Montgomery Inmate sues over banned black history book

MONTGOMERY, Alabama 
An inmate at Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery filed a suit against employees of the Alabama Department of Corrections, claiming that they deliberately kept a black history book out of his hands while he was serving a lifetime sentence for murder.

Mark Melvin

Mark Melvin, an inmate at the prison for 18 years, filed a federal suit against the prison’s officials and the state commissioner of corrections alleging that they unjustly kept a book sent by his lawyer, “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II,” out of his hands. The Pulitzer Prize winning book, penned by national Wall Street Journal correspondent Douglas A. Blackmon, delves into the horrific treatment of black prisoners in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

News of the suit originally reported by the New York Times was seen in the Huffington Post today. 

The New York Times reports that the 33-year-old white prisoner was told by a Kilby official that the book was "too incendiary" and "too provocative," and was told to send the book back at his own expense. Melvin appealed the action but it was overturned  by prison officials based on a regulation that states "violence based on race, religion, sex, creed, or nationality, or disobedience toward law enforcement officials or correctional staff."

Melvin's lawyer Bryan Stevenson told the New York Times that he sent the book along with others to his client, said to be an avid reader, last year. According to the report, he said he believed that the decision was less about suppressing information about prisoner's rights but more about the nation's denial of its racial history.  

Other media outlets have weighed in on the issue such as J. Smith from the Atlanta Post. He writes: "This cowardice and obvious insecurity on display in the Alabama prison system offers a poignant snapshot into the psyche of white and powerful America, one that essentially demands the those who had been wronged by their forefathers should just get over it already. Yes, America has a tremendously shameful past (and present), but overt efforts to erase or suppress its history just don’t seem worth the trouble."