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LIFE OF A BLACK PRISONER                           CHAPMAN

has to shift for himself, so if one of you young fresh punks go out there playing tough and get a knife hung in you, don't come crying to me. This is a penitentiary for men!" We know nobody cared whether we lived or died in here so the warden's remarks only added insult to injury.
  While in "Reception" I also talked with a caseworker. He asked me what did I want to do while in prison. I replied, "Get an education." The caseworker wanted to know why I wanted an education. My answer sort of shook him up. I said, "I think my coming here is the greatest mistake I ever made in life and if I can't learn from it, then there is no purpose in me living." He asked me did I want to live. To me the question seemed very silly so I refused to answer. I just sat there and gave him a bitter stare. After a moment or two, he said, "I think you are a very bitter young man." He was right. I was bitter but I still wanted an education and I wanted to know if he could help me. The interview ended on this note: "Be a good boy, Chapman, bring us ten or maybe fifteen years, and maybe you'll go free on parole. I'll tell the classification board you want to go to school."
  When I went up before classification for assignment to the general population, they assigned me to the garbage detail. I protested stating that I wanted an education. I was told, with arrogance, that I would be a garbage worker and if I didn't like that, I could be disciplined.
  In 1961 there was only one cell block in the general population for Black inmates and it was called A Hall. A Hall is a tall gray stone medieval looking structure that was built about 133 years ago. Black inmates were housed in here and forced to live with roaches, rats, and six men to a cell-only big enough to accommodate two men. In the winter we would nearly freeze, and in the summer the heat was always intolerable. I was forced to live in A Hall for nearly four years, and these were some of my most miserable years in prison.
  When I first hit population I worked on the garbage detail for about sixty days. During this period I wrote letters to the educational director, requesting that I be assigned to the school. Finally I was called down to the school and given a Stanford Achievement Test; shortly thereafter I was enrolled as a student in the 8th grade.
  In school I studied hard and made good grades. But I couldn't find in school an education that would give me my purpose in life, so I would go to the prison library and check out books on philosophy. Most of these books were too deep for me but I would get a dictionary and try to read them anyway.

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-14 10:27:09