What I Learned In Prison

13 Dec 2021
Since 2013, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges has been teaching classes in drama, literature, philosophy and history in the college-degree program offered by Rutgers University to inmates in the New Jersey prison system. He joins us to discuss his new book, “OUR CLASS: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison,” in which he chronicles his students’ grief and suffering, as well as their personal transformation.

Stephon Whitley, a former student and a successful graduate of Rutgers, was locked up in multiple New Jersey prisons and is now engaged in criminal justice reform work. Stephan will take part in the live discussion.

Cambridge Forum provides free and open discussions about the pertinent issues and ideas confronting us, in the world today.

RESOURCES Read this article by Stephon Whitley: “The stink, the mice, the yelling. My time in solitary was the ‘most savage moment of my life,’ Rutgers grad recalls.”

GBH Forum Network ~ Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

Digital Collections, Available Online | Library of Congress

About this Collection | Maps of Liberia, 1830-1870 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

About this Collection

This collection of Liberia maps includes twenty examples from the American Colonization Society (ACS), organized in 1817 to resettle free black Americans in West Africa. These maps show early settlements in Liberia, indigenous political subdivisions, and some of the building lots that were assigned to settlers. This on-line presentation also includes other nineteenth-century maps of Liberia: a map prepared for a book first published in the 1820’s by ACS agent Jehudi Ashmun, a map showing the areas in Liberia that were ceded to the society by indigenous chiefs, and a detailed map dated 1869 by a man thought to be the black American explorer Benjamin Anderson.

In American Memory:

The African-American Perspectives collection includes nine pamphlets which include descriptions of a history of the commencement, progress and present condition of the American colonies in Liberia and a speech delivered at the sixty-sixth anniversary of the American colonization society in 1883.

America’s First Look into the Camera contains images relating to the American Colonization Society, including portraits of Rufus Anson, the first president of Liberia and Urias A. McGill, one of four McGill brothers who ran a very successful business in Liberia.

In Exhibitions:

The African-American Mosaic is an on-line Library of Congress resource guide for the study of black history and culture. The site provides text and images concerning Liberia colonization and Personal Stories and American Colonization Society New Directions.

Search results for Map, Liberia, Available Online, 1800/1899 | Library of Congress

American Colonization Society Collection Maps of Liberia, 1830-1870 (Liberia)

About this Collection

This collection of Liberia maps includes twenty examples from the American Colonization Society (ACS), organized in 1817 to resettle free black Americans in West Africa. These maps show early settlements in Liberia, indigenous political subdivisions, and some of the building lots that were assigned to settlers. This on-line presentation also includes other nineteenth-century maps of Liberia: a map prepared for a book first published in the 1820’s by ACS agent Jehudi Ashmun, a map showing the areas in Liberia that were ceded to the society by indigenous chiefs, and a detailed map dated 1869 by a man thought to be the black American explorer Benjamin Anderson.

In American Memory:

The African-American Perspectives collection includes nine pamphlets which include descriptions of a history of the commencement, progress and present condition of the American colonies in Liberia and a speech delivered at the sixty-sixth anniversary of the American colonization society in 1883.

America’s First Look into the Camera contains images relating to the American Colonization Society, including portraits of Rufus Anson, the first president of Liberia and Urias A. McGill, one of four McGill brothers who ran a very successful business in Liberia.

In Exhibitions:

The African-American Mosaic is an on-line Library of Congress resource guide for the study of black history and culture. The site provides text and images concerning Liberia colonization and Personal Stories and American Colonization Society New Directions.