An American Radical:. Susan Rosenberg
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Advance Praise for An American Radical
“Susan Rosenberg’s An American Radical is remarkable—and terrifying. In taut, unadorned prose, she recounts her sixteen years imprisoned in American jails, much of that time spent in isolation and high-security units. That she survived at all is something of a miracle. Her stark, harrowing story is all at once mesmerizing, horrifying, and deeply saddening. Her revelations about the U.S. prison system and its various forms of torture and diminishment should forever prevent glib distinctions between our ‘democratic’ system and that of totalitarian countries. Rosenberg herself emerges as an admirable, remarkably resilient, and honorable figure.”
—Martin Duberman, Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus, City University of New York, and author of more than twenty books
“Walt Whitman wrote: ‘My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion.’ Our dear sister Susan Rosenberg did just that in the 1960s. And her journey is part of this American history/herstory of radicalism. We thank her for sharing her life of introspection, activism and resistance. And we thank her for resisting … resisting … resisting.”
—Sonia Sanchez, poet
“Susan Rosenberg’s struggle as an American radical is retold in this story of her life and those of her ‘sisters in punishment’ as political prisoners here in the U.S. Incarcerated in some of the worst prisons, Rosenberg documents not only the oppression of women in prison but also the great strength and courage she and her politically oppressed sisters demonstrate in these penal colonies. She is simultaneously aware and respectful of the awful situation of the majority of women—black, brown, and poor—who are incarcerated in the U.S. today. As she grows and changes, she does so as An American Radical. A must-read book to understand prisons in America today.”
—Natalie J. Sokoloff, professor of sociology,
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
“This book is for every American—one woman’s story that puts us all on trial. ‘I have met death in the cold / of this prison,’ Susan Rosenberg writes, and shows us forty pounds of shackles on her hundred-pound body and how it feels to struggle for years against abuse and deprivation, how it feels to change, to find purpose, solace, even love. Executive clemency from the President of the United States finally freed Susan Rosenberg. You won’t want to believe her words on these pages, but they’re both true and truly well written, and none of us is free to ignore them.”
—Hettie Jones, author
“In the decade of the ‘90s, Nelson Mandela was freed, apartheid was ended, the Soviet Union collapsed, and most Americans talked about a world led by a well-intended, peaceful United States. Susan Rosenberg witnessed these developments from the vantage point of a tiny cell in America’s most notorious prisons. A political prisoner in her own country, Rosenberg endured the most heinous conditions, designed to break her will. As in the most backward nations, renunciation of her political beliefs was the price of decent conditions. Rosenberg never surrendered. Her haunting memoir vividly depicts what life is like for a radical woman in maximum security. Rosenberg also gives voice to the tens of thousands of female prisoners, mostly Black and poor, who lived and died through the AIDS epidemic that ravaged America’s incarcerated. It is bitterly ironic that Rosenberg, an activist who tried to change the world, found herself in conditions where even the smallest change requires intense struggle. Her battles to change the lives of the women around her are inspiring; this book is a testament to the strength of the human spirit.”
—Ron Kuby, civil rights and criminal defense attorney
“Surviving oppression is, as Susan Rosenberg shows us in this powerful prison memoir, a creative act of camaraderie and solidarity. Even in the face of the unfathomable brutality, the nonstop assault on humanity that is the American prison system, Rosenberg shows us how women prisoners took care of each other in their battles against AIDS, sexual violence, police brutality, and political repression.
Rosenberg’s evocative prose, interspersed with poems she wrote in prison, demonstrates that we must celebrate humanity in order to dismantle mass incarceration.”
—Dan Berger, editor of The Hidden 1970s: Histories of Radicalism,
and author of Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground
and the Politics of Solidarity
“Rosenberg tells a compelling story in An American Radical—an intimate portrayal of life as a political prisoner and a potent analysis of the ongoing failures of the American form of incarceration and punishment. She inspires with her story of active resistance to really tough conditions at a time when the label and preoccupation with ‘terrorist’ is again a collective obsession, as it was in the early 1970s in America. An American Radical will rouse readers to forge ahead with their own commitments to genuine patriotism through opposition to oppression.”
—Don Hazen, executive director of the independent Media
Institute and executive editor of Alternet.org
“In her powerful and harrowing quest, Susan Rosenberg’s amazing story drives us to examine our own relationship with justice. You can feel the heat coming off the pages of this book as it bears witness to the industry behind our wretched penal system—while at the same time her odyssey leads us to discover unforgettable places within the human heart and soul. This is a journey that most Americans could never even imagine, let alone take.”
—Jackson Taylor, director, PEN Prison Writing Program
“Anyone teaching a course relating to the American prison system will obviously find Susan Rosenberg’s An American Radical to be a fine choice as a required text. But the book would also have great relevance in any course exploring our epoch of America’s permanent wars. Rosenberg’s odyssey takes us from the liberation movement of the 1960s, through the nightmarish worlds of federal prisons, into a twenty-first century where the American prison has expanded into a global gulag of secret prisons and unspeakable torture, government secrecy, and a culture that defines radical dissent as beyond the bounds of American normality. It’s hard to imagine a classroom where this book would fail to provoke invaluable discussion.”
—H. Bruce Franklin, John Cotton Dana Professor of English
and American studies at Rutgers University, Newark
“Susan Rosenberg takes us on an astonishing journey—from a tiny underground revolutionary cell into the vast underground of the American penal system. En route, we see the desperate, isolated idealism that led to her prison term become grounded and compassionate, centered on the cruel plight of her sister inmates. Her lifelong commitment to racial equality and justice bears fruit in this impassioned memoir. ‘Write it down for the record,’ her lawyer insisted when she and other women political prisoners were subjected to experimental torture techniques. An American Radical is indeed that intimate record of the suffering and solidarity of women in America’s toughest prisons.”
—Bell Gale Chevigny, professor emeritus of literature, Purchase
College, SUNY, author and editor of Doing Time: 25 Years of
Prison Writing, a PEN American Center prize anthology
“The bravery and courage, and the original voice of Susan Rosenberg carries the reader with it—every moment of her sixteen years in prison. Her deep self-analysis for precious sanity, in search of truth—past, present and future—for herself and the world, is nothing less than astounding. The book’s gift redefines radicalism itself. It also elicits that rare, silent ‘Ah!’ of unexpected recognition experienced in compelling theater and art.”
—Doris Schwerin, author and composer
“Susan Rosenberg has gone into the hell of the American prison system and come back miraculously unembittered, her soul intact and bringing us the news that Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are not aberrations