Words on a page can’t capture the effect of Robby’s delivery but a copy of his speech will be part of this postscript. The last words of this book should be his. Good news. But then the bad news. A letter I recently received from Robby. Sweetness and light have not descended on the prison. The program that allowed him to work for a degree has been canceled. He was the first and last graduate. This book’s done, but today and tomorrow the prison remains what it has been. Robby’s still inside.
* * *
I gave considerable thought into giving this speech and came close to declining. To understand why, you must understand the attitude of a great many of my fellow prisoners, which is that the only graduation in prison is parole and that we here are making a farce and a mockery of our conditions.
Also, that to graduate from school in prison is not an honor but a dishonor. So not wanting to be an outcast amongst my peers gave me cause for reservations. However, after considering this, I realized I could not agree with these reasonings nor accept them. I believe to have acquired an education under whatever conditions a very honorable task, and the more extreme the conditions the more honorable the task.
I am serving a life sentence of which I have served seven years plus. Yet I am not here to plead my guilt nor innocence. I mention it only to show that even someone with the time that I possess and as bleak a future as mine can still strive to better his condition by bettering himself through education.
In our society an education has become synonymous with getting a job or getting a better job or some type of material gain. Though this is understandable in our highly competitive world, there is still more to gain. There is the self-satisfaction and self-accomplishment that is equally, if not more rewarding.
And so I give this speech in hopes that my example will help my fellow prisoners to strive for their own self-attainment. I hope that they can look at me and say, “Well, if he can do it with no guarantee that he will ever have the chance to pursue all of his goals, then why can’t I?” And if through my example some of society’s outcasts will find the willpower to pull their lives back together through education and become productive citizens instead of social burdens, then I will have performed a very worthwhile task. Yet even more worthwhile if through my example others follow and complete the task by showing society that once a man has proven to himself that he can do something productive and can make a life for himself and his family without resorting to crime, then maybe, just maybe, those in power will see that the way to stop the overcrowding and the high recidivism rates we now see is to give to prisoners the education and skills they need in order to become productive citizens. Maybe the Bureau of Corrections will see that they do society an injustice by holding men for two or five or ten years without demanding of these men that they at least learn a vocation before they can be released. But to the contrary, education funds here have been cut back. The Community College program of which I am graduating from here today has been cut off completely, leaving some students stuck with only a few courses to take to receive their Associate Degrees but no way to get them. It is true that Pitt does bring in courses and we have some students here tonight that are Pitt grads, but the cutbacks still hurt. For instance, the degree that I have earned, an A.S. degree in engineering, can’t be earned here anymore because of the cutbacks.
I don’t have any statistics but I would venture to say that more money is spent in the way of sports and entertainment for the men, and the personnel to run them, than for education. I think that to be a very sad commentary. And so I only hope— no, I pray—that these men here today go back to society and stay there and use their newly acquired skills in a productive way and that through their example our keepers reevaluate the cost of education and the essential need to send out a wiser and better equipped man than the one they received from the courts.
The theme of our program today is “The world shapes and is to be shaped.” I find this to be very appropriate. Because the world we were raised in has helped to shape many of the attitudes of us graduates here today. Most of us grew up in the ghettos of Pittsburgh and the surrounding area. There the emphasis was, get the most you can get with the least amount of work. My education helped me to realize, though, that nothing worth having comes without hard work and concrete effort. But being shaped by the world through this “quick get-over” concept and seeing that this concept was folly, it is now time to take our lives and our world into our own hands and shape it for the better. To show our fellow citizens and our children that education is the means by which we can make a world where all men and women can truly be free to dream our own destinies and work hard and learn well and see those dreams become reality.
Before I conclude let me remind my fellow graduates and those who might say, “Why should these criminals be given a free education?” that the cost of this education has been very high indeed. It cost the locking up in a cell fifteen out of twenty-four hours a day. It cost the tears and shame your mothers, wives, and loved ones felt when the judge publicly denounced you and sent you here. It cost the frustrating pain of unnatural separation from our female counterparts. It cost the loss of your dignity as you are treated as a child incapable of self-responsibility. It cost all the Christmases and New Years’ and other holidays alone in your cell. It cost all that and more, more than I see fit to bring up here at this podium. But now here this evening we reap the benefits of our efforts. So brothers, accept your diplomas and feel proud and use them to make a better life for yourselves. And show the world that all you needed was a skill and with that skill become a productive member of society and never its burden again.
Thank you.
Hey Bro,
Just got your letter—glad to hear from you. I’ve been trying to maintain, it’s getting real hard to do. School is finished. I got my A.S. degree and three certificates but now I’ve seemed to have lost a lot of my motivation—I tried to write the road story but I haven’t gotten very far. I dunno, I guess everything looks so bleak it’s hard to get interested in anything. But anyway, as far as my case is concerned, I put in a habeus corpus in the Federal Court 3rd Circuit. They denied it and I really don’t know what else to do. I’ve run out of ideas. Everything seems against me. I don’t mean to sound too pessimistic but things are bleaker than they’ve ever been. . . .
Inside here they’re still tightening things up even more. There’s been a note on the bulletin board informing the convicts that the administration is putting out a new rules-and-regulations booklet—and the stories that been going around are that they’re going to try some pretty outrageous things— things like six phone calls a year; if you don’t have a job you stay locked in your cell except for two-and-a-half-hour evening yard, all kinds of madness—and the joint is busting at the seams with cons and they’re sending more every day. Two men to a cell for most of the newcomers, and they don’t have enough jobs for the men and then they’re cutting back on the school programs. Big time, no rehabilitation, lock em up like animals— then let them out on society crazed and angry. Shit don’t make no sense but the people cry for punishment and the politicians abide them—can they really be so blind?
I’m going to start writing the road story again. I really do want it told so I must work if I want rewards. Be cool, Bro.
I SHALL FOREVER PRAY
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Brothers and Keepers Page 31
