road to inner peace through Buddhist practice. He reveals his life as a young African American man surrounded by violence, his entanglement in the criminal justice system, and—following an encounter with Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche—an unfolding commitment to nonviolence and peacemaking. At turns joyful, heartbreaking, frightening, and soaring with profound insight, Masters’s story offers a vision of hope and the possibility of freedom in even the darkest of times.

Download or read book Houses of Healing written by Robin Casarjian and published by Lionheart Foundation. This book was released on 1995 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Prisoners Kid written by Sherelle Hogan and published by . This book was released on 2020-05-11 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Question of Freedom written by Dwayne Betts and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-08-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique prison narrative that testifies to the power of books to transform a young man's life At the age of sixteen, R. Dwayne Betts-a good student from a lower- middle-class family-carjacked a man with a friend. He had never held a gun before, but within a matter of minutes he had committed six felonies. In Virginia, carjacking is a "certifiable" offense, meaning that Betts would be treated as an adult under state law. A bright young kid, he served his nine-year sentence as part of the adult population in some of the worst prisons in the state. A Question of Freedom chronicles Betts's years in prison, reflecting back on his crime and looking ahead to how his experiences and the books he discovered while incarcerated would define him. Utterly alone, Betts confronts profound questions about violence, freedom, crime, race, and the justice system. Confined by cinder-block walls and barbed wire, he discovers the power of language through books, poetry, and his own pen. Above all, A Question of Freedom is about a quest for identity-one that guarantees Betts's survival in a hostile environment and that incorporates an understanding of how his own past led to the moment of his crime.

Download or read book Freedom Behind Bars written by Donald L. Wright and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-01 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freedom Behind Bars is an inspirational work for those who are imprisoned, either literally or in “mind-forged manacles.” In this work, author Donald L. Wright, PhD, has compiled the stories and wisdom of sixteen men and women, who have spent time in prison and miraculously found a way to use it as a positive experience, including successfully transitioning back into the public arena. Among them are notable figures Nelson Mandela, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dr. Wright builds on the stories with ten valuable lessons he believes we can learn from these prison “mentors." He then goes on to reveal, openly and authentically, how these ten principles have positively impacted his own life. Whether you're currently incarcerated, close to someone who is, or feel imprisoned in your own life situation, this book will inspire you to free yourself of the chains you have control over—those of the mind.

Download or read book Prisoners of Hope written by Dayna Curry and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2009-02-04 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping and inspiring story of two extraordinary women--from their imprisonment by the Taliban to their rescue by U.S. Special Forces. When Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer arrived in Afghanistan, they had come to help bring a better life and a little hope to some of the poorest and most oppressed people in the world. Within a few months, their lives were thrown into chaos as they became pawns in historic international events. They were arrested by the ruling Taliban government for teaching about Christianity to the people with whom they worked. In the middle of their trial, the events of September 11, 2001, led to the international war on terrorism, with the Taliban a primary target. While many feared Curry and Mercer could not survive in the midst of war, Americans nonetheless prayed for their safe return, and in November their prayers were answered. In Prisoners of Hope, Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer tell the story of their work in Afghanistan, their love for the people they served, their arrest, trial, and imprisonment by the Taliban, and their rescue by U.S. Special Forces. The heart of the book will discuss how two middle-class American women decided to leave the comforts of home in exchange for the opportunity to serve the disadvantaged, and how their faith motivated them and sustained them through the events that followed. Their story is a magnificent narrative of ordinary women caught in extraordinary circumstances as a result of their commitment to serve the poorest and most oppressed women and children in the world. This book will be inspiring to those who seek a purpose greater than themselves.

Download or read book Real Prison Real Freedom written by Rosser McDonald and published by Elm Hill. This book was released on 2020-05-19 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prisons, an integral part of society, generally are not familiar to most people. Length of sentence and treatment by others in the prisons vary widely. The immediate “Man-in-charge” of each prison unit is the warden, who has some flexibility within TDCJ guidelines. Warden Dr. Keith Price gained a reputation for turning around some chaotic prison units. He knows from experience that at best, prisons are very difficult places for people, whether they are behind the bars or in front of them. “People that wind up in prison, inmates, generally are society’s rejects,” Price said. “They’ve been unable to do the things other people do to make life a success, whether it’s because of an abusive parent, addiction to some substance, stupidity, being unable to read or write, they’ve been failures and have chosen alternate means, that is crime.” Price also knows officers have a challenging life, “The correctional officer, has to deal with people so maladjusted that society says they can’t live amongst them anymore. It’s conflict day after day, hour after hour and it really takes a toll, from broken marriages to financial problems to substance abuse. It’s continual.” The Texas Prison System was named “one of the best” in the country by a leading penology expert. However, shortly after that, a Federal Judge took control of the entire Texas Department of Corrections for “unconstitutional treatment” of inmates. TDC denied and resisted many of the reforms the judge ordered. The result was chaos. Too few guards, rampant gangs, gang wars and overcrowding were the norm for several years. The court kept control 20 years and finally the prison system adapted to the new (and constitutional) ways of operating. At the same time Texas prison population doubled, and more than doubled, again. During that time, 19-year-old Rickie Smith began a 10-year sentence in TDC on a drug charge. He joined the gang wars, in the Aryan Brotherhood and then made his own personal war with prison officers. He could have been released in a few short years, but, in 3 separate trials juries added 3 ninety-nine-year sentences for him to serve. Trial transcripts have many references in testimonies to how dangerous Rickie Smith is--even calling him “the most violent inmate” in TDC. REAL PRISON / REAL FREEDOM is a biography of Rickie Smith and how his life intersects with the woes of the prison system and with Warden Keith Price. Naturally, he wanted out, knowing that realistically it will never happen. Officials told him he’ll never get out. Then came the impossible that shocked everyone, especially Rickie.