We checked out Felon from the Ossining Public Library and read the work cover to cover in one sitting. There is no doubt that reading and writing helps Betts process the wounds of the prison experience, as well as reconcile the mistakes and circumstances that lead to his arrest. The content is gripping; his lyrical command is one of true talent (no wonder he has earned so many awards!). Betts makes visible, and poetic, the very real problems and hurdles we have constructed for those desiring to reform, restart, and dream a new life upon release. I was particularly drawn to the ways Betts writes ideas of freedom and oppression in poems about voting or ambition. The link between reading and writing is deeply connected for Betts. In a recent Washington Post oped he wrote, “Prison is the world’s most universal method of torture, and books are central to the fight against disappearing that follows a prison sentence." Betts’s poem “Essay on Reentry” holds all of this in its minute particulars. “No words exist for the years that we’ve lost to prison.” As I read his writing, I could see the landscapes in gray “that had become them” while also seeing time in the abstract. The cadence draws the readers into the idea of “more years than freedom.” And the cumulative effect of all Betts’s labor- poetic, legal, and cultural- can help us all, systemically, and those behind bars, “find us some free.”

LEARNING LINKS:
​
Felon: Poems by Reginald Dwayne Betts

Reginald Dwayne Betts' Website

Amanpour & Co Interview with Reginald Dwayne Betts

Life Stories Interview with Reginald Dwayne Betts

"Why do we conduct oral histories about incarceration? What is the significance of bringing these stories to light?” These are questions we ask internally at the Sing Sing Prison Museum as we plan to launch excerpts from oral history interviews; we have conducted this work over the past few years. We wanted to frame the videos and audio recordings in a light that would help audiences see the value of oral histories as a part of the archive, and the way a museum can be part of the work in the justice fields. We take inspiration from fellow nonprofit StoryCorp whose mission supports the idea that everyone has a story worth telling to “illuminate the humanity and possibility in us all.” What started as a tradition around the campfire has certainly changed and expanded in the digital landscape.

​Oral histories are crucial for contemporary museums since they offer first-hand accounts of events and experiences that may not be found in written records or other forms of documentation. When it comes to the US carceral system, oral histories can provide valuable insights into the experiences of incarcerated individuals, their families, and communities.

The Sing Sing Prison Museum builds understanding for our audiences using these firsthand accounts to show how the criminal legal system impacts individuals, and why reform is necessary. By collecting and sharing stories, museums help preserve the voices of those excluded from mainstream narratives. Oral histories can be a powerful tool in preserving the stories of marginalized individuals.

Our oral history project provides valuable insights into the experiences of those affected by the carceral system. Additionally, here at the museum, we can enhance the visitor’s experience by utilizing audio and video recordings to support other materials. This approach can lead to a visitor’s deeper understanding and empathy, but it also could lead to someone being inspired to volunteer, give money, or take action to improve opportunities for those inside and returning.

Oral histories play a vital role in museums. They help to narrate incarceration and reform, both past and present. These stories are crucial in bringing people together to imagine and create a more just and equitable society. They can also help in developing a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the issues surrounding mass incarceration, particularly for those who have been impacted by the US carceral system.

As we head into Black History Month in February, we wanted our reading and listening blog to reflect and celebrate Black achievement while also acknowledging where systemic racism continues in our justice system. Prison labor is one example of systemic racism. SSPM acknowledges that incarceration disproportionately and unfairly impacts Black people: they are 4 times more likely to be sent to jail than their white counterparts, more likely to serve time in prison for crimes they didn’t commit than their white counterparts; and, since the pandemic, Black Americans are going to jail more than white people. But even within these oppressive circumstances, Black voices rise up.

Last month, a historic lawsuit was filed in Alabama, alleging the state denies Black Alabamians parole to maintain its pool of workers. It brings renewed attention to the injustices of work policies and pay in US prisons. You can learn more HERE.

So for this installment of "What We are Reading and Listening To at the SSPM," let’s dig into labor and workplace prison music.

Parchment is a notoriously brutal and inhumane prison located in Mississippi. Lomax focused on Black “work songs” noting, “these songs are a vivid reminder of a system of social control and forced labor that has endured…” If you are ambitious, consider entering the word prison in the search bar to unlock hours of exploration and listening: https://archive.culturalequity.org/

Singing while doing hard labor makes perfect sense – but there was no singing in the 19th century marble quarries at Sing Sing Prison. Silence was strictly enforced. We imagine that the silence was deafening, but reading and listening is one way to take so many voices off mute.

Last year, renowned rapper and actor Common visited Sing Sing Correctional Facility, where he made music with men who participated in Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections and performed for the facility’s general population. While not songs for working, this video shows that music continues to create meaning in people’s lives while incarcerated. Visit the link below for some modern music listening.

NOTES (ABOUT RACE AND INCARCERATION):

https://news.yale.edu/2023/04/19/pandemic-prison-populations-fell-proportion-black-prisoners-rose

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/black-people-more-likely-wrongfully-convicted/

MORE READING:

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/us-prison-labor-programs-violate-fundamental-human-rights-new-report-finds

https://corpaccountabilitylab.org/calblog/2020/8/5/if-prison-workers-are-essential-we-should-treat-them-like-it-prison-labor-in-the-us-part-i

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/24/us-prison-labor-workers-slavery-13th-amendment-constitution

https://www.vera.org/news/justice-reform-101

MORE LISTENING:

Lomax talking about his work collecting songs in US prisons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw2O8hdlpfQ&t=148s

A Review about the Lomax podcast: https://flypaper.soundfly.com/discover/making-it-in-hell-the-lomax-prison-song-recordings-from-parchman-farm-1933-69/

Dig deeper into the photo archive at the Library of Congress that developed along with the audio recordings: https://www.loc.gov/collections/lomax/about-this-collection/

More information about the Carnegie Hall’s music program at Sing Sing:
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Education/Programs/Musical-Connections

Austin Reed: The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict, published by Yale University Press in 2015, was edited and introduced by Caleb Smith, professor of English at Yale. This is a remarkable and rare memoir by an African-American man who spent more than thirty years incarcerated in various New York state institutions. In a compelling narrative, he reveals the "secrets and the habits of the convicts, with the mysteries and miseries of the Auburn Prison, together with the rules and regulations of the prison. . . " It is difficult and disturbing to read about the brutal conditions at Auburn. At the same time, Reed singles out individuals in the prison system who helped him and sustained him through his ordeal. Professor Smith's excellent introduction places Mr. Reed's story in the wider context of New York's prison history. Reed's manuscript had been unknown for 150 years until Yale's Beinecke Rare Book Library acquired it in a private sale in 2009. To read this book, please visit your local library or acquire it online.

In fall/winter 2023-2024, the Sing Sing Prison Museum (SSPM) will continue its webinar programming, launching a new 6-part series as part of a new series called Carceral Conversations. This series begins on Thursday, October 12th at 12pm and is titled What I Brought Home and Left Behind: Formerly Incarcerated Individuals Share Memories and Personal Collections. It continues on the second Thursday of every month through
March 14th, 2024. Pre-registration is required, and audiences can choose to register for one or all of the sessions. The program is free, underwritten by individual donors like you, and is appropriate for ages 13 yrs and up. 

We all have things we collect and use to decorate our lives and places, things that ground us in our histories or encourage us to aspire to something better, items critical to daily life. Let’s apply this lens with a previously incarcerated individual of Sing Sing, as well as other corrections facilities, and learn how ephemera and objects take on value inside, and outside, a maximum-security correctional facility. The Sing Sing Prison Museum is in development; and because we are in formation, we have ongoing conversations about collections and what and how to use objects to tell history and the contemporary cultural conditions.

Our team brings deep museum experience to the project, but little experience inside a corrections facility. One might develop attachments to objects, or attachments to things missing or removed. We decided that instead of wondering about the material culture and incarceration, we would ask previously incarcerated individuals to share their stories and experiences with us hoping to build understanding of the material world inside one’s cell.

In this series we also will hear from SSPM’s Collections Manager who will share an object from our collection at the start of each conversation drawing links between the historic materials of Sing Sing then and now. Each event will include 10 minutes on a current collection item, 30-minute presentation by individuals sharing about their own belongings, and then robust audience engagement and Q&A.

This program is one of many strategies the Sing Sing Prison Museum is activating to expand the public’s understanding of life inside the walls at Sing Sing and NYS corrections; it is designed to expand our collective understanding of mass incarceration in NY/USA. Sharing a person’s personal collection carries unbound significance and stories of everyday life. These objects and memories can be a way in and will also bring forward larger systems that residents operate in like how to feel connected to outside communities, feel one’s own humanity, gift economies, learning and reading, barter and alternative goods and services, friendships, families, creative endeavors, communications, education, and religious practices. We have so much to learn by listening! On Oct 12 we will be in conversation with Dorian Gray Bess; Nov 9 with Tanya Pierce; December 14 with Mulumba Kazigo; and on January 11 with Carlos Ivan Calaff. Each’s biography is compelling. Joining our newsletter is the best way to stay up to date on our work.

​The Marshall Project wrote "Every American should visit a prison. Not the people who have already experienced incarceration themselves, but those who have not. Prisons use billions of taxpayer dollars every year, but our understandings are so limited.” We agree and so here are 6 programs, one per month, to build understanding and awareness. Join us!

To learn more about the ideas behind this program continue reading, and register
for this program, visit the link below.​

At the beginning of this project with Dan Slepian, Velazquez was serving a sentence of twenty-five years to life in prison. Through the investigation of the police reports and trial transcripts, Dan Slepian worked tirelessly to overturn JJ’s conviction. It took almost 19 years for him to be granted clemency and in 2021, Jon-Adrian Velazquez, almost forty-six years old, became a free man after serving twenty-three years for a crime he did not commit. 
​
Since then, Velazquez has become a liaison for the Hudson Link program and has aided in the development of the Forgotten Voices Committee, and became the program director for the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice. JJ continues to fight for the wrongfully convicted and pushes for prison reform – focusing on rehabilitation rather than punishment within the criminal justice system. We are honored he is involved in the development of SSPM as part of advisory groups. ​

Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing is out of print but is available in audiobook format and at local libraries. Letters from Sing Sing is available wherever you listen to your podcasts. 

​First, what we are listening to: “Do You Know Who I Am” from Ear Hustle explores the effect of a 2021 California State law allowing transgender, intergender, and nonbinary people to transfer to a prison that aligns with their gender identity. As a result of this law, individuals have experienced prisons both as women and as men, and universally express that male incarceration facilities are vastly different than female institutions. In an interview, one transgender individual, Kier, states, “I did not want to come out as trans because I feared that I would be raped or otherwise mistreated. I did not want to be exploited or used or abused or killed by the other inmates. And I didn't want to be perceived as weak for being trans either. I didn’t want that attention, and so I let my hair grow and I let my beard grow. And that went on for years. I had a gigantic Jeremiah Johnson mountain man beard, and nobody wants that guy. So, it was pretty effective at keeping the hound dogs at bay. But I was also pretty miserable because I wasn't myself.”

On the other hand, some individuals did not feel safe going into a men’s prison as a transgender male. The rates of transgender females transferring to female prisons are substantially higher than transgender males transferring to male prisons – as referenced in the episode, no transgender males have transferred. The requirement to be transferred is to identify as trans female or male, but the vetting process can take years to be approved. Some believe that cisgender males will use this legislation to have access to better prison conditions or to both cisgender and transgender females. For more, listen here:

The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison, written by Hugh Ryan (Bold Type Books [2022]), explores the history of queerness in prison as well as how queer incarcerated individuals present a unique case for rethinking prison. ​Legislation dating back to the mid-1800s, called the anti-masquerade law, criminalized alternative female behaviors, and was not applied to men and boys until the 1920s. Ryan notes in his interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air that for incarcerated men, the intention is to return them as good citizens whereas incarcerated women are expected to return as good women.

Ryan states, “And that is the reason why so many gender-nonconforming people, why so many queer women, lesbian women, butches, studs, trans men get caught up in the prison system, because for those people who are concerned about the lives of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, queerness was seen as a threat to ever being a normal, healthy, happy, productive member of society.” As we expand our definitions of gender expression and identity, the rigidity of gender in the United States Incarceration system comes under scrutiny.

​​Ask your local bookstore to find you the book! This book is also available at the Chappaqua Library, Irvington Public Library, Ossining Public Library, Rye Free Reading Room, Scarsdale Public Library, Scarsdale Public Library, White Plains Public Library, and Yonkers Grinton I. Will Library, and Yonkers Riverfront Library.

Last week, I had the privilege of seeing a performance of Twelve Angry Men at Sing Sing
Correctional Facility (SSCF). Produced by Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) and performed
by men incarcerated at SSCF, this play challenges all of us to explore the biases and prejudices
that shape our decisions and relationships. The RTA production was outstanding with powerful
and vivid performances. The audience loved it and gave the cast (pictured here) a well-
deserved standing ovation. RTA’s mission is to “help people in prison develop critical life skills
through the arts, modeling an approach to the justice system based on human dignity rather
than punishment.” The play and the art show by RTA’s Visual Arts class at SSCF provided
compelling examples of how this mission is being fulfilled.

I remember seeing the film version of Twelve Angry Men (1957) several years ago and being
moved by the Reginald Rose’s extraordinary script and the memorable performances by Henry
Fonda and Lee J. Cobb. They set a standard that will never by matched. Nevertheless, on a
warm spring night at Sing Sing, a spirited, passionate production gave us all a night to
remember.
​
Brent D. Glass
Executive Director

​Imagine the surprise of readers of House & Garden magazine when they opened the January 1925 issue and found a five-page illustrated feature about the gardens of Sing Sing Prison. A lavish profusion of irises, lilacs, dahlias, peonies, rose bushes, blue spruce, maple and fir trees with over two hundred flowering bushes thrived in stark contrast to the prison’s stone and brick architecture including the 100 year old cellblock and the newly built condemned cell building that housed New York State’s electric chair.

The photographs were made by Mattie Edwards Hewitt (1869-1956), a prominent photographer of architecture, landscape, and design. In her early career, she was a partner of Francis Benjamin Johnston, a photographer who also Edward’s lover. They lived and worked together from 1909 to 1917 when their personal and professional partnership ended.

By the time she documented the gardens at Sing Sing Prison, Hewitt had established herself as a prominent commercial photographer. She worked with leading designers, architects, and landscape architects, recording residences, commercial buildings, public institutions and gardens. Her archives and personal papers, preserved at the New-York Historical Society, reflect an extraordinary career that continued until her death in 1956.

The House & Garden article, written by Richardson Wright, described the unusual partnership between Sing Sing Warden Lewis Lawes, the prison chaplain, Father William Cashin, the American Rose Society and magazine readers who advocated for and supported the garden project. One of the prison’s most prominent and notorious incarcerated men, Charles Chapin, provided the leadership and vision for the garden. Chapin, serving a life sentence for murdering his wife, became known as the Rose Man of Sing Sing. But that is a story for a future blog post.

​Fifty years ago on Thanksgiving, an extraordinary concert took place at Sing Sing Prison featuring two of America’s greatest musicians, Joan Baez and B.B. King.  They performed in the prison chapel before an appreciative crowd of more than a thousand incarcerated men under the watchful eyes dozens of prison guards and officials. 
 
The opening act was a little known group, Voices of East Harlem, who almost stole the show with their spirited performance and a moving rendition of To Be Young, Gifted and Black. Joan Baez’ voice, always magnificent, soared with emotion when she sang Bob Dylan’s classic I Shall Be Released. Her sister Mimi Farina joined her to sing Viva Mi Patria Bolivia that brought cheers from a diverse mix of white, Black and Brown men.
 
But the event belonged to the incomparable B.B. King who brought his 20-piece band--including his treasured guitar Lucille--through prison security.  His solo introduction was powerful and prayerful.  In one song, he offered inspiration and compassion; other numbers were raucous and brought wild cheering and laughter. Clearly, King knew his audience and connected with them with what he later recalled as one of his greatest performances.
 
How do we know this? David Hoffman, a filmmaker living in Ossining at the time, was teaching a filmmaking class at Sing Sing and worked the incarcerated men in his class to produce the concert.  In addition, he and his students assembled a 27-member crew to record the concert.  The result is more than a concert film. Hoffman and his team present a vivid portrait of life at Sing Sing in what turned out to be a turning point in its history and a new chapter in the history of incarceration in the US—a period of racial mass incarceration.  The Sing Sing Prison Museum is now documenting that story as part of a larger interpretive planning initiative.

On November 3, the museum screened David Hoffman’s film, Sing Sing Thanksgiving, for a full house at the Jacob Burns Film Center.  As the credits roll with an original song by Joan Baez, I noticed that the name of the prison had changed to the Ossining Correctional Facility. In the 1980s, the name changed again to the Sing Sing Correctional Facility and that name remains today. Whatever name you use, it is still Sing Sing, a place of singular importance in American history.