Professional Documents
Culture Documents
As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not
be known for years to come. There are victories whose glory lies only in the fact that they
are known to those who win them. This is particularly true of prison, where one must find
consolation in being true to one’s ideals, even if no one else knows of it.
I was now on the sidelines, but I also knew that I would not give up the fight. I was in a different
and smaller arena, an arena for whom the only audience was ourselves and our oppressors.
We regarded the struggle in prison as a microcosm of the struggle as a whole. We would fight
inside as we had fought outside. The racism and repression were the same; I would simply have
to fight on different terms.
Prison and the authorities conspire to rob each man of his dignity. In and of itself, that assured
that I would survive, for any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose
because I will not part with it at any price or under any pressure. I never seriously considered
the possibility that I would not emerge from prison one day. I never thought that a life sentence
truly meant life and that I would die behind bars. Perhaps I was denying this prospect because it
was too unpleasant to contemplate. But I always knew that someday I would once again feel the
grass under my feet and walk in the sunshine as a free man.
I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part
of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward.
There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not
and could not give myself up to despair. That way lay defeat and death.