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Chris Hedges' powerful memoir of his year of teaching inmates in a New Jersey prison takes readers into the lives of men who were all but destined to become incarcerated, due to poverty and systemic social inequality, and shows why criminal justice reform is so essential. Hedges most personal and profound work to date, it will forever change the way we view the phenomenon of mass incarceration.
For years, award-winning author and journalist Chris Hedges has taught continuing education courses in state and federal prisons. The Class tells the story of the year he taught a dramatic writing course to twenty-eight men incarcerated in East Jersey State Prison (who together were serving a combined sentence of 515 years). After the first assignments came in, Chris realized that he was working with some of the most talented writers he had ever come across, not just in prisons but over his long career as a teacher at the country's most prestigious institutions. Every scene the class turned in was a story from their lives; every one of them, through the authors' unique lived experience, articulated a common Black experience: lives marked by colonialism and anti-Black racism, the legacy of Jim Crow, and a criminal justice system rigged to send a disproportionate number of Black men from lives of egregious financial precarity directly into a tragic and dehumanizing system of mass incarceration. Their stories amounted to a profound chronicle of suffering, of the criminalization of poverty, of the lack of a fighting chance and the loss of love. Devastated and moved by their work, Hedges increased the numbers of classes per week and suggested the men use their time to write a play that would draw on their collective experiences.
Using the plays of James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, and August Wilson, among others, as examples, they crafted Caged, a collaboratively written and produced dramatic piece that would run for a month in Trenton, New Jersey, and would later be published. The play dramatizes the lives of young Black men raised in poverty and abuse, and shows how they have become fodder for a prison system that exploits their labor and demeans their existence. When it was produced, it became the hottest theatre ticket off Broadway.
The Class tells the story of this unforgettable year. Many of the men Hedges works with know they will die in prison. Their work, we learn, is about understanding the world around them, understanding the structures of power, and understanding how to resist. Along the way, Hedges, an award-winning chronicler of the unwinding of the American dream, fills in key context about the prison-industrial complex, staggering wealth inequality, and the de facto continuation of slavery via Jim Crow and its aftermath, it's the story of the criminalization of racialized poverty. But, at its heart, The Class is an uplifting account of human connection, self-expression, and the capacity for dignity and love even under the most dire of conditions. Emotional, informative, unflinching: This is Hedges' most personal and affecting book to date.
For years, award-winning author and journalist Chris Hedges has taught continuing education courses in state and federal prisons. The Class tells the story of the year he taught a dramatic writing course to twenty-eight men incarcerated in East Jersey State Prison (who together were serving a combined sentence of 515 years). After the first assignments came in, Chris realized that he was working with some of the most talented writers he had ever come across, not just in prisons but over his long career as a teacher at the country's most prestigious institutions. Every scene the class turned in was a story from their lives; every one of them, through the authors' unique lived experience, articulated a common Black experience: lives marked by colonialism and anti-Black racism, the legacy of Jim Crow, and a criminal justice system rigged to send a disproportionate number of Black men from lives of egregious financial precarity directly into a tragic and dehumanizing system of mass incarceration. Their stories amounted to a profound chronicle of suffering, of the criminalization of poverty, of the lack of a fighting chance and the loss of love. Devastated and moved by their work, Hedges increased the numbers of classes per week and suggested the men use their time to write a play that would draw on their collective experiences.
Using the plays of James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, and August Wilson, among others, as examples, they crafted Caged, a collaboratively written and produced dramatic piece that would run for a month in Trenton, New Jersey, and would later be published. The play dramatizes the lives of young Black men raised in poverty and abuse, and shows how they have become fodder for a prison system that exploits their labor and demeans their existence. When it was produced, it became the hottest theatre ticket off Broadway.
The Class tells the story of this unforgettable year. Many of the men Hedges works with know they will die in prison. Their work, we learn, is about understanding the world around them, understanding the structures of power, and understanding how to resist. Along the way, Hedges, an award-winning chronicler of the unwinding of the American dream, fills in key context about the prison-industrial complex, staggering wealth inequality, and the de facto continuation of slavery via Jim Crow and its aftermath, it's the story of the criminalization of racialized poverty. But, at its heart, The Class is an uplifting account of human connection, self-expression, and the capacity for dignity and love even under the most dire of conditions. Emotional, informative, unflinching: This is Hedges' most personal and affecting book to date.