The following article first
appeared in the British publication "the
Friend" (October 6, 2006). It is reprinted here,
slightly amended, with the publisher's and author's
permission.
" . . . brave and dignified man"
By Dr. Jill Segger
In her celebrated essay of 1929, Virginia Woolf set
the industry standard. Today, A
Room of One's Own is seen as an essential requirement
of the writer's craft.
Brandon Astor Jones is a sixty-three-year-old
African-American who produces a steady stream of
well-informed essays and articles from a very small room
indeed. Airless and permanently noisy, his workplace is a
cell on Death Row in the state of Georgia where he has
been incarcerated for twenty-seven years.
I am a freelance journalist and the conditions
under which I practice my trade could not be more
different. I work in peaceful surroundings; there is
technology on my desk which makes research and
communication a matter of a few mouse clicks and I am at
liberty to go where I will in pursuit of information.
I have corresponded with Brandon for many years and
have come to value him deeply as an opinionated,
occasionally prickly, always thoughtful and unfailingly
compassionate friend. Through editing a collection of his
work and sharing ideas and inspirations with a writing
mind constantly struggling against constraint and poverty
of resource, I have also learned how easy it is to be
diminished by mistaking blessings for rights.
Brandon's writing has its roots – as all good
writing must – in the author's own experience. Born
before the Civil Rights Movement began to have any impact
on American society, Brandon grew up subject to prejudice
and humiliation. His family life was unhappy and he ran
away from home as a very young boy. It was inevitable that
a child living by his wits would fall under malign
influences. The one significant act of kindness that he
remembers and records from those difficult years came from
a prostitute who gave him shelter and tried to help him as
a mother might guide a son.
Brandon has never denied his errors or sought to
exculpate himself from the felony for which he was
sentenced.
Here, I believe it necessary to place on record the
fact that his was not the finger on the trigger when a
store attendant was shot dead during the robbery for which
he was sentenced. However, Georgia's state laws make an
accomplice subject to the same penalty as that given to
the murderer.
The young man who was involved in that crime has
long since been reborn as a morally mature person
passionately opposed to the injustices of racism, child
abuse and misogyny. These are the recurrent themes of his
work and are examined in writing which is sometimes
difficult, angry, and shocking; [and] at other times
tender and full of sorrow. Above all, it is honest writing
that exposes an America George Bush prefers to ignore.
Brandon Astor Jones is a remarkable man. For over a
quarter of a century he has borne an existence most of us
would find unimaginable yet he has retained a great
generosity of spirit.
He has paid his debt to society and a humane system
would release him to act as the citizen of integrity he
has learned to be. That will not happen. The appeal
process is exhausted and his future is short.
In the time remaining to him, Brandon yearns for
contact with people who will read his writing and engage
in correspondence with him on that writing. Friends
outside the prison maintain a website where his work may
be read: www.brandonastorjones.com.
Brandon will never be able to walk cheerfully over
the world, but it is open to us whose lives have been more
fortunate to answer that of God
in this brave and dignified man.
Composition
Date: October 10, 2006
The
Momma Series. Series #15., #15.
For
publication.
Brandon
can be reached at this address only:
____________________________________
Brandon
Astor Jones, G3-73
UNO
400574; EF-122216
Georgia
Diag. Class. Prison
Post
Office Box 3877
Jackson,
Georgia 30233, U.S.A.
ATTENTION
EDITOR
Copyright
© 2006 Brandon Astor Jones
All
rights reserved. No part of this text / publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, without Brandon Astor Jones' handwritten
permission as indicated by his signature on the line
above his prison address. (No
signature on that line indicates that Mr. Jones does not
give permission to use this text.)
