Posted on December 16, 2021 at 10:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
A prison cell that’s believed to have housed Malcolm X is being turned into a library — and many more are expected to follow.
Norfolk Prison in Massachusetts is home to the first Freedom Library, a project spearheaded by poet and lawyer Reginald Dwayne Betts, reports the Guardian.
And fittingly, one of the books in that new library is the autobiography of its famous resident, Malcolm X. (The selection leans more towards contemporary writers but is otherwise "diverse in every way you might expect," in the words of Betts.)
Betts, who received one of this year’s MacArthur Foundation “genius grants,” is working to set up 1,000 such libraries in prisons across the United States.
He, like Malcolm X, found solace in reading during a prison sentence and has since founded Freedom Reads, a charity that aims to connect inmates with literature.
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Categories: Today in Books