I Am Maroon: The True Story of an American Political Prisoner

by Russell Shoatz, Kanya D'Almeida (With)

Overview

In this cinematic memoir, follow one man's journey from gang member to Black liberation leader to political prisoner–and the justice and redemption he fought for along the way.

Inspired by Malcolm X, Russell Shoatz became a lifelong crusader for justice, a soldier in the most militant units of the Black Liberation Army. Shoatz was convicted to life in prison following a coordinated attack on a park police station that left one guard dead.The prison walls, however, could not deter Shoatz’s battle for personal and collective freedom. He escaped state prisons twice, making him a living legend, and endowed him with the moniker “Maroon,” once used to honor runaway slaves from plantations. He survived 22 years in solitary confinement, prompting an international campaign for his freedom.

I Am Maroon charts a life of dizzying intrigue and a long struggle for liberation. With an unforgettable voice, Maroon reminds us that we too are capable of radical change, leaving us a blueprint for how we might dedicate our lives and minds to the ongoing fight for freedom.    

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781645030492
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	09/03/2024
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	461,412
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Russell "Maroon" Shoatz was a dedicated community activist, founding member of the Black Unity Council, former member of the Black Panther Party, and soldier in the Black Liberation Army.

 Kanya D'Almeida is a writer and winner of the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. As a journalist, she reported for a decade on global economic apartheid, reproductive justice and prison abolition.

 

Editorial Reviews

In tracing the social, political, and moral evolution of a truly extraordinary individual, I Am Maroon also attests to the ongoing maturation of a movement in which the vision of freedom becomes increasingly more expansive. The story of Russell Shoatz reveals that the quest for Black liberation demands disentanglement from its pernicious embrace of heteropatriarchy. It also reveals the ultimate kinship of all struggles for freedom.”
 —Angela Y. Davis, feminist activist, scholar, and author of many books, including Freedom Is a Constant Struggle

“An epic tale told with ferocity and nuance, wit and grace; a tale of freedom as much as a story of imprisonment.”
 —Leslie Jamison, New York Times–bestselling author of the Empathy Exams

“Shoatz lived his entire life trying to effect changes within the system! We honor him by imitating and acknowledging this.”
 —Robert H. King, last surviving member of the Angola Three

From the Publisher

2024-07-10
A prisoner testifies.

Award-winning journalist D’Almeida met Russell Shoatz (1943-2021) in 2013 at a state penitentiary in Pennsylvania, where he was an inmate. The purpose of her visit: to audition to be his biographer, to turn his disorganized 280-page memoir into a salable book, and, his supporters hoped, to free him from decades in solitary confinement. They worked together for nine years, and she completed the manuscript shortly before his death. The result is a brisk first-person narrative that reveals a life steeped in violence. Suffering what he called “quiet neglect” as a child, Shoatz hated school, where teachers bullied and demeaned him. Gang culture became his world, and by the time he was a teenager, he was “like someone trapped inside a revolving door,” repeatedly in and out of prison, “each time a little more hardened than before.” Energized by seeing Malcolm X at a Nation of Islam rally in 1963, he became a political activist, first joining the Black Unity Council in Philadelphia and soon the Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army. Militant, with arsenals of weapons, he was intent on “dismantling a system of white oppression and winning freedom for Black people in America.” Involvement in a raid, however, changed his life forever. Accused of killing a Philadelphia park guard, he was captured after two years underground and sentenced to life imprisonment. Two daring escapes from prison earned him the nickname Maroon, an epithet for a runaway slave, of which he was proud. Describing himself as “a politically motivated individual, who had been officially affiliated with a group that had declared itself at war with the US government,” Maroon continued bearing witness to injustice and racism in his writings from prison. Tense, fast-paced chapters ably capture his fire and anger.

A raw, unvarnished memoir.

Kirkus Reviews