Lit Review: The Classroom and the Cell

James Baldwin once so poignantly stated in a 1965 issue of Time magazine that, “To be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage.”  It would appear that aphorism is just as true today some 50 years hence.  The work by Dr. Marc Lamont Hill and Mumia Abu-Jamal, “The Classroom and the Cell : Conversations on Black Life in America”, illustrates this point succinctly.  It is a dialogue that encompasses the pressing societal issues facing Black America; such as, politics, religion, education, culture, incarceration, and leadership between two men of the diaspora whose backgrounds are from opposing ends of the spectrum.  The discourses are provocative, engaging, enlightening, and in the final analysis unforgettable; they reveal the commonality between two people that on the surface appear to be most dissimilar.  That being whether in a prison cell or a “cement cell”, to be Black in America is to be a prisoner of some kind. Freedom from such must begin with a conversation.    - J After Dark

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