M artin L uther K ing J r .
January 9,2008
Page BIS
200(S s p e c ia l edition
Inspired by King's Letters from Jail
Books to Prisoners promotes literacy
m R aymond R endleman
T he P or i land O bserver
A converted garage o ff a
northeast Portland side street
makes fo r an unsuspecting
clearinghouse to send impris­
oned people nationwide thou­
sands o f hooks each year.
The words o f Martin Luther
King Jr. from a ja il cell in
Birmingham reflect some o f
the motivation behind the doz­
ens o f hours each week that
volunteers log in an effort to
promote literacy among the
country’s most disadvantaged
populations.
"The answer lies in the fact
that there are two types of laws:
just and unjust." King wrote in
response to fellow clergymen
who questioned the radicalism
of his civil-rights actions that
landed him in prison.
Book-sending volunteers can
cite reams of data to show that
the criminal-justice system re­
mains unequal.
Even though violent crime and
property crime have been de­
clining since the 1990s, accord­
ing to the Bureau of Justice
Statistics, the U.S. has the
world’s largest inmate popula­
tion at 2.5 million. With less than
5 percent of the world’s popula­
tion, America houses over 25
percent of the people incarcer­
ated around the world.
Civil-rights groups have ral­
lied against resurfacing dispari­
ties, seeing that about 10.4 per­
cent of all U.S. black males
between the ages of 25 and 29
are sentenced and in prison,
compared to 2.4 percent of His­
panic males and 1.2 percent of
white males.
answer ever-larger boxes of
handwritten requests from pris­
oners for books.
After moving several times in
the last few y ears, the
organization's new location at
Northeast Morton Street is less
than a month away from reach­
ing its first anniversary. The
cramped garage houses two
desks, thousands of books and
often more than a half dozen
Injustice anywhere
is a threat to justice
everywhere.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” April, 1963
"Minorities are disproportion­
ately arrested... .disproportion­
ately charged in federal court
and then sentenced under espe­
cially harsh statutes and guide­
lines," according to the Leader-
shipConference on Civil Rights
report titled Bush Administra­
tion Takes Aim.
For Portland’s Books to Pris­
oners program, it hasn't gotten
any easier over the years to
volunteers in a space of no more
than 300 square feet.
"It’s not huge, but it gets the
job done,” says Kim Garrison,
who donates her time out of
social-justice values and a “love
for books.” “I wish we were
obsolete and that everyone had
access to a complete library.”
At most prisons, pulp fiction like
continued
on page H22
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Annual C ity -W id e W orship Service
photo in
R aimond R i m ii . emas /T iie P ortland O bserver
Jamie Bolwyn finds literature requests sent through Portland Books to Prisoners, an
organization that strives to increase literacy among incarcerated populations and
raise awareness about criminaljustice disparities.
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fllìT ìl
REMEMBER
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