Biographies/Autobiographies
15 To Life: How I Painted My Way To Freedom, by Anthony Papa
Feral House, 2004
"In 1985, he was found guilty and sentenced to two 15 year to life sentences under New York State 's draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws. Papa was then sent to Sing Sing prison where the best years of his life would be lost in one of the most dangerous prisons in America . Faced with violence and a self-defeating environment he struggled to survive. Papa did this through his discovery of art. It was through his painting that he transcended the negativity of imprisonment and found meaning in his life. His art would also eventually set him free."
A Place to Stand, by Jimmy Santiago Baca
Grove Press, 2001
“At the age of twenty-one, Baca was illiterate and facing five to ten years in a maximum-security prison for selling drugs. Five years later he emerged from prison wit the ability to read and a passion for writing poetry.”
Convicted in the Womb: One Man’s Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker, by Carl Upchurch
Bantam Books, 1996
“Once Carl Upchurch was an elementary school dropout fighting for survival on the streets of South Philadelphia, a gang member wedded to a life of violence, a bank robber sentenced to several federal penitentiaries. Through education in prison, he rose to become a respected community organizer and a compelling visionary of the civil rights movement.” Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett”, by Jennifer Gonnerman
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004
“This narrative tells the story of Elaine Bartlett, mother of four, who spent sixteen years in prison for the single sale of cocaine—a consequence of New York State’s controversial Rockefeller Drug Laws.”
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