Last week, I watched an interesting documentary that aired on my local PBS station. It focused on the origins of the “Jail, No Bail” strategy implemented by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the Civil Rights Movement.

Below is a trailer for the documentary:

I was unfamiliar with the story of the Friendship Nine before watching the film:

“On the morning of January 31, 1961, a group of eighteen African-American civil rights demonstrators (thirteen men and five women), most of whom were students at Friendship College, converged on the McCrory’s 5-10-25¢ Variety Store in downtown Rock Hill. Authorities had been notified ahead of time that there would be protests and they were on duty by 8:30 AM in case of trouble. Initially the protesters marched up and down the street carrying protest signs. Then, male demonstrators went inside the store and ten of the thirteen young men sat down at the counter and refused to leave.”

When the young people were arrested, they were ordered to pay a $100 fine or be sentenced to 30 days of hard labor. The young Freedom Fighters decided to serve the 30 days of hard labor instead. This was the beginning of the codification of a “jail-in” strategy in the black freedom movement. Even while they were locked up, the SNCC students protested and brought attention to the brutal conditions of their incarceration. Claybourne Carson, author of In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s, suggests that:

“For students, the Rock Hill “jail-in” was an attempt to revive the student movement by returning to the moral principle of non-cooperation with evil that was the basis of passive resistance (p.32).”

I find the history of the black freedom movement rich and endlessly fascinating. I am very interested in how black people have interacted with the carceral state throughout history. The black freedom movement provides a good opportunity to explore the themes of captivity and freedom.

Below is a report from the News Hour on PBS about the documentary. If you have a chance to see it, you should.

Today is National Occupy Day in Support of Prisoners. I am glad that folks around the country are coming together to bring needed attention to the plight of those we lock in cages. We should be in solidarity with prisoners every day.

A pen pal of mine who has been imprisoned for the past 10 years once told me that he saw himself as one of society’s “throw away” people. His words have stayed with me. They have pushed me to write letters to incarcerated people even when I have been at my most exhausted. It seems a small thing: a letter. I have learned however that isolation is one of the most difficult parts of being behind bars. The sense that you have been forgotten can sap you of all hope. We are only human in relation to other humans. Our need to be connected to one another is often overlooked but it is essential. Prisoners remind us of this on a daily basis.

So today, if you are not planning to take part in any of the actions that are being planned as part of the National Occupy Day in Solidarity with Prisoners, I make a humble request. Please consider becoming a pen pal for an incarcerated person. Organizations and projects like the Write to Win Collective (here in Chicago), Black and Pink, and Razor Wire Women provide you with an opportunity to connect with prisoners who would appreciate corresponding with you.

I haven’t been well over the past few days. My energy is low so it would be easy to just pull the covers over my head and stay in bed. Instead I’ll be spending my afternoon in a local arts center making cards and writing letters with young people who have incarcerated relatives. “Showing up” is the best way to express solidarity so that’s what I will be doing. As I am writing my letters today, I will keep Jimmy Santiago Baca’s poem in mind:

Letters Come to Prison
by Jimmy Santiago Baca

From the cold hands of guards
Flocks of white doves
Handed to us through the bars,
Our hands like nests hold them
As we unfold the wings
They crash upward through
Layers of ice around our hearts,
Cracking crisply
As we leave our shells
And fly over the waves of fresh words,
Gliding softly on top of the world
Flapping our wings for the lost horizon.

1976, Arizona State Prison-Florence, Florence, Arizona.

Update: A special thanks to my friends who came out this afternoon to help and participate in our card-making event at Rumble Arts Center. I was so moved by the beautiful sentiments expressed in the cards. We heard from a woman who told us that she had been incarcerated seven times and knew how important it was to receive mail while locked up. Here is a photo taken by the amazing Sarah Rhee of some of the terrific cards created by a couple of wonderful girls.

Shakedown & More
by Paul Mariah (1937-1996)

Silver is missing
From the messhall;
All

Prisoners suspect.
Cells torn open
Like wounds

Setting out
In search of
The germ,

The spoon stolen,
Each frisked
As he returns

To his cell.
Shakedown for
Contraband.

All known hands
Are checked
For shivs.

One lives in
Terror that it’s
Not marked

For him. Still
It may be found
As a ring on

Newly wedded hand
Or as a worse attack
A knife in the back.

Soon after Paul Mariah arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area from an Illinois prison in 1966, he became a leading figure in gay literature. In his writings, lectures, and poetry readings, Mariah continually struggled for recognition of the rights of both gays and prisoners.

Last week, I wrote about Laura Scott‘s 1907 trial in Los Angeles County. I am still searching for information about her ultimate sentence in that case. I know for sure that she was not re-incarcerated at San Quentin after she was found guilty in that trial. She may have served time in jail but I have not yet been able to confirm that.

The next time Laura Scott’s name appears in the news is in 1908.

So once again, we have Laura getting caught stealing a watch. She clearly had a thing for them. Based on news reports, she stole a watch from Ms. Susie McNeary on September 12th 1908. She was found guilty by a jury on November 11th.

Having already been incarcerated for grand larceny in 1905 and tried and convicted of larceny again in 1907, it is unlikely that a judge would have gone easy on her in terms of imposing a sentence for her crime. Judge Wilbur [on the left] sentenced her to 5 years in San Quentin Prison on November 16th. On November 20th 1908, Laura Scott enters San Quentin Prison. She spends nearly 4 years locked up until she is discharged from prison on June 20, 1912. At that point, Laura Scott’s trail grows cold in California. One has to wonder if she decided to leave the state to find new opportunities. I would love to know what became of her.

Over the past few weeks, I have greatly appreciated the e-mails that some of you have sent to me letting me know that you appreciate reading about Laura. In the next couple of weeks, I plan to write about the Alabama of Laura’s childhood and about the Los Angeles that she and her friends inhabited in the early 20th century. I hope that these descriptions will help us to better understand the context of Laura’s life. Our childhoods impact us a great deal and I can only imagine how growing up in Alabama during Reconstruction might have shaped Laura’s character. It will be interesting to speculate on this in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

I came home yesterday to find a Valentine’s Day card in my mail box. It was a surprise. I didn’t expect it. I had already received a few cards from my best friend and other loved ones on Tuesday. Those were welcome and heartwarming of course but this one well…

There is a boy I knew a long time ago. That boy is now a man. He did a very bad thing. He paid a steep price. He spent his formative years behind bars. And I wasn’t sure if he would survive those years.

I wrote him many letters. They were filled with hope in the unseen and with love. I received many letters. They were filled with rage, desperation, fear, hope, anger, joy, desperation, rage, boredom, fear, hope, and love.

“I’m suffocating here, Ms. K,” he would write. “I’m going to die here.”

He didn’t die there. The card that I received yesterday attests to that. He was my student in the 11th grade and then I was sitting across from him in Rikers Island barely able to see his face because my eyes were filled to the brim with tears. I was despairing.

I have to be honest, I sometimes thought that he might end up entombed in the concrete of a NY prison cell. I wasn’t sure if he would make it through. I just kept on writing those letters and reading the ones he sent to me.

Now 18 years later, I am standing in my hallway reading a card and my eyes are once again filled to the brim with tears. I am overjoyed.

Inside the Valentine’s Day card is a poem that I recognize, written in my own hand. It is a poem I sent him years earlier. It has been returned to me with a note scribbled in the margin: “You were right…I can breathe again.”

I’m excited to share that Prison Culture is now on Pinterest. Check it out and follow!

If you don’t know much about Pinterest, here’s a basic description from their site:

Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard.

Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

I am using Pinterest to organize and share various PIC related images. I am also using it to share other miscellaneous interests. One of my pinboards for example is a collection of images about the PIC. You have seen many of these on the blog and others are new. I will continue to add to this collection over time. If you spot any great images, please e-mail them to me at jjinjustice1@gmail.com. I will include them on the pinboard.

Another pinboard that I have started is a collection of black prisoner photographs. I am just at the very beginning of this process but already I am finding it incredibly interesting. I hope that you will follow Prison Culture at Pinterest.

Watch What it Meant to be a Convict on PBS. See more from Slavery by Another Name.

I’ve written quite a bit about the convict lease system on this blog and also about chain gangs. Below are just a few posts for those who are interested in the topic.

The Slaves of Turpentine: A First Hand Account of Convict Leasing

Resistance to Convict Lease System: First Hand Accounts by Women Reformers

Chain Gang Blues: Black Labor, New Slavery and Imprisonment

They Tell Me Joe Turner's Come And Gone: Music, Prison, and the Convict Lease System

I’ve seen the documentary and it is very very good. I highly recommend watching it on PBS tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern and 8 p.m. Central.

I have written before about the role of music in the lives of imprisoned black people particularly in the South by highlighting Angela Davis’s analysis of the song Chain Gang Blues. However, it was only a cursory consideration of how music described the Southern black experience of incarceration in the early 20th century.

Many people are familiar with prison worksongs without perhaps knowing much about their origins or purpose. In reviewing the book “Wake Up the Dead” by Bruce Jackson, Craig Ruskey describes the nature and value of prison worksongs:

Prison inmates were put to work in the various institutions where they were housed. Working in the cotton or tobacco fields, road and chain gangs, or clearing forests, there were different types of songs for each type of labor. A team would choose a leader as their singer, usually a man with a clear voice who could easily be heard. ‘Proper’ singing wasn’t necessary but the volume of the voice was. Sometimes, teams or crews of as many as eight men were put to work cutting a tree down, with each member of that team supplied an axe. The reason the worksong was so important to the team was simple; with eight men swinging individual axes at the same target, without a rhythm to work by, havoc would be the natural outcome! Simply put, it was a matter of the downbeat for one team to swing, and the upbeat for the other team to swing. In an eight man team, four men would follow the lead voice on the downbeat, so as they would swing their axes into the base of a tree, the opposite team would be singing a refrain and pulling their axes away from the tree. Road gangs and chain gangs would usually work with hoes or picks and in a straight line. Again, the leader would be the man with the clearest voice and he would start a song by singing the first line, then the entire team would use that rhythm and sing the second line. Field workers had songs of a more personal nature as they worked individually, singing primarily for their own enjoyment and to pass the time.

“Go Down Old Hannah” is a song that seems to have originated from black prisoners. Here is a recording of the song made at a Texas Prison Camp by the Lomaxes.

Former prisoner and blues legend Leadbelly recorded his own version of this worksong.

He explained how he first came across the song:

They called the sun Old Hannah because it was hot and they just give it a name. That’s what the boys called it when I was in prison. I didn’t hear it before I went down there. The boys were talking about Old Hannah – I kept looking and I didn’t see no Hannah, but they looked up and said, “That’s the sun.”

I hope to write more in depth about prison worksongs as American cultural artifacts in the future. Today I want to focus, instead, on the ways that Southern blacks who had been imprisoned expressed their reenslavement after Emancipation through song. I contend that these songs of the early to mid 20th century represent testimonials about the injustice of the criminal legal system for blacks.

The convict lease system and the chain gang were so prevalent in the South that they inspired many songs besides Chain Gang Blues. One of these songs titled “Standin’ On the Corner” has been recorded by several artists and has been reinterpreted many times. The song dates back to the early 20th century and in it, the singer usually describes how he was “Standin’ on the corner, doin’ no harm,” when “Up come a policeman and grab me by the arm.” He is taken to a judge, who winks at the policeman and says “Nigger you get some work to do,” and sends him “shackle bound” for six months on the chain gang.

Below is one version of the song that I could find on Youtube. It isn’t my ideal version but it offers an opportunity for those who’ve never heard the song to hear it performed for the first time.

In the post-Emancipation South, black people knew that they could be picked up randomly for anything. The Black Codes criminalized “vagrancy,” unemployment, and all kinds of other things. As such, the theme of wrongful imprisonment permeates many of the prison-inspired songs that were collected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the South. One famous song titled “Penal Farm Blues” describes the experience of being snatched up and imprisoned for no apparent reason:

Early one morning : on my way to the penal farm
Baby all I’ve done : ain’t done nothing wrong

Loaded in the *dog* wagon : and down the road we go
Oh baby : oh baby you don’t know

Into the office : then to the bathhouse below
And with a light shower : baby we change our clothes

All last night : baby it seemed so long
All I’ve done : I ain’t done nothing wrong

I’ll tell you people : the penal farm is a lonesome place
And no one there : to smile up in your face

You can listen to Scrapper Blackwell’s version of the song below:

These songs of prison and captivity shaped what we have come to know as the blues. As I mentioned in my earlier post about Chain Gang Blues, Angela Davis suggests that imprisonment was a central theme in blues music. This is borne out over and over. One of my favorite musicians, the great John Lee Hooker (who Bonnie Rait re-introduced to the mainstream in the 1990s) recorded his version of Prison Bound in 1949. In the song, he tackles the important ideas of the separation from loved ones and the sense of abandonment that can come from being incarcerated.

When they had my trial, baby
You know you couldn’t be found
When they had my trial
Baby, you could not be found
But it’s too late to cry, baby
Your daddy’s prison bound

I have lamented the fact that current hip hop artists seem to shy away from creating art that reflects substantively on either their personal experiences of incarceration or on prison reform more broadly. This makes me appreciate the prison-inspired music of the early 20th century all the more. The songs are historical artifacts that shed light on our collective past. I wonder what artifacts future generations will be examining to understand our current epidemic of mass incarceration. It’s hard to think of any songs from our era that might endure in the way that Chain Gang Blues has.

The Bus Ride
by Jackie Ruzas (has been serving a life sentence in Sing Sing, Attica, and presently in New York’s Wallkill State Prison).

The bus travels the thruway from past to future,
I sit by a window somewhere in between
Another trip, another transfer, another prison
At day’s end.

Summer’s lush green mantle covers the landscape
From roadside to mountains far away.
I didn’t know I loved green.
Green, the color of life, so hard to be in winter.
Praises summer for its chance to be.
She had green eyes and black hair.
I had green eyes and black hair.
She wore my ankle bracelet.
I wore her name, Camille, on my garrison belt.
We shared an eclair on a bench in Linden Park.
She took a bite. I took a bite. We kissed in
The middle, so long ago.

The billboard shows a Budweiser face, “America’s Favorite Beer.”
I didn’t know I loved beer.
An eleven year abstinence from the me who helped
Construct the Big Apple from scaffolds in the sky.
My throat recalls the taste of malt & barley.
Two adolescent fingers flashed outside the Tumble Inn
Bar, signaled two quart containers.
A climb over the fence, a dollar passed through
The back window to Tony’s trembling old hand, clinched it.
An hour later the fence was a trap that brought six stitches.

A rabbit! Was it a rabbit I saw scamper through the woods?
I didn’t know I loved rabbits.
His name was Bugs, and I got him from Ol’ Farmer Steve
Who now presses grapes to wine in heaven.
My uncle Jim didn’t want rabbit shit in the cellar,
So Bugs froze to death in the battered doghouse,
While I slept snug in my child’s cocoon.

I didn’t know I loved bus rides.

– Attica/Sing Sing ’83

Upon her release from prison in June 1906, it is unlikely that Laura Scott would have been able to find gainful employment immediately. She was a convicted felon who had spent nearly a year behind bars in the notorious San Quentin. Given what we know today about the high rate of recidivism for people who have been incarcerated, it should be no surprise that Laura found herself in trouble with the law again a few months after she was discharged.

On February 17 1907, Laura Scott was arrested by detectives Glenn and Stevens, both of whom were also black and she was charged with petty larceny. She was accused of stealing an alarm clock from Ms. H.C. Russell. According to the L.A. Times: “It was the last of a series of petty thefts on her part during the past ninety days (2/21/1907).” She allegedly sold the clock for 25 cents at a local pawn shop. She was bound over to the Superior Court and jailed while awaiting her trial.

Laura’s trial took place on April 8th 1907. The L.A. Herald sets the scene:

“Yesterday department one was crowded when the Scott woman’s case was called. Many of those among the spectators had contributed their mite to help in defending her and all were anxious to testify as to her general good character up to the time when the alleged purloining of the clock occurred.”

Mrs. Russell was the chief prosecution witness and she told the court what happened:

“On the afternoon the clock was taken [February 16] I was ironing when Miss Scott came in and sat down and began to talk. We had considerable conversation there, and I kept right on with my ironing. At that time the clock was on a table near where Ms. Scott sat. […] When she went out I didn’t notice at first that the clock was gone, but a few moments after that I discovered that I had lost the clock.”

Throughout the trial, Laura Scott maintained that she was innocent of the charges against her. The L.A. Times described her as having a “sullen and serious countenance” throughout the proceedings. This was in stark contrast with the demeanor of another key witness against Laura: Lizzie Douglas. Lizzie was described as a mulatto “whose mouth curved in a wondrously humorous and expansive smile as she cakewalked to the witness stand (4/9/1907).”

In her account, on the morning of February 16th, she had gone over to her friend Mrs. Russell’s home to help with ironing. Mrs. Russell brought out an alarm clock and set it on the “ice chest.” As she testified on the witness stand, Lizzie would periodically break out into fits of laughter as she remembered the details of the incident. Laura Scott came into the Russell home on San Julien Street for a “pall of beer.” Lizzie added: “I had whiskey myself.” She continued:

“[Laura] began lounging about the room and leaned up against the ice box. She picked up a piece of paper and looked at it, she said Mrs. Russel’s phone bill didn’t read exactly like hers. Then Mrs. Raymond came in, and after a little while she asked what time it was. As soon as she said that, Laura Scott went out. Mrs. Russel told Mrs. Raymond to look at the clock. Mrs. Raymond said she didn’t see any clock. Mrs. Russel asked her if she was blind, and told her to look on the ice box. Mrs. Raymond said she did, but she didn’t see any clock. We all looked then, and the clock wasn’t there. Then Mrs. Russel sent her boy to tell Mrs. Scott to bring the clock home.”

Upon cross-examination, Lizzie Douglas was asked by Laura Scott’s attorney, Mr. Taylor: “But you didn’t see her take the clock?”
Lizzie: “No.”
Attorney Taylor: “As a matter of fact, you don’t know that she did steal it, do you?”
Lizzie: “It couldn’t a jumped down off of there and walked away.”
Attorney: “What time did the defendant leave the house on San Julian street?”
Lizzie: “How could I know that? The clock was gone, and there wasn’t no way to tell the time.”

Rosa Goldberg, who owned a pawn shop with her husband on First Street, was called to the stand by the Prosecution. The L.A. Times reported on her testimony:

“Where is your store,” asked Deputy District Attorney Blair.
“At First and Alameda streets.”
“In Los Angeles?” pursued the prosecutor.
“Of course,” returned the witness, with an air of pitying his ignorance.
When it was the defense’s turn, attorney Taylor representing Laura Scott, “asked the witness how she could identify that clock.” “Isn’t it just like thousands of others you can buy at jewelry stores for 75 cents?”
Mrs. Goldberg: “I never bought any at a jewelry store. I paid 25 cents for that one.”
“But how do you know that is the one?” persisted the attorney.
“That is the clock,” Mrs. Goldberg replied decidedly.

Attorney Taylor also tried to impeach the credibility of the detectives who arrested Laura Scott by claiming that they “tricked her into making admissions.” However officer Glen testified that it was Laura who had told them where they could recover the clock. He added that she offered to pay for it. It took two hours for the jury to come back with a guilty verdict against Laura. The L.A. Times described her disposition during the trial and her reaction to the verdict:

“Laura Scott showed little feeling when the verdict was announced, and not much at any other time during the trial except one. That was when her attorney, in his argument, spoke of her as Ada Scott. She whispered sharply to him across the table with every show of anger: ‘Laura Scott’. And to her friend Ada Stanley, she remarked, ‘The fool’.”

Because she had a prior conviction of larceny, the offense that she was convicted of became a felony. However, her friends who had packed the courtroom on April 8th, would “plead for a probation sentence instead of a penitentiary term (L.A. Herald, 4/9/1907).” There are no records of her being incarcerated at San Quentin in 1907 so this leads me to think that she was either sentenced to county jail or given probation. I am still investigating the sentence.

The L.A. Herald in reporting on this case pointed out that the trial “cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 to the county and probably nearly as much to the woman’s friends.” $200 in 1913 is the equivalent of $4,544.22 in 2011. This suggests that $200 in 1907 would easily be worth more than $5,000 today. It seems like a waste of valuable resources to have tried a woman for stealing an alarm clock worth 25 cents at a cost of about $10,000 (to the state and to the defendant). This example underscores the point that the American legal system has always been wasteful and irrational.