El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) once said, “In the hectic pace of the world today there is not enough time for meditation or for deep thought. A prisoner has time that he can put to good use. I’d put prison second to college as the best place for a man to go if he needs to do something. If he’s motivated, in prison he can change his life.” Strong blood flows through my veins. It is the blood of my ancestors, which sustains me. They persevered through capture and enslavement, and they triumphed even as they lay in the filthy hatches of slave ships. My ancestors survived the “Middle Passage” and the auction blocks. One of my favorite female authors, Elwidge Danticat, once wrote in her book, The Farming of Bones, “The dead who have no more use for words leave them as an inheritance for their children.” This book is for my great grandparents, Arthur and Minnie Taylor; my grandparents Arlen and Emily Whaley; and my parents Lenel Whaley and Walton Stockton. The words of this book are my own. But they originated in the blood of the people who came before me; my family gave these words to me.
