\n<\/p>\n
\nWe can\u2019t change the world if we are not willing to get close to those who are suffering.<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n\u2014Bryan Stevenson, law professor, author, and founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Somehow, a copy of the January 2022 issue of Richmond magazine containing my story \u201cThe Unbroken\u201d<\/a> made its way inside the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, then into the hands of Shebri Stacey Dillon, an inmate serving a 30-year sentence for nonviolent white-collar crimes. \u201cThe story shook me,\u201d she explains in an email from prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Unbroken\u201d details the David and Goliath tale of how, in 1971, five profoundly abused Virginia State Penitentiary inmates initiated and won a lawsuit, Landman v. Royster, against the powerful, racially biased Department of Corrections. The suit\u2019s impact reverberated nationwide by limiting the unchecked tyranny of prison officials. It eliminated bread and water punishment, padlocks on cells, tear-gassing inside cells, extended solitary confinement and corporal punishments. \u00a0<\/p>\n
After decades of silence, the last surviving plaintiff in the Landman case, retired Boston real estate agent Calvin Arey, decided to tell of his seven brutal years inside Virginia\u2019s prison system and his experiences fighting back in that groundbreaking court case. I had described Arey and this case in my 2017 book, \u201cVirginia State Penitentiary: A Notorious History,\u201d and after his friend pointed this out, he contacted me. \u201cI spent a year debating whether to go public,\u201d he recalls. \u201c[I didn\u2019t] want it to just be about the past. You throw a story out there hoping it can make a difference today.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Dillon, the emotional effect upon reading the story was immediate. \u201cThese men had to fight for, and eventually won, rights and abilities I exercised regularly as an incarcerated person,\u201d she writes. \u201cThis story hit home. It rocked me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dillon had to thank Arey for telling his story. Her daughter located the address of his former real estate office, and she mailed him a thank-you note. \u201cI just wanted him to know that he made an impact on me,\u201d she says. \u201cI will never forget his struggles or what he had proven with his success.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arey wrote back and, in a series of exchanges, told her of a book he was reading, \u201cOur Class\u201d by Chris Hedges. Published in 2021, it graphically describes the degradations and dehumanizations of the American prison system. He asked her to check the prison library for it and several others.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of the books I mentioned were in the library, which doesn\u2019t surprise me,\u201d Arey recalls. \u201cPrison libraries are usually underfunded and not well equipped. So no books by Chris Hedges. They didn\u2019t even have Dwayne Betts\u2019 book [\u201cA Question of Freedom\u201d] there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Betts is a former inmate, a lawyer, a 2021 MacArthur Fellow and the founder of the Freedom Reads<\/a> initiative, which seeks to place mobile kiosks of hand-curated books inside prisons. This project sparked an idea in Arey, whose love of books hearkens to his solitary confinement days inside the penitentiary\u2019s dank C Building basement. While there, he made two promises \u2014 to stop chewing his fingernails and to read every book he could find. Today he is the proud owner of more than 2,500 books, many of them signed by the authors.<\/p>\n
Inspired by Betts, Arey mailed Chris Hedges\u2019 book to Dillon \u2014 and something amazing started happening.<\/p>\n
The Albert Woodfox Memorial Mini Freedom Library No. 1<\/h3>\n
\nFreedom begins with a book.<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n