Solitary

As a child, books serve as an early reminder of Woodfox’s subordinate position in society as an African American, when he encounters a sixth-grade social studies textbook that does not acknowledge his reality, as a Black child growing up in a Black neighborhood but instead focuses on white America. The realization that white Americans lived in better circumstances—and moreover, that everyone was aware of this fact—was an early introduction to racism for Woodfox. At this point in Solitary, books serve as a mirror for Woodfox’s developmental stage. When he encounters the reality of systemic injustice, he is not strengthened by this realization, but wounded by it. He writes that “the lessons of that sixth-grade class had weakened me in a way I can’t describe” (9).

The next time Woodfox returns to the motif of books, the circumstances are different. This time, it’s in the context of an encounter with the Black Panther Party, in pre-trial detention in New York. When he encounters the Panthers, they teach him about the accomplishments of Black people and the long history of injustice in the United States. Woodfox has trouble absorbing this message until he reads a book called A Different Drummer, featuring a Black main character who destroys his connections to the past, slavery, and racism, in order to move on.