Stop the Presses! I Want to Get Off!

by Grant, Joseph W.; Wachsberger, Ken

• ISBN13: 9781611860610
• ISBN10: 161186061X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-08-01
• Publisher: Michigan State Univ Pr

Summary

The final book in the groundbreaking Voices from the Underground series, Stop the Presses! I Want to Get Off!, is the inspiring, frenetic, funny, sad, always-cash-starved story of Joe Grant, founder and publisher of Prisoners' Digest International, the most important prisoners' rights underground newspaper of the Vietnam era. From Grant's military days in pre-Revolutionary Cuba during the Korean War, to his time as publisher of a prounion newspaper in Cedar Rapids and his eventual imprisonment in Leavenworth, Kansas, Grant's personal history is a testament to the power of courage under duress. One of the more notorious federal penitentiaries in the nation, Leavenworth inspired Grant to found PDIin an effort to bring hope to prisoners and their families nationwide.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Editor's Preface	p. xiii
Introduction	p. xxi
Stop the Presses! I Want to Get Off!: A Brief History of the Prisoners' Digest International
Prisons and Prisons, My Daughters and Sons	p. 3
Godless Country Not the Worst Country	p. 4
Witnessing and Experiencing Violence	p. 6
Cuba: Political Beginnings While Korea Cooks	p. 7
Robert "Bobby" Vaughn: Poet of the Revolution	p. 10
No Room in the Revolution for Druggies	p. 12
Cuba Owned by the U.S.	p. 12
Any Prostitutes in Your Family?	p. 13
Why Do Poets Have to Carry Guns?	p. 14
The Case of the Missing Springfield Rifles	p. 16
Kicked out of SERTOMA	p. 17
Bombed Out, Burned Down, and Charged with the Crime	p. 18
How to Pay for a Daily Newspaper	p. 22
Behind the Walls	p. 24
Unitarian Universalists Turn to Crime for CLF Books	p. 26
A Unitarian Universalist News Underground and Behind the Walls	p. 32
Prison: A Mirror of the Free World	p. 35
The Prisoners Can Vote… But!	p. 37
A Proliferation of Child Abusers	p. 38
Rule by Tradition	p. 40
"Laying Out My Winter Clothes"	p. 48
My Dilemma: Hobby Craft or Jesus	p. 50
Buck Naked at the Liquor Store, Minneapolis, Minnesota	p. 51
Prison Art Attracts Collector	p. 55
Chapel Builder Busy Building Wardens	p. 57
Getting Organized on the Cheap	p. 58
Hot, Dusty Roads between Prisons	p. 61
Community Support Grows for PDI	p. 63
The First Issue	p. 71
Oatmeal and Love: Bringing Kids to the Table	p. 73
Law Section Attracts Jailhouse Lawyers; First PDI Generates First Subscribers	p. 86
PDI Stops Extradition of Arkansas Escapee	p. 91
Success Was Killing Us	p. 93
The Kids and the Cons	p. 99
National Lawyers Guild: "Give the Prisoners Their PDIs"	p. 103
A Halfway House Like a Home	p. 104
"Go Catch a Rabbit"	p. 105
Arkansas Escapee Told to "Cool It"	p. 107
George Jackson Murdered in San Quentin	p. 107
Playboy Kicks in Cash, Boosts Subscriptions	p. 110
Attica, NY	p. 112
Attica: Racist Inside and Out	p. 113
Join Me and Avoid a Massacre	p. 114
Forty-Year Aftermath to Attica	p. 116
Muslims Accused of Precipitating Attica Riots	p. 117
Tom Murton Leads Rally for Escapee	p. 118
Subscription Drives inside the Walls	p. 120
Women Prisoners Protest	p. 123
PDI Ends Innocent Indian Boy's Six Years in Prison	p. 124
Thankfully, He Didn't Order 1,000 Subscriptions	p. 126
Judge Leo Oxberger Rules for Prisoners	p. 132
A Birthing at 505	p. 136
The Church of the New Song	p. 139
On the Road with the PDI	p. 139
I Find a Religion and Challenge Contemporary-Prison-Normal	p. 141
CREATION: The Arts in Prison: The Total Participation Publication	p. 144
The PDI Buys a College	p. 146
Jailhouse Lawyers: That Special Group of Prisoners	p. 148
Attica Massacre Remembered	p. 151
Dr. Schein's Behavior-Modification Tactics	p. 151
Behavior Modification and Eddie Sanchez	p. 154
Shiloh Harry Theriault	p. 155
Clinton, Iowa, Neighbors Play Hardball with the PDI	p. 156
The College Is Stormed	p. 160
Ghosts on Our Side in Haunted Bulger's Hollow	p. 161
They're Coming to Take Us Away, Ha Ha	p. 164
Following the Activists into Georgeville	p. 169
First Issue of Prisoners' Digest International	p. 171
A Difficult Existence	p. 174
The Iowa City "Lynching" of Mike Roe	p. 176
Georgeville Project Finds Outside Funding	p. 178
Goodbye, 505; Goodbye, PDI	p. 179
Chas DuRain, Editorial Artist	p. 183
Our Charity Begins in Georgeville	p. 184
Prisoner's Death Sparks Protests at Leavenworth	p. 186
The FBI Visits Georgeville	p. 189
Enter Jerry Teterud and Bud Willard for Iowa and the Feds	p. 191
The Last PDI	p. 196
Never a Greater Need	p. 198
Into the Future: Rambling Thoughts as I Being This Story Up to Date
9 to 5	p. 203
Georgeville Comrade Has Me Back on the Farm	p. 204
Charity	p. 205
Off to Arizona	p. 206
Meridel	p. 206
Cuba	p. 207
The PDI and CNS Archives	p. 209
Afterword	p. 213
Sidebars
A Very Zen Garret	p. 74
The Sea, by Merilea	p. 86
Drafted into Service at the PDI	p. 95
Iowa Boycott of South African Wines	p. 122
Locked into the Locked Up	p. 133
Dr. Edgar Schein's List of Behavior-Modifying Tactics	p. 152
Reflections on Penal Digest International	p. 165
Out of the University and into the PDI's School of Hard Knocks	p. 191
About the Authors	p. 217
Index	p. 219
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.