Laura Whitehorn - Years in Prison

Years in Prison

During the 14 years Whitehorn served in prison, she directed AIDS education and wrote numerous publications. When asked if her political work ended once she was in prison, she replied that it had consisted basically of three areas: being a political prisoner, organizing and being part of the struggles for justice inside the prisons, and being part of the fight against HIV and AIDS.

Whitehorn lost many friends while she was in prison during some of the worst years of the AIDS epidemic. While Whitehorn served time in a Federal women’s prison at Lexington, Kentucky, her father, Nathaniel, “Tanny” Whitehorn died on January 3, 1992. Whitehorn identifies many consequences of being behind bars for fourteen years, including losing someone you love. She notes that not being with them while they are dying, or being able to go to the memorial service afterwards, is just one way families are destroyed by prison.

Read more about this topic:  Laura Whitehorn

Famous quotes containing the words years in, years and/or prison:

    Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.
    Václav Havel (b. 1936)

    As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.
    Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)

    The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
    George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)