Prison Focus Mail Box #14 Literacy was deemed a threat by slave owners and still is.

January 21, 2020. CA Correctional Institute. CPF correspondent, Martin, describes the mind numbing content of prison tv programming, and the overall lack of educational opportunities. "Literacy played an important part in helping Frederick Douglass achieve his freedom. Learning to read and write enlightened his mind to the injustice of slavery; it kindled in his heart longings for liberty... Douglass was motivated to learn how to read by hearing his 'master' condemn the education of slaves. He heard him declare that an education would "spoil” him and “forever unfit him to be a slave”. He believed that the ability to read makes a slave “unmanageable” and “discontented”. Douglass discovered that the white man’s power to enslave the black man was in his literacy and education." [From an essay titled "Frederick Douglass: Escaping Slavery through Literacy" published by Bartleby Research (https://www.bartleby.com/) Produced by CPF Co-Director and Prison Focus editor, Kim Pollak. Read by CPF artivist and volunteer Cathy Cockrell Music by CPF Co-Director Minister of culture and arts, Min. King X aka General Pyeface. (Look for "Abolish It" on itunes) To support California Prison Focus in our mission to expose and end the atrocities taking place in our prisons every day, visit prisons.org, and follow us on social media.