Transcript
Some of The World's Greatest Minds Are In Prison By Bobby Bostic Prison is a place where you can find a scholar of every kind. The system can lock up a person's body, but they can't incarcerate our minds. Right here in this very room we have some of the world's greatest minds. We have scientists, mathematicians, preachers, right here in front of us. In fact, many of you have excelled in the most difficult of all politics, prison politics. These politics can get real messy. But guys in here network to make things happen on scales great and large. We must continue to apply ourselves and not settle for a label that society has placed upon us. The mind can accomplish what it will. It is stronger than concrete, razor-wire and steel. The mind is a architect that constructs the plans that builds the structures that house the institutions that change the world. Throughout history it has been right here in these prisons where scholars have used their minds to change the world. For documented evidence of this we can go back to Biblical times and look at Paul's journey in prison. Look at how Joseph in the Bible changed history from his prison cell when he interpreted the King's vision and saved Egypt from a famine. If we look at contemporary history we have the examples of Nelson Mandela, and how his words from his jail cell shook the world. It has been from these dungeons that some of the greatest words ever written has originated. These works came from the ink of a scholar's pen. Their words that changed the world proves that the pen is mightier than the sword. Let's bring it back to modern history and look at Ghandi. Look at how the famous letter that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from the Birmingham jail cell changed the course of the Civil Rights movement and helped changed the course of Kennedy's presidency. I declare today that he some of the world's greatest minds are in prison. We can do what we put our minds to and even these walls can't stop us. We say that we want to go home. We can train ourselves to be legal scholars in order to obtain our freedom. We can get laws change to benefit us. We can change this prison culture. All we have to do is put our minds and energy into it. Through self-rehabilitation a criminal can transform himself into a law abiding citizen. I am not a model prisoner because prison doesn't model me. Still, I am determined to be the best that I can be. We all have an excellent example right here in this room. Jon Marc Taylor has gotten his doctorate degree while in prison. Just think of the fortitude that it took to get a doctorate degree in a violent chaotic place like this. Imagine the hurdles that he had to go through with the administration to get this done? Imagine the obstacles that petty guards and inmates put in his way along the course he was traveling. Picture the tens of thousands of dollars that he had to pay for such a degree. Reflect a minute on the violence that he and ignorance that he was surrounded by in several different prisons while he pursued his degree and studied for his lessons. The challenges that he faced is strong enough to break ten men. Yet he was born to be a scholar even if he had to become one at inside of a prison cell/His efforts and accomplishments prove that some of the world's greatest minds are in prison. We must not allow our talents to go to waste. We have to organize our creative energy with haste. The library is full of hundreds of books that we must start reading. Right there is that library we can train ourselves to be scholars. We were not meant to be crooks. We are sitting in prison because we are not great criminals. But we are psychologists, accountants, and professionals of all kinds. The world has locked up some its greatest minds. Once we tap into our own greatness we can free ourselves from prison. Nothing is holding us back but our own lack of efforts. The smartest people do some of the dumbest things. That's how so many great minds end up in these prison wings. We came into prison as a threat to society. We were the problem but now we can become the solution and help to heal the world. We have to succeed against the odds and claim the greatness that each of us possess. There is no limit to the goals that we can accomplish. I want to conclude by saying that it is from the lowest depths that the greatest of men have risen. Some of the world's greatest minds are in prison.
