NO MAN IS FREE UNTIL ALL MEN ARE FREE 1972 offset lithograph 11” x 8” Illustrated: Joseph, Cliff. “Art, Politics, and the Life Force.” Forward: Journal of Socialist Thought 9, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 45. In 1971, the B.E.C.C. grew to include the creation of an Arts Exchange program in correctional facilities (“Prison Art Programs”) . This was greatly due to the prison takeover at Attica prison and the refusal to acknowledge the demands of the prisoners. Three different types of teaching arrangements were developed within the program: some classes were taught by members of the B.E.C.C.; sometimes artists made visits to the prison on a monthly basis, while inmates taught the classes; and in a third variation, visiting artists taught classes once or twice a month. Joseph and Benny Andrews volunteered to teach programs at various prisons in the early 70s at “The Tombs” (Manhattan House of Detention), Brooklyn House of Detention, Bronx House of Detention and Rikers Island. They obtained funding from the National Endowment for the Arts to expand to programs in 39 prisons in 14 states. In 1972, the BECC and the Artists and Writers Protest Against the War in Vietnam published The Attica Book in solidarity with the prison uprising that occurred in upstate New York a year earlier. The book featured the work of contemporary artists and poets who were politically active in support of the Peace movement and the Civil Rights movement. A major inspiration for the book came from interaction that BECC co-founder Benny Andrews had with a young inmate at the Manhattan House of Detention. The young man had expressed apathy at the criminal justice system because society is skewed for those with offending records. In disenfranchised communities this discourse is sadly commonplace.
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