Brandon Astor Jones

Moving to a new home

2011-07-23T15:49:00.000+10:00

From today, a new home for Brandon's blog can be found at http://brandonswriting.wordpress.com/. It will be spruced up over the next little while, and we welcome comments and communications with Brandon as usual.

Thank you,

Sue

The Grandfather Dialogues: Four

2011-07-16T11:43:00.000+10:00

Grandson: "Why did you really leave the army, Gramps?"

Grandpa: "Mostly because your late Grandma was pregnant with your aunt Veronica Lynn. She was very sick most of the time—I mean real life-threatening sickness for more than half of her pregnancy."

Grandson: "Sounds scary."

Grandpa: "It was. Almost immediately after we got married at Fort Carson, my platoon Sargeant told me that he owned a house in the City of Colorado Springs which was only a ten minute drive from the fort. Your Grandma and I were new to Colorado Springs. She had just arrived from San Antonio, Texas. We soon rented it."

Grandson: "Didn't they have a U. S. O. back then?"

Grandpa: "Yeah, but in the early 1960s some of those so-called 'United Service Organizations' were not so united, in Colorado Springs, Colorado—especially when we were concerned—if you catch my drift. Every morning I left that house I was afraid for your Grandma. She bled a lot. One day, by sheer luck, I got home two hours early. She had passed out on the floor in a pool of blood. Later the Emergency Room doctor told me that had I been an hour later, your Grandma would have bled to death."

Grandson: "Gramps, nobody ever told me about that."

Grandpa: "I'm not surprised. Anyway, that did it for me. The next morning I headed straight for Captain Miller's office. He was my company commander. After I explained the situation to him I asked for what was then known as a 'Compassionate Leave'. We were in peacetime America. I had no doubt that he would grant such a valid request. He denied it. I immediately told him that if he wouldn't give me an emergency leave... I would 'give myself an emergency leave!"

Grandson: "You didn't like the military, did you?"

Grandpa: "Actually, I did. I still do. I have to admit that I don't like the all volunteers aspect of today's military services."

Grandson: "What's wrong with volunteers, Gramps?"

Grandpa: "Nothing's wrong with volunteers. I volunteered myself. What I don't like is the absence of a draft."

Grandson: "How come?"

Grandpa: "An all volunteers military creates the illusion of choice. The reality is that more than eighty percent of those volunteers are poor people who volunteered so that they could eat, learn a trade and/or get an education. To put it another way: in large part America's military is a collection of forces in which poor people are sent to fight wars created by rich people. The concept of what I call 'a pseudo-volunteer military' has become so ingrained in the American psyche that more than a few soldiers do not recognise that their decision to volunteer is more the product of an elitist socioeconomic phenomenon than their own. Poverty can be a perception-numbing drug, son."

Grandson: "Okay. Is that your only reason?"

Grandpa: "No. I also think an all volunteer military relieves too many Americans of the responsibility of doing what I think is their patriotic duty."

Grandson: "Exactly what do you mean?"

Grandpa: "I mean that if you enjoy—for better or worse—the privileges of American citizenship, and you like to claim that citizenship, you should be willing to defend America if you are physically able. Male or female, you should defend America."

Grandson: "I can agree with the fairness in what you're saying, but..."

Grandpa: "Most, not all, of the big shot politicians who think an all volunteer military is great say that it cost too much to train soldiers in various locations only to lose them to private industry when they reach the end of their draft terms' limit."

Grandson: "I have to tell you, Gramps, I think those politicians are right on this one. Money is important."

Grandpa: "Well it seems to me that what they are really saying is that money is more important than people. While the old system of the draft was not perfect, it created the likelihood of rich and poor Americans serving side by side. That rarely happens these days. With a draft, the responsibility of military service is distributed more equitably among the citizenry."

Grandson: "I guess so."

Grandpa: "I think that any intelligent person can see that America does not have enough military personnel. As a nation we should not be concerned about having taught draftees vocational skills that they might leave the military to practice in civilian life. We should not forget that those who serve are Americans who—in many cases—risked their very lives for all Americans. You can't put a price on that."

Grandson: "Okay, I'm starting to get your point."

Grandpa: "If the former President Bush knew that there was a real possibility of his sons or daughters having to duck battlefield bullets in Iraq, or Afghanistan, he would not have been so eager to invade Iraq—especially not under false pretences—as he did. A nation's military draft creates its own checks and balances."

Grandson: "No nation should rush into a war."

Grandpa: "I agree. During the First and Second World Wars—along with various other conflicts before and after—history is replete with moving accounts of draftees who fought, died, survived and served America valiantly. In fact, some of these same politicians who are now in favour of an all volunteer military would not be alive today but for the field-of-battle bravery of their dead and alive comrades-in-arms who were reluctant draftees."

Grandson: "I didn't know that."

Grandpa: "When a nation chooses to go to war it should do so with such overwhelming force of numbers and just-cause that a swift and decisive victory is inevitable. A draft would ensure sufficient numbers of soldiers."

Grandson: "You're talking about big bucks, Gramps."

Grandpa: "Yes, but think about it. America has been at war for nearly ten years! Not once during that period have there been enough boots on the ground. It cost one million dollars to keep one American soldier at war for one year. The war in the Middle East should have been over six or seven years ago! Tyrants have come to realize that America is short of soldiers, sailors and marines. If there were more military personnel, America would have saved billions of dollars by now."

Grandson: "I never thought about it like that before."

Grandpa: "Son, if you still don't think America needs to resume the draft, I urge you to talk to some of the widows and widowers whose spouses have recently been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, after having been sent to those war zones for the third or fourth time beyond their agreed upon enlistment dates. They know better than anyone how desperately America needs a draft."

Grandson: "Hey, Gramps. I just thought of something."

Grandpa: "What's that?"

Grandson: "The Republicans—well, maybe not all of them but most—want to cut taxes again. Without more taxes how is America going to pay for these wars?"

Grandpa: "There is real logic in that question, son. You may want to consider politics as a career. I mean, if there was ever a need for a dose of logic in American politics, now is the time."

Some new writing

2010-10-12T15:25:00.000+10:00

Brandon has completed some new work, it has been typed up by one of his friends, and I am now editing it. Here is the beginning, to show the style of Brandon's prose:

Diffused early-morning sunlight shines through three icy floor-to-ceiling windows. The table is covered with a finely knitted, but faded, white cloth—the same material hangs neatly pleated over the windows’ beige drapes. Six armchairs stand like mahogany sentinels around the table as if guarding the platter of overripe fruit that sits just right in the center. I climb up on to a sentinel and take a banana. As I peel and eat it, in my precocious child-mind, I imagine being on top of the world. I wish for a playmate.

The apartment is quiet save for the constant drone of the big round motor on top of the refrigerator and the sporadic snoring of my ninety-year-old great-grandfather.

After carefully getting down, I crawl along the floor beside the table. I open the credenza. It is filled with cups, glasses, linens, knives, forks and a lot of other things. On top of the linen I see a box of matches. I had never seen wooden matches before. There are so many of them, I knew that one would not be missed. I lit the match. I tried to be careful. I had been told repeatedly to never play with matches. The match started to go out so I picked up a candle and with the last flicker of the match’s flame I lit the candle.

Fascinated I watched the candle’s flame shimmer in the draughty room. I knew I would get in trouble if I got caught so I crawled beneath the table to hide. Hot wax dripped down onto my hand. When I screamed in pain, the burning candle fell to the floor; on its way down its flame licked the edge of the hanging tablecloth. It burst into flames.

©Brandon Astor Jones 2010.

The Grandfather Dialogues: Three

2010-05-31T11:55:00.001+10:00

Grandson: What are you, Democrat or Republican?

Grandpa: I’m a Yellow Dog Democrat, and proud of it.

Grandson: But didn’t you join the army, Gramps?

Grandpa: Yeah, but I think that you may be misunderstanding what Yellow means. There are two kinds of Democrats, a Yellow Dog Democrat and a Blue Dog Democrat. Yellow means that I rarely agree with a Republican position. Blue Dog Democrats more often than not agree with the Republican point of view, so much so that in my opinion they are little more than Republican moles, masquerading as Democrats. Do you understand the difference?

Grandson: I get it now, but my teacher said that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.

Grandpa: Yes he was, but in Lincoln’s day, the Republican Party was genuinely the party of the people. They were both logical and humane. Today’s Republicans are mostly downright mean racists and sexist hypocrites, by design.

Grandson: You got an example?

Grandpa: Sure. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that most Americans want Republicans and Democrats alike to take a tough position against terrorism and terrorists. Right?

Grandson: Yeah.

Grandpa: The majority of Americans like to think that it is Republicans who are the toughest on terrorists. Am I right?

Grandson: Yeah.

Grandpa: In American politics you have to look below the surface of any stated position a Republican takes, because there is usually a secondary motive behind it.

Grandson: Gramps, I got to be honest with you. What you just said is not much of an example. In fact, to me, it sounds more like you just don’t like Republicans.

Grandpa: Okay, there is some truth to that, but I can and will give you a better example.

Grandson: Bring it on.

Grandpa: Republicans preach a lot, but rarely practice what they preach. For instance, if a person from another country becomes a US citizen, but is suspected of being a terrorist, that person is placed on the FBIs terrorist watch list. Consequently, he or she cannot board a plane bound for, or in, America. I think that is a good idea. What about you?

Grandson: Me too.

Grandpa: Okay, tell me if you think this is a good idea. Despite being on the FBIs terrorist watch list, that same person can legally purchase an AK- 47 assault rifle, with a thirty round clip.

Grandson: Gramps, you’re kidding me?

Grandpa: No son, I’m dead serious.

Grandson: So how do you know this is true?

Grandpa: Have you ever heard of a Senator Graham?

Grandson: You mean Senator Lindsey Graham, of one of the Carolinas?

Grandpa: Yeah, South Carolina. He recently stood up in vigorous opposition to a very logical bill that would have made it illegal for anyone who is on the FBIs terrorist watch list to purchase an assault weapon, or explosives. So while he logically doesn’t want such a person on a plane – for obvious reasons – he illogically seems to think it’s okay for such a person to purchase assault weapons and various explosives.

Grandson: Wow! That’s kind of dumb.

Grandpa: When the bill was tabled for approval, during a hearing that was attended by members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Senator Graham strongly objected and said, ‘I think you’re going too far here.’

Grandson: You know, I’ll bet that the National Rifle Association wrote him a big fat check for that objection.

Grandpa: You’re probably right. Republicans are quick to use the right to bear arms, as is set forth in the US Constitution, to back up any absurd notion that they can come up with. It is as if they don’t realize that the Constitution was drafted by men who wouldn’t allow the women in their families to vote. We are talking about men who owned slaves; forty, fifty and sixty year old men who thought it was okay to marry child-brides. All of that kind of crap was legal when the US Constitution was written. Republicans do not accept the fact that times have changed, unless a situation can be used to their selfish advantage.

Grandson: Now I understand why you call 'em sexist, racist hypocrites! Can I ask you a couple of personal questions, Gramps?

Grandpa: Okay, sure.

Grandson: How long did you stay in prison?

Grandpa: Thirty-two years.

Grandson: Can you buy an AK-47 legally?

Grandpa: Of course not. The only right I have to protect my home is in my right and left arms when I pick up that baseball bat that I keep under the bed.

Grandson: Gramps, a foreigner who is on the FBIs terrorist watch list (but who also has US citizenship) has more rights than you do!

Grandpa: Hey, is that you paying attention to what old Gramps is saying?

The Grandfather Dialogues: Two

2010-05-31T11:51:00.003+10:00

Grandpa: What size is your waist?

Grandson: Twenty-two.

Grandpa: So why are you looking through a rack of size thirty pants?

Grandson: Baggy pants are in, Gramps.

Grandpa: The thing to remember about what’s in or out is that trends and styles are always in a state of change, son.

Grandson: How come you never say anything about how low I wear my pants? I know you don’t like it.

Grandpa: Coming from you, that’s an unusually astute observation.

Grandson: Then you admit that you don’t like my sense of style, but not enough to complain about it?

Grandpa: Well, I come from a place in time where men generally are in the habit of letting other men be free to design, define and refine their own style. As a matter of fact, when I was just a couple of years older than you, most young Black men were wearing our pants so high that we walked around with a constant wedgie, day and night. I’m guessing I don’t have to tell you what happened in the front of our pants as a result of pulling them up so high––not everybody liked to see one of us coming, if you catch my drift.

Grandson: How did the White guys dress back then?

Grandpa: The young White guys wore their pants then like young Black men do today. They thought their pants nearly falling off were cool. Some were worse than you––at least you wear drawers. Many White guys in the fifties didn’t have the decency to wear any drawers.

Grandson: You mean, they actually showed their crack?

Grandpa: Yeah, pretty much. There were a lot of them who thought that was real ‘cool’. They wore their shirt collars turned up, and their pants all but falling down in Chicago.

Grandson: Wow, I didn’t know that Gramps.

Grandpa: Sounds like we might need to talk about this kind of stuff more often.

Grandson: Wait here, I’ll be right back.

The young man turned and walked briskly back into the men’s clothing store. Three or four minutes later her returned.

Grandson: I exchanged that pair of size thirty for a size twenty-four.

Grandpa: You giving up cool for logic?

Grandson: Naw, I’m still cool. But I’m refining my cool, a little bit at a time.

Grandpa: Well nobody can do that better than you son.

The Grandfather Dialogues: One

2010-05-31T11:49:00.001+10:00

Brandon never stops reading, listening, thinking, and then writing his responses to the world. He does this through fiction, essay, memoir, and short articles. What follows is the first in a series of dialogues between a grandfather and his teenage grandson about all manner of topics, social and political.

Brandon would like readers to suggest topics, and write to him directly via his prison address:

Mr Brandon Astor Jones, 400574
Georgia Diagnostic Classification Prison
P.O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia
GA 30233
USA

THE GRANDFATHER DIALOGUES: ONE

Grandpa: Well, you’re going to be a teenager tomorrow. I’ll be calling you a ‘young man’ from now on.

Grandson: I’ve been a young man for a long time now.

Grandpa: Okay, I stand corrected. So tell me young man, exactly what was it about the woman who just walked by us that caused you to turn around for another look?

Grandson: I wanted to see her walking away.

Grandpa: Well, what do you think?

Grandson: No onion!

Grandpa: Don’t tell me you’re going to grow up and be one of those guys who make all kinds of silly assumptions about women, based soley on the size of their backsides?

Grandson: Gramps, nice behinds are important to young Black men––at least, that’s how it is with the guys I hang out with.

Grandpa: Let me be sure that I’m understanding what you’re saying here. That woman’s beauty as she was walking towards us, in your opinion, deserved a second look when she passed, but because she was not about to pop the seams in that dress you think that she fell short on your beauty-meter’s scale?

Grandson: I guess so.

Grandpa: You guess so? Are you saying you don’t really know who or what you like?

Grandson: Well…

Grandpa: Since you can’t answer that question, maybe you can answer this one. Tell me exactly who determines who is, and who is not, good-looking in your life?

Grandson: Me!

Grandpa: Okay, tell me, what color are her eyes and hair?

Grandson: I don’t remember.

Grandpa: Light brown eyes, black and brown hair, and she’s wearing a gold wedding band on her left thumb.

Grandson: You saw all that in one passing glance?

Grandpa: Yeah, but only because I was looking at the whole package of the beauty she projected – not just her backside as she walked through this mall.

Grandson: So you’re saying that I need to expand my female-vision a little more?

Grandpa: No, I’m saying a lot more. I’m saying that a woman is a lot more than what you see behind, or in front of, her. One more thing, just in case you have not noticed, I’ve been a Black guy for a long time now, too.

'...the humanity of prisoners'

2010-04-28T20:09:00.004+10:00

The door to the cell block's control booth has a small rectangular opening. It has a hinged flap through which, more often than not, a female correctional officer will push institutional forms and memorandums for prisoners to read or fill out.

There is a Plexiglass window above the opening. The bars do not block the officer’s view of the cell block. Once posted inside the control booth the officer’s primary duty is to operate the control panel (here read, push the buttons that electronically open cell gates inside the cell block).

It is February 21, 2010; since it is a Sunday, there will be no incoming mail for the control booth officer to pass out. Correctional Officer, First Grade (COI) Patrick is in the booth today.

I should note too, that COI Patrick is one of a few female officers at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison who chooses to conduct herself in a genuinely professional manner.

Let me clarify that: I have always found her to be civil, respectful and dignified in her interactions with prisoners. Consequently, it is fairly easy for us to reciprocate despite the fact that dignity has to duck a lot of punches around here.

COI Patrick’s humanity is such that she never fails to recognise ours. Unfortunately, the unprofessional behavior of the majority of her colleagues (be they male or female) suggest that they have lost touch with their own humanity, which greatly reduces their ability to see a prisoner as a human being. In many ways their self-made-prison is far worse than the one us prisoners are forced to live and die in.

Those readers who would like to know more about the absence of humanity currently being demonstrated by the majority of the men and women who work at the GD + CP should be on the lookout for this author’s next book which will be published later this year: it is titled the humanity of prisoners.

Brandon A Jones can be reached at:
UNO#400574
Georgia Diagnostic Classification Prison
P. O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA

Attention Editor
Copyright ©2010
All rights reserved by
Brandon Astor Jones

Word count 341 (including name and address)
Composition date: February 21 2010-03-16
21:00 hours

ATTENTION FEMALE SMOKERS!

2009-11-09T20:48:00.002+10:00

Do you want to stop smoking?

I can help you do that, free of charge.

Write to

Brandon Astor Jones, G3-83
UNO# 400574; (Group #1)
Georgia Diagnostic Classification Prison
P. O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA

2009-09-05T11:10:00.002+10:00

Go to Texas Moratorium Network for more information.

'...before I die here'

2009-08-27T17:23:00.002+10:00

Yes, it is true that I have never visited
any part of their beautiful land
There is an ineffable thing inside of me,
of it, they helped me to take command
They are refreshingly intuitive people
at once countrified and urbane
Humane, genuine and unpretentious, free
of jaded little socialized games
Bestowing their welcomed presence upon
me without self-righteous disdain
All helped me win the bloody war against
my bad past criminalities' stains
Make no mistake, with mounting flaws
and all, I still love America
However, the people I describe in the
lines above live in Australia

This less than brilliant poem is my way of saying thank you to Australians who have kindly entered my life. They cause me to want to expand my number of Australian friends.
To those readers who are interested, I herewith extend the offer of friendly exchanges via correspondence. I will answer all letters.
I genuinely want to know how you see, think, and feel about this world we are privileged to share. Please feel free to broach any subject with candor. There will be no taboos.
Let me be clear. I do not care what your ethnic background is, nor do I care how old, young, rich or poor you are. I will make no judgements about your political or lifestyle choices. The only criterion I now restrict is gender: I ask for only female correspondents, as I have a big imbalance between men and women in the people who write to me.
I am an African American man who has spent the last 31 of my 66 years on death row in America. I hope that you and I will take advantage of every opportunity that our correspondence will afford us to learn and grow communicatively in ways that enhance – rather than reject – our shared humanity before I die here.

Mr Brandon Astor Jones, G3-83
UNO #400574; (Group #1)
Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison
P. O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA

A Letter from 1995

2009-05-03T13:11:00.004+10:00

The following was written on official state stationery bearing the departmental seal of the 'City and County of San Francisco's Office of the Sheriff'.

Michael Mears
Multicounty Public Defender
Georgia Indigent Defense Council
985 Ponce de Leon Avenue
Atlanta Georgia 30306

May 29, 1995

Dear Mr Mears,

I am the Assistant Sheriff for the City and County of San Francisco. Since 1973 I have served as a jail Commander and Warden, a member of the Parole Commission, and the administrator of mandatory inmate work and education programs combining security and treatment in our six county jails.

In over thirty years in corrections I have struggled with the issues of crime, violence, incarceration, retribution, and even redemption. This work breeds cynicism: resignation to the seemingly endless supply of offenders, and despair for the plight of innocent victims. Every so often someone, or an idea, a vision, a new program, or, more rarely, a new law, reawakens my passion and reminds me why I am in this business in the first place: to discard the cynicism and to make a difference in the community that pays my salary. One such event occurred in 1993 – and so this on behalf of Brandon Astor Jones.

Almost three years ago I stumbled upon a newspaper article written by Mr Jones. A short byline identified him as a prisoner on death row in Georgia. The article astonished me. I wrote Mr Jones and asked his permission to reprint the piece in our jail's newsletter. I offered him no remuneration, only the promise that his writing would be used with dignity in the training of my staff and in class and group situations with prisoners in my charge. Mr Jones agreed, and we have corresponded fairly often ever since. I subsequently collected his articles from American, Canadian and Australian newspapers and magazines, and with his permission used them in various inmate programs and staff trainings.

There is value in Brandon's life and in his writing for all of us – jailers, prisoners, potential victims. I have seen his writings sober and inspire young offenders who are still at risk of committing violence upon release from our jails into our community. He conveys, convincingly, a belief that they can retake control of their lives before they further harm others and themselves, and they can make a lawful place in our society.

There is no excuse for the offense of which he has been convicted. Yet, his work offers hope to those on both ends who are overwhelmed with violence. And in that there is a seed of redemption. This man has value to us all, to a community unable to make sense of violence, victimization and hopelessness that eats away at our best attempts at criminal justice.

That is all I have to say. It is a serious matter. I am not in the shoes of the [C]ourt or the jury. My commitment to criminal justice is absolute. It is my duty to affirm the value of this man's life.

Sincerely,

Michael Marcum
Assistant Sheriff
San Francisco, California

Before retiring, Michael Marcum was promoted to the rank of Sheriff amid much controversy. It is Brandon's opinion that he should be the poster person for prisoners' rehabilitation in America. Write to Brandon and ask him why.

Giving and receiving

2009-01-22T14:07:00.004+10:00

Brandon is working on his manuscript 'growing down', which is the story of his early years from childhood to young adult.

He started writing it in 1989, and is now having the current draft typed up. Once that is done, he will begin rewriting and contextualising his early lifestory, adding perspectives from three different viewpoints: the 1940s when he was living it; the 1990s when he was writing; and with respect to race, including the election of the first African American President.

This is very important to Brandon, and he feels he does not have much time remaining to complete his project.

What we are calling for are donations to help him pay his typing fees, which will amount to about $400. All donations will be gratefully received, and you will be helping Brandon to tell his story, a piece of African American history as well as a personal document.

Please send your donation to Brandon's agent:

Mr Del Cassidy
142 Wilmer Street
Glassboro
New Jersey 08028
USA

and be sure to provide your name and address so Brandon can personally thank you. He advises you to send US dollars if possible.

Thank you in advance!

'...one page per day on air' by Brandon Astor Jones

2008-11-03T12:34:00.004+10:00

For sixteen years, the judge advocate had impassively presided over incidents of murder and child rape, yet nothing of this kind could be attributed to Caesar, whose crime had been to steal food. [The judge] was unperturbed by venality in convicts; he expected it. What so disturbed him about this refractory convict was the persistent refusal to be reduced to the condition of a slave.

Professor Cassandra Pybus
Research Chair of History at the University of Tasmania

Review of Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and their Global Quest for Liberty. Beacon Press, 2006. ISBN 080705514X. $US 26.95.

This is the first time I have started a review with a quote taken from a book's epilogue. However, since I am an African American being held in one of America's Southern prisons, it seems appropriate for me to do so out of a genuine respect for those who have gone before me.

I had a visceral reaction to Professor Pybus' words. For I know that I share a historical kinship with the man who was known as 'Black Caesar' in eighteenth century Australia. A bounty was placed on his head: 'dead or alive'. He was hunted down and killed. The reward for killing him according to Professor Pybus was a 'lavish' one: five gallons of rum.

On February 15, 1796, the New South Wales Judge Advocate David Collins wrote a brief obituary which in part read: 'Thus ended a man who certainly, during his life, could never have been estimated at more than one remove above a brute'. The judge went on to later declare Caesar an 'incorrigibly stubborn [B]lack'.

Interesting words to be sure, especially when you consider that they were chosen and written by a White man who obviously condoned the State paying other men to go murder a man for the liquid coin of rum.

Professor Pybus has produced an informative and scholarly work full of little known African American history. In many ways her book salutes those men, women and children who were able to cast off the chains of their bondage in the American colonies before, during and after the American Revolutionary War.

When American colonists began to rebel in earnest against British rule, England's on-the-scene representative, Lord Dunmore, felt sufficiently threatened that he prudently sent his wife back to England.

While the British warship HMS Fowey rode at anchor on Virginia's James River, Dunmore used the vessel as his headquarters. In her wardroom he set about the task of 'assembl[ing] a squadron to strike back at rebellious Virginians', who greatly outnumbered British loyalists in the vicinity. Moreover, he had been told that in 1775, there were no less than 180 000 Black people enslaved in Virginia.

One of Dunmore's war stategies was the offer of 'freedom' to any slave who would swear an oath of allegiance to England. Consequently, slaves ran to Dunmore in droves. One among them was Harry Washington who was once the servant of then Colonel George Washington, the same George Washington who would become America's first president. Harry became a member of England's Royal Artillery Unit. Of course, no one thought that the rebellious colonists would actually win the war.

In defeat large numbers of Dunmore's troops, and those runaway slaves who supported them, succumbed to various diseases along with the standard horrors of mortal combat. Those who survived the colonists' fury were grudgingly allowed to leave America after a victory and ceasefire had been declared.

In due course, the British sailed first for Nova Scotia and after making landfall they deposited a substantial number of Blacks there. However, the bulk of the British fleet sailed for England, taking even more freed Black people with them.

From that point on, the African American struggle for freedom became a global diaspora. A growing number of destinations far beyond the shores of Nova Scotia and England (here read the West Indies, West Africa's Sierra Leone and Australia, for example) became both havens and/or earthly hells for those intrepid Black men, women and children.

Epic Journeys of Freedom is an engrossing read. For me it has had the effect of connecting those dots left dangling by several other historical narratives on the African American experience.

This book also exposes a demoralizing feature on the part of the well intentioned British effort to enhance the growth of freedom's seed for those Blacks who left America: a kind of undeclared Holy War between the Anglican Church and a number of seemingly adversarial Methodists. The consequence of which more often than not rendered Black refugees casualties of the very freedom they had been offered by the British.

Added to the long list of instructive history this book provides is its 26 succinct biographies of Black refugees, a feature which is easy to access while absorbing the depth of the main text.

On November 3, 2006, I listened to the 'Frank and Wanda Show' on V-103 radio, in Atlanta Georgia. The host, Frank Ski, offered a prize to the caller who could give the name of the first President of the United States. Several people called, none with the right answer. Eventually someone said John Adams and Frank Ski agreed and awarded them the prize!

If ever there was an example of how badly some African Americans needed to study history, this is it. Of course George Washington was America's first president, and John Adams the second (from 1797 to 1801).

Sadly that error was neither noted nor corrected.

While both Mr Ski and the caller were wrong, I do not mean to assail them. My deeper concern is for those many poor African American children listening to that show five days a week who are learning degrading rap lyrics and this kind of historical misinformation.

I wish that Frank Ski and the caller would read this book aloud - one page per day on air.

Brandon encourages your response to this or any other essay, poem, book review or short story. He does not care if your response is positive or negative - he answers all letters.

If you are interested in reading more about African American history I urge you to read 'while the Mississippi and Hudson merge' a roman à clef. It can be purchased from iUniverse.

Stamps

2008-11-03T11:00:00.002+10:00

To: Major Scott (Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison)
From Prisoner Brandon Astor Jones, UNO#400574; G3-83
Date: September 12, 2008, 17.01 hours

Subject: Our encounter yesterday regarding 'Stamps'

It is ironic amid all of the Department of Corrections' talk of the need to save money that frequently when there is an opportunity to make money this prison's store passes it up.

It costs 94c to send a letter to Australia and the United Kingdom. Yet the highest denomination of United States postage stamps a prisoner can purchase at the GD&CPs store is an 84c stamp. A letter must therefore have one 84c, three 3c and one 1c stamp on it. As you know we are limited to 20 stamps per store purchase (which causes us to use one quarter of the purchase for one letter). This is absurd when a 94c stamp is all that is needed.

Moreover, the GD&CP store VERY OFTEN does not have 84c stamps, and it strangely has never sold 94c ones. I have the nature of this long-standing problem known to Counselor Clark, Unit Manager Goen, Lieutenant McCormick and many others here among staff administrators, both verbally and in writing. I even wrote an Informal Grievance Form about it last year and I have not had that Informal Grievance returned to me yet (I put it in then Counselor Murphy's hand personally).

I have mail I have been trying to send out for weeks, due to lack of postage. In effect, I am being denied timely access to US Courts, lawyers, family and friends needlessly despite being under a sentence of death (I could have a fourteen day death warrant read to me at any time).

I respectfully request that you fix this problem.

'...death row prison cell' by Brandon Astor Jones

2008-11-01T18:15:00.003+10:00

CHOICES

if i can't do
what I want to do
then my job is to not
do what I don't want
to do

it's not the same thing
but it's the best I can
do

if I can't have
what I want...then
my job is to want
what I've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want

since I can't go
where I need
to go...then I must...go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral

when I can't express
what I really feel
and none of it is equal
i know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry

Professor Nikki Giovanni

My good friend Dr Jill Segger recently shared this poem with me in her latest communication. I had previously written a letter to her in which I included a copy of the letter I wrote to Professor Giovanni on April 17 2007, after she had been featured on the Public Television program The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. The professor spoke at some length after an angry student had shot and killed 33 people (including himself) on campus.

In my letter to the professor, amongst other things I wrote that I felt she had given "eloquence and hope to the aftermath of utter violence and devastation", as I offered my heartfelt condolences. More on Professor Giovanni's poem and my letter to her later.

As usual, I plan to rely on the reader's intelligence to grasp the full meaning of my words on these pages and those unseen messages conveyed between the lines that I dare not write, but you know that I am thinking.

The main thrust of my letter to Professor Giovanni follows here:

Viewing American society for 28 years from a death row prison cell often allows me unusual clarity. I would like to share this thought.

As violence continues to rise on campuses, I have come to the conclusion that one of the best ways to reduce future violence (not just on campuses but in general in American society) is to start teaching children anger management. I mean that it should be taught in much the same way they are taught their ABCs in kindergarten.

Teachers need to teach anger management and how to constructively respond to each days', indeed life's, disappointments, betrayals, etc. The tragedy at Virginia Tech* and countless other places have made me certain that early and sustained instruction in anger management is, at the very least, as important as learning one's ABCs.

I also believe that violence in America is taught in both overt and subtle ways. Few will admit it, but the majority of Americans consciously and unconsciously give tacit approval to (and encourage) violence from the cradle to the grave.

For example, more than 57 years ago, when I was one of less than a handful of Blacks among as many as 354 White students at Lowell Longfellow School in Harvey, Illnois, I became both victim and, as a sad but necessary consequence, a perpetrator of violence. In classrooms, hallways and especially out on the playgrounds, groups of White boys would attack me repeatedly. During one of those attacks, Mr Fry, the school principal, pulled no less than five bullies off me. He had seen me being pummeled and kicked to a bloody pulp. I was clearly the victim.

Looking back I realize that it was silly of me to have thought that Mr Fry was saving me when he pulled those guys off me. You see, when he took me to his third floor office, he produced a wooden paddle that was about three feet long. He then explained that because I started the fight, I would be given 'four licks', despite my protests that I had not started anything at all. He gave me those four licks, immediately.

It goes without saying that you can rationally conclude that Mr Fry was both wrong and racist in his response to the situation, and I agree. However, I want this writing to be more about the instrinsic and varied nature of adolescent violence in America, than the racism that can so often support and perpetuate it.

The violence on the playground that day at Lowell Longfellow School was an integral part of Mr Fry's school administration program. That is to say that from the attack on the playground all the way up to the third floor paddling, violence permeated Mr Fry's school administration. His response to group violence was to administer more violence to the individual victim of said violence.

Most (we can be grateful not all) White people in America like to think of themselves as not being racist. Consequently they see no need to instruct their children in the art of accepting people who look and act in ways that are different.

Of course, by the time those children are started in school, they are not prepared to understand, let alone accept, people who do not look and act like them.

American society, by and large, teaches its members to not only reject but to also assail difference. In this fashion Mr Fry, and millions of parents in America, promote a kind of semi-subtle-violence, a nefarious violence that such parents can routinely pretend to be unaware of.

IMPORTANT NOTE TO ALL:

If you do not consciously teach
ACCEPTANCE OF OTHERS to
your children, long before they start
school, YOU CONSCIOUSLY
TEACH VIOLENCE BY
DEFAULT.

Likewise, if we as a nation do not start teaching small children conflict resolution and self-control, we are encouraging the kind of violent loss of control that visits America so frequently.

Unfortunately when someone actually suggests that we pursue such thinking and teaching methods for Americans, that someone is usually met with the vociferous protests of angry parents/taxpayers who declare that a) the State has no business teaching their children what or how to think and/or b) even if they wanted to try it, there is no money for such liberal teaching concepts in the State or Federal budget.

Those vociferous and angry voices more often than not belong to the same people who support sending thousands of young men and women to war in Iraq, and elsewhere, along with billions and billions of tax dollars.

Last week I was reminded of Mr Fry's paddle as the use of corporal punishment occupied a slot in most evening news programs for two days. Those news programs inspired me to conduct my own survey here in G3 Cellblock, where 20 of the 23 men answered yes when I asked if they had been subjected to corporal punishment while they were in early primary school. One of the men recalled getting paddled, the first time while he was still in kindergarten.

Yes, I know that some readers will say corporal punishment was good for some. To those readers I must admit that is true, but only a minority.

As my fellow prisoner gave me details of the paddling he experienced in kindergarten, I wondered if the woman who paddled him had been at the core of his adult life's anger. I wondered if it was she he was trying to kill, instead of his late wife? I wonder, even now, how many of those 20 men in my Cellblock would be here if they had been given anger management instruction as frequently as they were given corporal punishment, in one form or another?

I am aware as I write this line that most, if not all, of the self-righteously 'vociferous' among us will discount and resent everything that is said on these pages because of who and where I am. That is a sad fact of American life, that few people listen to what prisoners have to say. I am very fortunate to have a friend like Dr Segger, who wrote the encouraging words below:

Dear Brandon,

I was very moved by your thoughts on anger management and how to prepare children for rejection and frustration and how this is essential to reducing violence. You are absolutely right and your life experience gives you a particular authority [in] speaking thus...

Thank you Dr Segger. Your words move me deeply. As you might have guessed Professor Giovanni did not answer the letter I wrote to her on April 17 2007. At least, she did not answer it in the direct traditional way. In an indirect way via her poem 'Choices' that you have shared with me in your letter, I choose to consider it in general, and one portion of it in particular, an answer that speaks to me on many personal levels.

...when I can't express
what I really feel
i practice feeling
what I can express
and none of it is equal
i know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry.

If the reader is a person who is of the opinion that all human beings should be heard, no matter their situation or location, feel free to drop me a line. Know that you are in good company with the likes of Professor Giovanni and Dr Segger. I hope to be able to share some things with all of you that are sure to surprise you. Things that come from the Heaven and Hell sides of this death row prison cell.

WRITE TO:

Brandon Astor Jones, G3-83
UNO#400574
Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison
P.O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA

'...the reader as well' by Brandon Astor Jones

2008-11-01T16:48:00.004+10:00

I think the whole glory of writing lies in the fact that it forces us out of ourselves into the lives of others.

Sherwood Anderson

Unfortunately, prisons in America provide little in the way of a means for positive daily individual accomplishment for prisoners. A man like myself, in order to keep insanity and boredom at bay, needs to accomplish something worthwhile every day.

In 1962, when I joined the US Army, I lied when I indicated on the induction form that I had completed '9 years' of schooling. In reality I did not even graduate from elementary school.

It was only after I came to this prison did I manage to - by hook and by crook - obtain a General Education Development Certificate. I am sharing this bit of information because I want the reader to know that I could barely write a letter, let alone a book, when I entered prison.

With the progression of time I began writing poems, essays and short autobiographical snippets. It did not take long for the daily routine of accomplishment - with the frequent discoveries of myself, and others, past and present - to become addictive. I began reading everything I could get my hands on, from cover to cover, even old newspapers and magazines. In time I decided to get myself published.

I began a brief correspondence with Mr Creed W Pannell, the publisher of the Atlanta News Weekly. He offered me a 250 word weekly column with the freedom to write about any subject I chose. That freedom lasted for nearly a year until I wrote about Clarence Thomas, who was then an unconfirmed United States Supreme Court nominee.

Before writing that essay I had read (in detail) the nominee's paper trail in the prison's law library, which led me to conclude that he was unfit as a replacement for the highly esteemed United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

I got no reader response to any of my columns prior to that article, but that following week ten letters arrived. All were written by African American men and women who expressed outrage that I dared "to write [such] disparaging things about a wonderful Black man from Pin Point, Georgia"!

My column, 'An Inside Look with Brandon Astor Jones', was discontinued immediately. Of course, I take a degree of comfort in knowing that these days most of those letter writers share my opinion of Justice Thomas.

I quickly had begun to enjoy writing a column each week. After not being able to find another column in America, I began perusing foreign publications with a view to finding a new space. All that eventuated was occasional publication in the United Kingdom.

I switched my geographical focus to Australia. Eventually I made contact with a fellow American, who had recently relocated from Wisconsin to Sydney. Mr Allen Myers had just started the Green Left Weekly newspaper, and he offered me a 550 word space each week, which I accepted. Green Left Weekly grew quickly from a fledgling local publication in Sydney to one of the most widely read alternative newspapers in the entire country. It is distributed in each of Australia's states.

For more than eleven years, 47 weeks in the year, my column titled 'looking out' was published. I covered many topics such as racism, sexism, classism, intracultural prejudice, prison, prisoners, crime, capital punishment, spousal abuse, music, history, slavery, local and global politics. Then a new editor came who found me to be too pro-America for his taste. Shortly thereafter 'looking out' was discontinued.

By then my interest in American history had narrowed. The Civil War and those African Americans who had fought and died for the Union (Federal) Navy, long before the Union Army began accepting Black men as soldiers, became my obsession. Sadly, the Civil War as it was fought on America's inland waterways and experienced by Black men and women has rarely been written about. I decided that I would start writing some of this history.

From newspapers I learned of Joseph P Reidy, then the Associate Dean of the Graduate School at Howard University. He and his students had spent a decade researching Blacks' involvement in the fighting of America's greatest internal conflict. I wrote to him seeking the specifics on Black sailors in the Union Navy.

Dean Reidy introduced me to several little known Black heroes who fought in the war, but the one who interests me most is a man named Wilson Brown. He was once a slave on a cotton plantation. He was the only man, Black or White, from the State of Mississippi to be awarded the US Navy's Medal of Honor for his heroic service while under heavy enemy fire during the civil war.

I became so taken with Wilson Brown's life I was inspired to write a lengthy essay about him. Two years later that essay had grown into a book written in the form of a roman à clef entitled 'without war'.

The story begins in Wilson Brown's early years on the Miller Plantation as a slave. In that particular 39 chapter draft, the story ended with Brown's heroics during several of the ship-to-ship engagements of the Battle of Mobile Bay.

While reading another newspaper I came across an article about a Quaker professor at the University of Alabama's Tuscaloosa Campus. He had been the driving force behind the movement to encourage Alabama to apologize for the role it played in the perpetuation of slavery. When I read that, I thought to myself that he would be the perfect person to give me his opinion on my book.

I wrote to him and asked if he would read it. He promptly responded indicating that he would be happy to read it and give his opinion. I sent 'without war' to him immediately.

Three weeks later he wrote again saying that the manuscript was good and, because of its educational value, should be put up on the internet. He added that he would be happy to do that for me. I explained to him that the manuscript was incomplete and that I did not want it up on the internet even in the incomplete form because it could be stolen in part or whole. I asked him to return it.

He wrote again and said he would return it but first he wanted to write an essay on its theme: how the violence of war, love and law can produce redemption. Before I answered that letter, another arrived dated June 25 2004. The professor commented that 'without war' reminded him of 'a short story [by Harriet Beecher Stow] called 'Love versus Law'".

He never returned my manuscript despite my repeated letters asking him to do so. Then he stopped communicating completely.

The manuscript now has 50 chapters. As all my writing is given the title of the final words in the last sentence, the new title of 'without war' became 'while the Mississippi and Hudson merge'.

My purpose for having written this essay is two-fold. First, I hope that many readers of these words will write, call or email the professor and ask him to kindly return my work. I choose not to speculate as to why he has not done so. I just want my work back. He can be contacted at the following work email address at the University of Cambridge, UK: abrophy@email.unc.edu.

Second, I trust that after reading this all writers who are in prison will exercise due caution when sending your manuscripts out. No matter how official their titles appear to be, some people on the outside (but not all) will take advantage of you because you are in prison. If you must send your manuscript out try to send it to an organization you can trust, like the PEN American Center's Prison Writing Mentorship Program in New York.

The words that head this essay are true: 'writing... forces us out of ourselves into the lives of others.' In fact, it is clear that those words also apply to the reader.

while the Mississippi and the Hudson merge can be purchased from the publisher iUniverse.

"... dying in poverty" by Brandon Astor Jones

2008-09-09T21:03:00.005+10:00

America's failure to make progress in reducing poverty, especially among children, should provoke a lot of soul-searching. Unfortunately, what it often seems to provoke instead is great creativity in making excuses. - Paul Krugman

On February 24, 2008, I wrote a letter to a correspondent in England, and with that correspondent's consent I am sharing a portion of that letter here for those readers who have asked me questions about my childhood.

Under the title 'Rio Grande Valley Journal: In Remote Valley, A Grim Redefinition of Fishing' there is a photograph of two boys bent over a river's rock-strewn pool in The New York Times' February 15 2008 issue. They are looking for fresh water shrimp.

The photograph conjured up memories of being a nine year old, more than fifty-five years ago, in the exurb of Markham, Illinois. A farming community twenty-five minutes from downtown Chicago.

I can remember getting up long before sunrise, right after my guardians (here read my maternal Great Aunt Lois McKinley-McGee and her husband James Edward McGee) left for work. I only saw them on Sundays, because Monday through Saturday they left in the early darkness of the morning and did not return until late at night.

On the morning in question I quickly dressed, then went outside to pump a bucket of water. I sat the bucket down so all of the rust particles could settle in the bottom. I got my short-axe, and began cutting a supply of wood beneath the naked light bulb that shone brightly above our little shack's front door. I took the wood inside and built a fire in the pot-bellied stove that stood in the middle of the room's dirt floor. Then I poured the sediment-free top of the water into a large pot and put it on top of the stove.

Twenty minutes later the pot of water was hot. I washed up, and brushed my teeth as dawn quietly began to illuminate my late autumn garden. I went to the garden and pulled up two large carrots. I used the water that was left in the bucket to wash them. I started eating one and wrapped the other in my handkerchief - it would be my lunch at school.

Mine was a love/hate relationship with Lowell Longfellow School, in Harvey, Illnois. The school was just short of being five miles away. It usually took me about thirty minutes to walk to school, where for a time I was the only person of color in attendance. I loved school, but unfortunately, I learned very little in the way of reading, writing and arithmetic, but became an expert at fighting extremely racist White boys.

I am sorry. I did not mean to go on so, but for a few minutes I was transported back to the schoolyard during recess - the fights, and the words uttered in them, did not bring back pleasant memories. I am finding this difficult to write. Let me get back to wrapping my carrot.

We lived in the center of a floodplain. The kind of flooding that Katrina gave New Orleans was a yearly occurrence in Markham. Consequently there was a huge drainage canal less than seventy-five yards south of our shack. After I put my carrot in my back pocket I started thinking of dinner. There was nothing to eat in the shack.

I found a five gallon can. I got a hammer and large screwdriver and then punched at least fifty holes into the can's bottom. I cut off the end of our clothes line that was not in use and tied it to the handle of the can. I left for school, but I took the eastern canal route.

A mile or so later, when I walked up from the canal bank onto the Dixie Highway Bridge, I tied the other end of the clothes line to the bridge and lowered the can into the fast flowing Westward current. I made sure that the can's open end faced east. I then continued my walk to school. I walked into Mrs Summers' classroom at three minutes after nine. Needless to say, Mrs Summers was angry. As I hurried to the back of the classroom she said, "McGee, you are three minutes late. You need not come out of the coatroom for thirty minutes!"

I did as I was told. Mrs Summers was a good teacher, but she could not abide a student's tardiness, not even three minutes.

Getting back to the New York Times article, the boys in the photograph reside in the Rio Grande Valley of Jamaica. In bold type are the words "Spearing the giant shrimp is like work. Poisoning them is quicker". As I read those words I wondered if the reporter intended to suggest that the boys are lazy? Maybe, maybe not.

In Portland, Jamaica, a little hamlet that is near the Rio Grande, many of the residents eat the shrimp and crayfish that can be found in the river's rock pools to keep from starving to death.

The people there are as poor and destitute today as we were more than five decades ago in Markham Illnois. While I used a five gallon bucket to catch my after school meal of crayfish, the poor people of Portland, out of necessity due to poverty, have started to use poison.

Marc Lacy writes: '...any toxin will do. Some favor the pesticide used to keep insects off the coffee plants. Others use the potent solution used to rid cows of ticks. When subjected to the poison, the shrimp [and crayfish the size of lobsters] large and small float right to the top. So do the fish. Catching them is as easy as scooping them up before the river washes them and the poison away.'

Speaking of the poison, a fisherperson named Kimberly John, who works with the Nature Conservancy, is quoted as saying: 'You have to put all morals and conscience aside, and then you throw a toxic pesticide in the river... It's [a] very cold, hard reality to put poison in the river, and what ever jumps out, you catch.'

It goes without saying that no one should be poisoning the river. What humans are doing to the environment all over the world is wrong. I think that only a handful of people like George Bush would disagree. We all need to be doing more to help than hurt the environment.

Yet in my sixty-five years on this earth I have come to question whether some of those who profess a desire to save the environment have taken the time to notice that their fellow human beings are an integral part of the environment as much as a river, valley, mountain or frog.

People like Kimberly John worry - and rightly so, I think - about the river being poisoned, but not nearly enough about how POVERTY POISONS the lives of the world's poorest peoples.

I plan to come back to the Rio Grande Valley Journal article later. Bear with me while I fast forward to another New York Times article dated February 18, 2008, appropriately titled 'Poverty is Poison'. It was written by Paul Krugman. The first paragraph reads:

'Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain'. That was the opening of an article in Saturday's Financial Times, summarizing research presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
...neuroscientists have found that 'many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones which impair neural development'. The effect is to impair language development and memory - and hence the ability to escape poverty - for the rest of the child's life.
So we have another, even more compelling reason to be ashamed about America's record of failing to fight poverty.

I am always just a little angry when I read of a recent million dollar research body coming up with a finding like this one. I mean hey, I have been Black and poor in America all of my life! I have never attended a high school and yet, had I been asked I could have saved those researchers a lot of time and money: All poor people know what those researchers found out.

Mr Krugman goes on to remind us that the former President Lyndon Bains Johnson 'declared his War on Poverty 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969.'

Then one day a few people saw a handful of so-called 'welfare queens driving Cadillacs' and tax payers got angry and ended the War on Poverty. The majority of people who were and are on welfare actually need the help welfare provides. Alas, because of a few cheats, millions of children were taken off America's welfare rolls - by and large for political expediency. Former President Bill Clinton was instrumental in that removal process.

If people could muster the courage and compassion to care for each other as much as they do for the rivers, I doubt that poor people would be poisoning the river.

Mr Krugman goes on to report that 'to be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child's brain' [emphasis added].

People like Kimberly John have a myopic view of how that river gets poisoned. It is not the boys pictured in the rock pool. Poverty is what poisons the river in Portland, Jamaica.

A member of the Portland Conservation group is quoted as having said 'my fear is that the food that we depend on, that is part of our cultural tradition, will die'.

Where is the concern for the two boys in the rock pool?

As I sit in this prison cell I am reminded that on more than a few afternoons when I went back to the Dixie Highway Bridge after school, the five gallon can did not have one crayfish in it. Those were the times when I would go and steal something to eat from the local grocer.

Yes, there are a number of people who survive poverty, some rise high above it. I am happy for them. Nevertheless, at least half of the children who live in poverty never get out of poverty, even as adults.

Americans, as well as people of other nations, are in desperate need of asking our so-called leaders why poverty is not nearly as important as the environment?

I am a sixty-five year old child - locked away in a multi-million dollar prison - still living and dying in poverty.

From Slave to Naval Hero: review by James Gordon

2008-08-15T15:55:00.003+10:00

While the Mississippi and Hudson Merge by Brandon Astor Jones
(ISBN 0595484131)

A look at the map will tell you (if you need to know) that the Mississippi and the Hudson never merge, so the title is a puzzle – until its very last line, which turns out to sum up the book in a rather special way.

Three slaves escape from a Mississippi plantation after killing a white overseer. They make their way perilously through Confederate lines, and fall in with Unionists, who take them to New Orleans. Here they are taken in by a black brothel owner, who turns out to be a Unionist agent. As a result one of the slaves (who has changed his name to Wilson Brown) joins the Unionist navy, where he soon distinguishes himself in action at the battle of Mobile Bay, and after further promotion and service is subsequently able to set up house in the state of New York.

Such a basic story, but there is much more in the detail. As for plot, While the Mississippi and Hudson Merge has got everything. Social comment (it starts out with a graphic and realistic portrayal of slaves' lives in the Deep South at the time of the American Civil War); historical accuracy (the author has done his homework and I suspect there are real-life family recollections in here as well); perhaps more surprisingly in someone who has spent most of his life in prison (on death row), naval accuracy (the sea battles, especially the key on of the Battle of Mobile Bay, are rivetingly accurate and exciting); while for sheer horror the opening scene of the runaway Ben being 'bobbed' is hard to beat.

Jones has a real and unusual talent for description. He makes much use of the present tense for immediacy. The dialogue is lively and natural. It is light, readable, even when the subject matter should be heavy. The book would translate well into a script, as I believe the author has conceived it much as a film maker would, though it is well-written by prose standards as well.

It is far from being a mere sociological or military history. The characters, from the least of the slaves, come alive on the page. The story has heroes and heroines (mostly but not only African Americans); villains (mostly but not only white!); romance (there are three love stories, all compelling and finally heart-warming); quite a bit of sex, some of it lurid (hard to avoid in the circumstances of exploitation at the time.)

The author himself points out (in a thought-provoking and informative prologue) that the history of the American Civil War is mostly that of land battles. Yet the naval battles played an important part too, and it is not widely known that African Americans were involved, or, in the case of the novel's main hero Wilson Brown, distinguished in it. This is a man who deserves to be better known to history, a real life hero who would do honor to any community.

A highly interesting picture is provided of New York at the time, where the sailors go on leave, and where recently arrived Irish are seeking out negroes to murder them, seeing them as responsible for the war which is making Irish lives a misery. The description of how the outnumbered black men in a New York alley manage to outwit the would-be lynchers, is a masterpiece of adventure writing. The author shows great skill in setting up the suspense of the black servicemen's hopeless situation, yet freeing them from it by a device that is almost comic in its lightness, yet utterly convincing.

This is a well-paced and beautifully written adventure story. It is also a true record of a proud moment in the struggle of African Americans to be free, and their involvement on the Unionist side which crucially tipped the balance against the South in the final years of that conflict. A quite fascinating, exciting and satisfying read.

James Gordon lives in London and he keeps a probing eye on writers in the United States. j.gordon33@ntlworld.com

While the Mississippi and the Hudson Merge is available through the iUniverse Book Sales Representative Kyle Burkett (toll free) at (800) 288 4677 extension 5423. Or by writing to the publisher direct at

iUniverse Inc.
1663 Liberty Drive
Suite 300
Bloomington
Indiana 47403

And also through their website.

"...know what the truth is" by Brandon Astor Jones

2008-07-17T10:35:00.003+10:00

People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.
- Kurt Vonnegut Jr

Conservative (here read extreme right wing Republican) politicians and their constituents have a propensity for lying with relative ease. I do not mean to suggest that liberal Democrats and their constituents do not lie. More than a few do.

However, good and bad lies are woven into the very fabric of American politics, be they uttered in the White House or the house next door.

What sets so many extreme right wing conservatives apart from their more liberal counterparts is the former's willingness to craft their lies to fit certain situations in the laws of the land. It should come as no surprise that some aspects of America's Laws are set up to favor those who can lie convincingly.

Casual observers of court room procedure would be hard pressed to find a more instructive example of what I mean than the process now in use to select potential jurors to serve on death penalty cases. All potential jurors are questioned by the lawyers of the prosecution and defense.

Long before the actual trial takes place an attorney for the prosecution will ask each potential juror if he/she can listen to and take in the intricate nature of the presented evidence, then objectively weigh all of it before voting a a 'life' or 'death' sentence for the defendant.

In response to such a question most potential jurors who are liberal in both thought and deed will quickly admit that they would not vote to put a defendant to death under any circumstances, no matter what the evidence might reveal.

At that point the attorney for the prosecution will ask the judge to 'strike' that potential juror for the bias the question will have exposed. Driven by the law the judge must honor that request.

Had the potential juror told a good lie and said 'I am not for or against capital punishment: I would have to know and weigh all of the facts in evidence before I could make a decision to spare or take someone's life', the judge would be far more inclined not to strike that person.

Conversely, when the defense attorney asks a potential juror who is a right wing hard line conservative whether they can vote for a 'life' sentence they will lie and say yes, knowing that they are much more inclined to vote for the 'death' sentence.

Unfortunately, because they answered the question the way they did, the judge will of course not be able to strike them off.

Eventually when enough conservative potential jurors have been questioned, because of their willingness to lie, the resulting makeup of the jury is often decidely pro death penalty. Such a jury all but guarantees that the defendant will be sentenced to death.

So, potential jurors who are liberal and progressive in their thinking must learn to 'lie for life' in order to change the culture of the jury.

There are a lot of things I chose not to say in this essay because I trust the now better informed reader's intelligence. If the reader would like to know more please feel free to write me a letter and send it to me direct via the address below. Alas, it is too late for me, but what I have shared has the potential to save a number of lives in upcoming death penalty trials.

I hope that, for my having shared these truths about America's death penalty laws and schemes, the reader will see 'life' and 'death' in the court room more clearly. I leave you with the well chosen words of Friedrich Nietzsche: 'he who cannot lie does not know what the truth is'.

Brandon Astor Jone, G3-83
UNO#400574; EF-122216
Georgia Diagnostic Classification Prison
P.O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA

Buy Brandon's book, While the Mississippi and Hudson merge, from iUniverse

Brandon's book available to purchase

2008-06-19T14:45:00.002+10:00

While the Mississippi and Hudson Merge is now available to buy from iUniverse.

This 'roman a clef' is about suffering and survival. It brings vividly to life the heroic role of African-Americans within the Civil War Navy.

"... speechless." by Brandon Astor Jones and David Astor Jones

2008-05-16T14:18:00.002+10:00

Having spent half of my sixty-five years in prison, the lyrics of D J Khaled's "I'm So Hood" caught my attention immediately:

Damn my PO
Ya'll can tell her what I said it
Violate me if she want
Goin' to have to come catch me
Piss test me all you want
Ima smoke when I'm ready

For the reader who might find the language above a little difficult, let me clarify:

I do not care what my parole officer thinks; and, I do not care if she sends me back to prison. Before she can test my urine she has to catch me first, because I am going to smoke dope whenever I feel like it.

Those words conjure up an image of a person who is headed back to prison as fast as the ignorance of the culture he worships will carry him. History tells us that people in or out of prison tend to do what they know; but, if he really knew how bad long-term imprisonment is he would not be so cavalier about the very real possibility of going back.

However, in defence of both logic and truth, I feel obliged to add that it is equally cavalier on the part of the government to have had the man in prison for a number of years, with ample opportunity to teach him a socially constructive vocation, but choose not to do so. Indeed, all that he learned from prison administrators and his fellow prisoners were more proficient ways to carry out and expand his future criminal activities. I plan to write in depth on that subject in future instalments of this series, but now let me get back to D J Khaled's lyrics...

Pants hangin' off me now
'Cause my pistol heavy (hood)
I ain't spoke to you yet dawg
'Cause I ain't friendly...
They say I'm fed bound
They call me high risk
Full blooded goon
Lames make me sick
You get 3 or 4 Birds where I come from
We call you rich
I'd like to thank the hood homie is all behind me
(I'm So Hood).

The image created in the words above is of a man who wears his pants so low that you can see almost all of his underwear. One of the many reasons the so-called 'baggy style' became so trendy for the group in question, is because the adherents can easily hide large calibre firearms beneath such loose fitting clothes.

Projection of the tough persona requires genuine rappers (and even wanna-be rappers) to always present a demeanour of meanness. Hence, the reason he rarely engages in traditional greetings, and/or small talk with strangers. Keep in mind that one of his heroes is the likes of Alphonse ('Al') Capone, the late Prohibition era gangster. Therefore, it is likely that this person is headed to a federal prison for a host of reasons, not least of which is the fact that more often than not he is illegally armed. To say he is 'high risk' understates his deameanour – especially when and if he is using some of the various drugs he sells. Alas, he likes being feared as a 'full blooded goon'.

Moreover, men who respect women as well as themselves make rappers who embrace the 'goon' lifestyle 'sick'. You see, the former tend to think for themselves and they do not buy into any part of the ridiculously popular gangster rap culture. That is why so many rappers consider them to be 'lames'.

Unfortunately, for the most part, drug dealing (here read '...3 or 4 Birds' as a reference to kilograms of whatever the local drug of choice happens to be) is just about all there is left for a 'goon' who has recently been released from prison.

The language used in D J Khaled's song speaks volumes about what is wrong with gangster rap as it relates to America in general, and Black Americans in particular.

If what I wrote in the paragraph above seems a bit mysterious, maybe the following will help to make it easier to understand. Before I clarify, I want to remind the reader that Black folk in America, unlike White folk, are still trying hard to recover from the ongoing ravages and sociological residue of slavery.

I was talking a week ago with a man who had recently been to this prison's visiting room. While he waited for his visitor, he was close enough to see and hear a group of Black visitors who were already with another prisoner. There was a small child with them. She appeared to be four or five years old. As children often do, she became very animated as she clearly sang the words of D J Khaled's "I'm So Hood". Obviously filled with pride as a result of the child's clear articulation of the words in the song, a grandmotherly-looking woman in the group vigorously praised her and gave her a loving hug.

She then asked the child to recite her ABCs. Only then did the little girl become speechless.

"...a little 'lame'" by Brandon Astor Jones and David Astor Jones

2008-05-16T12:26:00.003+10:00

An adult who ceases after youth to unlearn and relearn his facts and reconsider his opinions... is a menace to... community...

-Edward Lee Thorndike 1874-1949

The late American educational psychologist's words at the head of this essay seem completely appropriate. Contrary to popular belief, many of us in prison are changing the way we think. Here read change for the better. Let me share a recent exchange with you.

I walked into the tiny rectangular room. The barber and I greeted one another. When I sat down he immediately wrapped my neck and shoulders with a white and black pinstriped cape. He then asked, "How do you want it?"

It was only my second visit to his chair, so he was still in need of little guidelines regarding my cut. I explained again how I never want to look as if I just had a haircut. Instead, "I want to look as if I do not need one."

He said, "I've never heard that before." He went on, "What about your line?"

I answered, "Just square it off at the bottom of my sideburns and line up and down behind my ears as you fade it away into my lower neck. No line across the back either, just feather that out."

"You mean no line anywhere in front?"

"No."

Pressing further, he asked. "Why not?"

I replied, "It is my opinion that many Black men in America, as they try to hide their loss of hair, are speeding up the process of their receding hairlines every time they get a line cut across the front of their foreheads."

He cut off his clipper before declaring, "You know man, I never gave that any thought till now but it makes sense."

We exchanged a few more personal observations and opinions. Eventually he revealed that his son is in his early teens, and rarely listens to the advice he tries to give him in his frequent letters. Having heard about my reputation for writing, about things in and out of prison, he suggested that I write something that would be universally instructive for young men.

It was not a bad idea. I agreed to do it. I promised that by the time my next haircut rolled around, I would bring him a copy of whatever I came up with; and, if it met with his approval, he could send it to his son.

As he continued to cut my hair I found myself remembering my own first year as a teen. I was a run-away in Saint Louis, Missouri. Looking back on some of those days and nights I can also remember wishing that someone, anyone, would tell me the kind of things I am thinking of writing.

Later, it occurred to me that I should write a series of essays, not just one. In each essay I could choose a subject and briefly expand on it. I will start here:

The wise young man, when fortunate enough to be in the presence of an extremely attractive woman who he would like to know better, must never allow himself to be caught leering at her body parts.

I know it is sometimes incredibly difficult not to stare, but appropriate restraint must be exercised. Life is not a rap video.

I suggest that in such trying moments you look engagingly into her eyes. If you are speechless, speaking to her with your eyes presents her with an open-ended compliment that you, and/or she, can take anywhere the moment allows. She will appreciate your visual engagement, despite the silence, rather than leering.

That is the good news.

The bad news is that most gangsta (gangster) rappers would refer to the woman described above as a 'Bougie b...h' (note that I did not spell out the b- word, for the same reason I never spell out the n- word. It is all about respect and dignity for yourself and others.)

There is another kind of woman who can be equally attractive, in a physical way, and she loves being leered at. The purveyors of gangsta rap have a name for her as well. They call her and her kind 'Bus' it babies'. It does not take much to get a 'Bus' it baby' into your bed, according to the rappers. She is likely to be just as eager to hop into the next man's bed as yours, especially if he has more money than you.

In the next instalment of this series I plan to explore more of the language that is used (beyond 'Bougie b...h' and Bus' it babies) in the gangsta rap lyrics of the song "I'm So Hood".

If you are an adherent to the more rigid tenets of hard core rap, you might want to pass on reading instalment number two. That is to say it will have been written by someone who, according to the lyrics in "I'm So Hood", is more than a little 'lame'.

Colorless Sharings- an appeal to Australian women

2007-10-08T11:23:00.000+10:00

Would you consider being a condemned man's muse? If your answer is yes, please contact me immediately via the prison address at the top of this blog. Meanwhile I want you to know that sight unseen you magnificent women of Australia have already inspired me to write the poem below. I hope you enjoy it. I thank all of you.

Grace and good taste are trusted to dissolve race

I long for the warm pages of another's embrace
Let our child-like imaginations run free, and grow
Truth visits the beauty and compassion we show
Hues of alabaster wrapped in Autumn's brown pasture
Filling old voids with forgotten parcels of laughter
Inspiring moments of love too precious to erase

Wherein I rise and give honor to Australian women

"...turn around at night and try to kill us"

2007-06-17T17:41:00.001+10:00

Thousands of United States men and women are engaged in untold acts of bravery and drudgery on behalf of what our leaders have defined as vital American interests in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- David Carr

The New York Times May 28 issue carried a photograph of a woman lying prone before a headstone in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery. The words beneath read: "Mary McHugh visited the grave of her fiancé, Sgt James J Regan, who was killed in Iraq in February."

It is a very moving photograh. It got me thinking about an imaginary America. In my imaginary America no elected official would ever be allowed to send American men and women off to war if that elected official has never been to war him or herself.

Immediately after I wrote the sentence above, it occurred to me also that even in the real America, no man or woman can enter any one of America's armed forces without being subjected to a psychiatric examination. No American sailor, marine, airman or soldier is allowed to go into a war zone without having seen a psychiatrist first. On the other hand, those elected officials who send Americans to war are not required to have so much as a cursory psychiatric examination before taking office. (There is evidence that a few of them need extensive psychiatric examination and treatment!)

Getting back to my extremely active imagination. It is unfortunate that genuine patriots like Sargeant Regan and others have lost their lives in the middle east, while the elected officials who sent them to their deaths are using those deaths for political advantage under the banner of 'patriotism'. Then hurry home, or to a local sports stadium, to cheer for some baseball, basketball or football player. Where are the cheers for Sargeant Regan?

I am sure that there will be those who will call me crazy after reading what I have to say next, but I have to say it: there is something despicably un-American about thousands of Americans sitting in a sports stadium cheering for some jock to score another point while the Sargeant Regans of this nation are dying on foreign soil.

In my imaginary America there would be no baseball, basketball or football games until the war was over.

Our so-called 'leaders' have sent Americans into yet another war zone wherein, more often than not, the enemy cannot be easily identified. Let me share something with you that was also in the aforecited newspaper, as reported by Michael Kamber.

Sargeant David Safstrom is serving his third tour of duty in Iraq, since 2003. His unit is Delta Company of the First Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. He came upon a body. It was that of a man other soldiers had killed. When a search of the body was conducted, Kamber reports '...they found identification showing [the dead man] to be a sargeant in the Iraqi Army.' He had been in the process of setting in place a roadside bomb.

Sargeant Safstrom, in utter disillusionment at the discovery of the body's identification, asked himself "What are we doing here? Why are we still here?"

He went on to add, "We're helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us."

Sources: "Not to see the fallen is no favor" and "As Allies Turn Foe, Disillusion Rises in some GIs", New York Times

2007-05-15T18:11:00.000+10:00

Open Letter 1

2007-05-14T13:39:00.000+10:00

This is the first of what will be many 'Open Letters' to appear in this space. Visitors to this site are encouraged to send any questions, comments, or ideas (that will enhance understanding for us all) to the snail mail address at this letter's end. I welcome your interaction and I appreciate your interest.

Allow me to introduce myself and personally welcome you to a new project. My name is Brandon Astor Jones. While reading an article in The New York Times by Nina Bernstein entitled "Polygamy, Practised in Secrecy, Follows Africans to New York City"¹, I was moved to create this space for 'Open Letters'. Let me quote some of that article:

She worked at Red Lobster in Times Square, and lived with her husband near Yankee Stadium. Yet, one night, returning home from her job, Odine D. discovered that African custom, not American law, held sway over her marriage.

A strange woman was sitting in the living room. Ms D's husband, a security guard born in Ghana, introduced her as his other wife.

Devastated, Ms D., a Guinean immigrant who insisted that her last name be withheld, said she protested: 'I can't live with the woman in my house- we only have two bedrooms'. Her husband cited Islamic precepts allowing a man to have up to four wives, and told her to get used to it. And she tried to obey.

I could not help myself. I felt obliged to add emphasis to that last word. Ms D's husband is lucky that he is not married to any of the women in my family. The concept of a woman's martial obedience is foreign to them. I am proud of them for that...and more.

Nina Berstein reports that Doussou Traore (age 52), who is the president of an association of Malwian women living in New York, spoke for the group and said of polygamous marriages, "[i]t's difficult, but one accepts it because it's our religion... Our mothers accepted it. Our grandmothers accepted it. Why not us?"

After reading President Traore's words we are again reminded of how hard on women religions can be. While reading the New King James Version, The Scofield Study Bible, I found Exodus 21.7 and 8 of interest, to wit:

... if a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her.

Okay, twice now, I could not help myself. I had to add emphasis to the word master. I do not mean to attack Islam, Christianity, or Judaism here. Is it just me or does someone else also notice how prominently words such as obey, slave and master appear in the text of the Holy Books?

If I could speak face to face with President Traore, I would note that at least two of our female ancestors- Sojourner Truth² and Harriet Tubman³- were practising Christians. The Bible supported slavery and yet those two magnificent women rose up against slavery.

The excuse that 'it's our religion' is not a good one. I need to add that at some point a xenophobic government official who hates immigrants is going to urge other officials to start a sustained surveillance and investigation of certain immigrants. When they find evidence of bigamy- and we all know that there will be plenty of it- many African men will be forced to leave the United States. The polygamy you think that you are practising surreptitiously is about as secret as your homeland's accent in a room full of Americans.

Polygamy is illegal in America. In fact, under American immigration law polygamy is sufficient grounds for expulsion, but usually not before going to prison for up to as many as four years for each proven count of felonious bigamy. An angry wife could wreak havoc in a practising polygamist's life.

You ought to not forget that fact of American life, as you set about the privilege of concreting your relatively new American citizenship.

If you are wondering why a man in prison is telling you all of this, it is because I do not want to see you in any of these cells- where some of your children might have to visit you.

You are loved Odine. Stay safe and strong!

1. The New York Times, March 23, 2007.
2. 1797-1883; American abolitionist.
3. 1820-1913; American abolitionist.

Prisoner Brandon Astor Jones, G3-73
UNO#400574; EF-122216
Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison
P.O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233 USA

Word Count: 731
Composition Date: 25 March 2007
The 'One on One' Series: #16, #4

©Brandon Astor Jones 2007

2007-05-03T10:57:00.000+10:00

2007-05-02T15:36:00.000+10:00

This is the first of fifteen entries in a series titled THREE HOURS that reveal my personal experience on the date and hours cited.

' . . . every minute of it' [illustrated]

By Brandon Astor Jones

I was reading the July 2006 issue of American Heritage Magazine when I came across a Kevin Baker essay titled "Cruel and Usual". Let me share the first paragraph with you. It is full of rarely published truth; if you are not interested in truth do not read any further:

"One of the worst ideas Americans have embraced recently is the belief that a decent society must be run at a profit. Government can easily come to resemble kudzu. You have to keep an eye on it and cut it back constantly if you don't want it to grow completely out of hand. That said, there are some attempts to save the taxpayers money that actually undermine our most basic values."

I should add that all Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison's (GD+CP) memorandums read, "Guided by Dedication, Courage and Professionalism". More on that hollow motto later.

The men in G3 Cellblock are assigned to one of three groups in which there are eight to ten men. Each group, one at a time, has a three hour period when we can request the cellblock officer to unlock the barred gate of the 6' by 8' cell in order to move about within the cellblock area.

Those of us who are out often run errands for the men who remain locked down in individual cells. When we are not running errands, we sometimes sit or lie on the floor outside the cell another man occupies and play chess or a game of cards through the bars. We also shower during this time, and exercise – sometimes by walking up and down the stairs.

Running errands includes carrying books, magazines, and newspapers back and forth from one man to another in the cells; sometimes a cup of hot water is needed to make coffee – we fetch that from the hot water dispenser at the foot of the stairs.

We haul water and ice for each other, too, from a picnic cooler on the table near the stairs. Words cannot describe how hot a Georgia prison cell often is during the summer. The concrete and steel remain hot night and day for three months. We all live in fear because it is not uncommon for a prisoner to pass out and die from a combination of dehydration and heat exhaustion.

The cellblock is about forty yards in length and six yards wide. Sometimes in the course of doing errands we walk or run from one end of the cellblock to the other, and go up and down the stairs between the two tiers, as many as forty times.

When the three hour shift is over and we are locked down again, then those who are out in Shift Two, and then Shift Three, interact with us and we send them on cellblock errands.

9:04 a.m. June 3, 2006

I am assigned to Shift One. I requested that Cellblock Officer Nimms unlock the barred gate on Cell 73. I went down the stairs to the cooler for a container of ice. I returned to the cell and placed the container in the sink. I then closed and locked the gate, as ordered by Officer Nimms.

I wrapped a bath towel around the container to prolong the life of the ice, and saved the water as it melted. I did this because the tap water is unpalatable and very often unsafe – especially when it comes out brown like weak (or strong) coffee, which can go on for a few minutes, a few hours, or even for days. I try to keep several containers of clean, clear water so I am ready when the water goes bad.

At approximately 9:30 a.m., Officer Prigeon relieved Officer Nimms at the control booth, a rectangular, locked enclosure that is four times the width of a cell. I yelled to him, "Open Severty-Three." He did so, immediately. I went down to speak to him through the control booth's little rectangular porthole. "Would you ask Sergeant Floyd [Supervisor of the four G cellblocks] if he would get me a new battery for my hearing aid?"

He said that he would do that for me as soon as Officer Nimms relieved him.

When Officer Nimms came back, I returned to Cell 73 and once again, per Officer Nimms' order, I locked the gate after me.

The prisoner who occupies Cell 88, Mr. Brockman, was exercising by walking up and down the stairs. The prisoner locked down in Cell 89, Mr. Morrow, yelled to him to run an errand.

Mr. Brockman walked down to Cell 73 to inform me that Mr. Morrow wanted the Jet magazine he had lent me the day before and he wondered if I had a bag of potato chips that he could borrow until the following week.

I picked up the magazine and chips from the cell's wall cabinet; then I yelled out to Officer Nimms, "Open Seventy-Three!"

She did. I exited 73, which is the last cell at the North end of the cellblock, and locked the gate behind me. I headed for Cell 89, which is the last cell at the South end of the cellblock. After giving the magazine and chips to Mr. Morrow, I walked back to the North end and yelled, "Open Seventy-Three!"

Officer Nimms refused to open the gate.

I went down the stairs to the first floor.

She yelled at me and indicated that I was working her too hard.

It is worthy of note here that Officer Nimms is an African-American female who I would guess is 35 to 40 years of age. Her job, then, largely consisted of sitting inside the control booth and pushing buttons to unlock cell gates, sally ports, shower room gates (two converted cells directly below Cells 73 and 74), the mop room gate, (below Cell 75), and the telephone room gate (beneath Cell 76).

Her busiest days are the two each week that our Shifts are scheduled, when weather permits, to go outside to the exercise yard. On those days she may push buttons operating various gates as many as 40 times in less than 20 minutes as the men move about taking care of their business. So it was absurd for Officer Nimms to imply that I was working her too hard because I had gone in and out of the cell a few times.

Nevertheless, she chose to summarily punish me by refusing to open the gate to Cell 73 for 17 minutes. All the while she sat there, the button to Cell 73 twelve inches from her face, gossiping on the telephone with one or more of her colleagues – smiling at me with vindictiveness.

This would be a good place to remind the reader of the GD+CP's motto: "Guided by Dedication, Courage and Professionalism". I will let you be the judge of Officer Nimm's dedicated work ethic and professionalism. I think her behavior was childish and demonstrated a lack of professionalism on several levels. Here is an officer who spends at least as much time engaged in personal telephone conversations as she does pushing buttons – that is, when she can manage to stay awake.

Officer Nimms sleeps a lot in the control booth. Normally, a prisoner might view a Correctional Officer asleep in the control booth as a benefit, but I would hate to be the man who suddenly has a heart attack and needs a doctor. She is not easy to wake up – nor is she quick to call the medics. Even during the times she manages to stay awake, with the telephone stuck to her ear she decreases the possibility of hearing on of us in such an emergency.

The cellblock is a noisy place. All verbal communication must be shouted – repeatedly. Nine large fans, located on the catwalk create a loud, perpetual drone throughout the cellblock. (The only time that we experience silence is during a power failure.) The noise is such that it is often not even possible to hear a man yelling to his neighbor in the next cell. Officer Nimms, who can be verbally abusive, more often than not without being provoked, does not have to yell; she uses a public address system to address us.

Making contact with Officer Nimms while she is talking on the phone can be extremely difficult. She may well hear us when we call, but she has been known to pretend not to. She resents being interrupted and/or asked to do her job.

It is my understanding that an Officer is never supposed to leave his or her post without getting someone to take it over until she/he returns. Officer Nimms leaves her post often without being relieved.

One must logically wonder how she keeps her job. In anyplace other than a prison, her work ethic – or, more correctly, the lack thereof – would be grounds for termination.

Having said all this, I need the reader to know that Officer Nimms' behavior is not an unusual phenomenon – and that, in a few months, she will be promoted to the rank of sergeant. At the GD+CP, her behavior is rewarded.

10:26 a.m. June 3, 2006

I called out from the cell to Officer Nimms, "Open Seventy-Three." She refused to let me out to take a shower and use the telephone – though not necessarily in that order. You see, I wanted to contact someone outside the prison to call the Officer who is in charge in the warden's absence on weekend, someone in a high position of authority since her immediate superiors seem to be afraid of her, to ask Officer Nimms to do her job.

The GD+CP is operating with a greatly reduced staff. For more than two years its officer ranks have been, and continue to be, deficient. With what can only be called a "skeleton crew", the prison requires one officer to do jobs that previously were handled by two or three. Officers often do not know when – or, in some cases, even if – their shift will end. The turnover rate is huge and is directly related to the drop in quality personnel as of late.

Among the many consequences of this personnel shortage is that often prisoners cannot see our lawyers or keep our scheduled medical callouts (appointments), because no officers are available to escort us. In fact, recently the GD+CP's administrators instituted a policy that forbids all G-Unit prisoners' lawyers from seeing us on Fridays. I am sure no one will admit it, but I suspect the purpose of this policy change is to have a day free of having to escort prisoners to meetings with attorneys. I do not know for certain but I think the new policy is illegal.

Remember Kevin Baker's essay? Much if not most of this behavior from the GD+CP is deeply rooted in the desire to save money. The State of Georgia, indeed America as a whole, is far more interested in saving money than saving lives or reducing crime. The conscienceless drive all across America to incarcerate men, women, and children "on the cheap" will ultimately make free society less safe – the complete opposite of what prison and incarceration are intended to do. Crime will start to spike in ten or fifteen years, as a result.

Corrections officers, male or female, in Georgia, do not get a wage that is commensurate with the current cost of living. If Georgia's Department of Corrections raised correction officers' wages it could demand a higher quality employee; and there would be less behavior like Officer Nimms' within its ranks. I support equal rights for women – they should get equal pay – I also believe that they should meet the requirements of their jobs just as men are required to do.

11:31 a.m. June 3, 2006

Sergeant Floyd returned to G3, responding to the request I made earlier for a hearing aid battery. He did not know that Officer Nimms had been ignoring my requests to open the gate of Cell 73. When he ordered her to open it, she did – and she also let me through the sally port gate – but only so that I could speak with Sergeant Floyd. I had my showering supplies and phone book with me. To take a shower is a right; to place a telephone call is a privilege.

11.41 a.m. June 3, 2006

I detailed Officer Nimms' behavior to Sergeant Floyd. He said he would speak to her.

I was finally allowed to take a shower but was faced with a dilemma. I did not want to expose my phone book to the moisture of the shower – yet I was afraid that if I took it back to Cell 73, Officer Nimms might not let me go back to the shower area. I asked G-Unit Corridor Officer Gieger if I could give him my book for safekeeping.

I showered and at 12:00 p.m. was back in Cell 73, locking the cell gate behind me, as Officer Nimms ordered.

12:03 p.m. June 3, 2006

Officer Nimms opened the cell gates of the men on Shift Two so they could go out into the cellblock.

You have just read what three hours on Saturday, June 3, 2006, were like for me. I was civil and spiritually aware through every minute of it.

Word Count: 2,210
Composition Date: June 4, 2006
The Three Hour Series. Series #16., #1.
For publication.
Brandon can be reached only at this address:

________________________________________
Brandon Astor Jones, G3-73
UNO 400574; EF-122216
Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison
Post Office Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233, U.S.A.

ATTENTION EDITOR
Copyright © 2006 Brandon Astor Jones
All rights reserved. No part of this text / publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without Brandon Astor Jones' written permission via his signature here in the prison address shown above.

Brandon encourages your response to this or any other essay, be it pro or con. Other articles of his writings and the 175-page roman à clef entitled without war can be accessed at his website.

"...before I die here"

2007-01-29T17:38:00.000+10:00

Yes, it is true that I have never visited
any part of their beautiful land

There is an ineffable thing inside of me,
of it, they helped me take command

They are refreshingly intuitive people
at once countrified and urbane

Humane, genuine and unpretentious, free
of jaded little socialized games

Bestowing their welcomed presence upon
me without self-righteous disdain

All helped me win the bloody war against
my bad past criminalities' stains

Make no mistake, with mounting flaws
and all, I still love America

However, the people I describe in the
lines above live in Australia

Brandon Astor Jones
11 June 2006

This less than brilliant poem is my way of saying thank you to Australians who have kindly entered my life. They cause me to want to expand my number of Australian friends.

To those readers who are interested, I herewith extend the offer of friendly exchanges via correspondence. I will answer all letters.

I genuinely want to know how you see, think, and feel about this world we are privileged to share. Please feel free to broach any subject with candor. There will be no taboos.

Let me be clear: I do not care what your ethnic background is, nor do I care how old, young, rich, or poor you are; moreover, I will make no judgements about your political or lifestyle choices.

I am an African American man who has spent the last 26 of my 63 years on death row in America. I hope that you and I will take advantage of every opportunity that our correspondence will afford that we may learn and grow communicatively in ways that enhance- rather than reject- the humanity in each of us before I die here.

Brandon Astor Jones
G3-73; EF-122216; UNO400574
Georgia Diagnostic Classification Prison
P O Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA

2007-01-12T19:19:00.000+10:00

The following article first appeared in the British publication ‘the Friend’ (October 6, 2006). It is reprinted here with the publisher’s and author’s permission.

“...brave and dignified man”

by Dr Jill Segger

In her celebrated essay of 1929, Virginia Woolf set the industry standard. Today, A Room of One’s Own is seen as an essential requirement of the writer’s craft.

Brandon Astor Jones is a sixty-three-year-old African-American who produces a steady stream of well-informed essays and articles from a very small room indeed. Airless and permanently noisy, his workplace is a cell on Death Row in the state of Georgia where he has been incarcerated for twenty-seven years.

I am a freelance journalist and the conditions under which I practice my trade could not be more different. I work in peaceful surroundings; there is technology on my desk which makes research and communication a matter of a few mouse clicks and I am at liberty to go where I will in pursuit of information.

I have corresponded with Brandon for many years and have come to value him deeply as an opinionated, occasionally prickly, always thoughtful and unfailingly compassionate friend. Through editing a collection of his work and sharing ideas and inspirations with a writing mind constantly struggling against constraint and poverty of resource, I have also learned how easy it is to be diminished by mistaking blessings for rights.

Brandon’s writing has its roots- as all good writing must- in the author’s own experience. Born before the Civil Rights Movement began to have any impact on American society, Brandon grew up subject to prejudice and humiliation. His family life was unhappy and he ran away from home as a very young boy. It was inevitable that a child living by his wits would fall under malign influences. The one significant act of kindness that he remembers and records from those difficult years came from a prostitute who gave him shelter and tried to help him as a mother might guide a son.

Brandon has never denied his errors or sought to exculpate himself from the felony for which he was sentenced.

Here, I believe it necessary to place on record the fact that his was not the finger on the trigger when a store attendant was shot dead during the robbery for which he was sentenced. However, Georgia’s state laws make an accomplice subject to the same penalty as that given to the murderer.

The young man who was involved in that crime has long since been reborn as a morally mature person passionately opposed to the injustices of racism, child abuse and misogyny. These are the recurrent themes of his work and are examined in writing which is sometimes difficult, angry and shocking, and at other times tender and full of sorrow. Above all, it is honest writing that exposes an America George Bush prefers to ignore.

Brandon Astor Jones is a remarkable man. For over a quarter of a century he has borne an existence most of us would find unimaginable yet he has retained a great generosity of spirit.

He has paid his debt to society and a humane system would release him to act as the citizen of integrity he has learned to be. That will not happen. The appeal process is exhausted and his future is short.

In the time remaining to him, Brandon yearns for contact with people who will read his writing and engage in correspondence with him on that writing. Friends outside the prison maintain a website where his work may be read.

Brandon will never be able to walk cheerfully over the world, but it is open to us whose lives have been more fortunate to answer that of God* in this brave and dignified man.

* [Editor’s comment: This phrase is a concept that is at the heart of Quaker thinking. George Fox, founder of the Quakers, exhorted his followers to “walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every person.”]

Composition date: October 10, 2006
The Momma Series. Series #15., #15.