Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising

This book is an absolutely stunning insight into the world of Lucasville. It brings the reader an extremely interesting narrative, laced with important facts and context, which provide an easy yet piercing read. Lynd challenges those who believe those young men circulating in our prison system are simply "thugs," "criminals," and are unworthy of human dignity. He explains the racial character of the riot and the overcoming of these tensions in the face of a common oppression shared by all those "in blue." Lucasville is a sad, yet fantastic story and should be read by anyone who believes that the white working class is inevitably racist and racism is impossible to be overcome. The prison "tribes" were broken down and Aryan Brothers, Muslims, and "Black Gangster Disciples" stood up to collectively show their power, despite some initial tension. More importantly, Lynd shows how draconian prison conditions, the stripping away of rehabilitation services, racial profiling, slave labor, brutality, and a host of other issues can culminate into prisoners fighting back. The role of the state, in a larger picture, should also be taken into account; building a prison where you plan to hire a majority of whites, suffering from the decently paid industrial job loss due to outsourcing and neoliberalism, to guard a largely black prison population can only create tension and hostility. Read this book, you will not be disappointed.

I have read this book, and I found it to be a careful documentation of what happened based on court and other government documents, as well as independent interviews with the people who were there. Those who suggest that this book has an agenda are correct - it is an agenda that seeks the full truth and nothing less. Justice, and nothing less. Read it and decide for yourself. --abe Abraham J. Bonowitz