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This book, like any other, is not a solitary project, although it may seem so, given the domain of the writer.

Books have many mothers and fathers, and are often born of the slightest of suggestions offered on the wind.

First and foremost, however, one must give credit to those men and women who toil in the dungeons of Babylon as jailhouse lawyers, and who are often tossed into the hole for telling another prisoner how to file a writ or helping someone prepare a complaint.

Their work made this work possible.

I thank Delbert Africa (who first told me about jailhouse lawyers), Steve Evans, one of the first I ever met, and also express thanks to:

Frank Atwood

Amber Bray

George Rahsaan Brooks-Bey

Dejah Browne

Roger Buehl

Shaka Cinque aka Albert Woodfox

Matthew Clarke

Margaret Midge DeLuca

Jane Dorotik

Barry “Running Bear” Gibbs

Antoine Graham #203246

Richard Mayberry

David M. Reutter

Samuel C. Rutherford III

Iron Thunderhorse

Teresa Torricellas

Charles “The Dutchman” Van Dorsten

Herman Joshua Wallace

Robert Williams

Ronald “Chief Justice Fatburger” Williams

Ed Mead

These are some of the many jailhouse lawyers (even though some have rejected the name) who answered my questions and wrote with passion and purpose out into a silent world. I thank them for their correspondence.

There are many jailhouse lawyers who wish to remain anonymous, under the radar, because of their very wellfounded fear of repression, the hole, or other means of restraint.

I thank them all for being excellent teachers and commend this work to their critique and comment.

The contributors/writers/editors of Prison Legal News and its continuing editor (although no longer a prisoner), Paul Wright, also have my thanks. These men and women perform unsung jobs in places where street lawyers fear to tread.

Thanks too to Global Women’s Strike and one of its staunchest members, Selma James, who suggested that I do this book and then offered to edit and publish it, sight unseen, even before I had agreed to write it.

I am also quite thankful to my American publisher, City Lights Books, and its indefatigable Brooklynite editor, Greg Ruggiero (of Open Media fame), who took collect calls in the late hours of the night and early morn to help craft this work. His and City Lights’ meticulous attention to detail have joined to make this a far better work.

The writer is also thankful for the invaluable support of Noelle Hanrahan and several staffers of the Prison Radio (P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA, 94141), for helping make this process a success.

Thanks to Frances Goldin, agent extraordinaire, who helped bring this baby home to you, dear reader.

My wish is only to tell a story that has never been told before, enriching our understanding of the world’s Prison-house of Nations—the USA.

With an estimated three million men, women, and juveniles in American prisons, there are three million stories to be told.

This is but one that I have the high honor of telling.

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Death Row, USA

January 2009