His Prision Bars Became Poetic Lines
by Frederick B. Hudson
The young man was stuck. Stuck in time. Stuck behind bars. Stuck behind
promise and punishment.
Stone and steel surrounded him. He had tested at the genius level on IQ
tests in the third grade. But he was in prison-scrounging cigarette butts
from the floor to make a feeble attempt to have something to smoke.
What happened? Who was to blame? He knew he had a warrior's temperament
shared by the other inmates. Sooner or later something might jump off and he
would be dead. He would leave a daughter behind. People might tell her he was
a bad, brutal man. He began to write so his daughter would know there was
both gentleness and strength in the man who was her father.
Born in innocence she's as vibrant
As the jasmine that flows through her hair
That's my ghetto flower
….When all's been done and said
She's the crown jewel of my head
That's my ghetto flower.
With these words, Julian C. Washington began his prison odyssey ;of words
in the tradition of many famous prison scribes who found their similes and
metaphors while silence was shattered by captive cacophonous voices. In the
tradition of Jean Gent, Victor Hugo, and Eldridge Cleaver, Washington
combined the Biblical teachings of his grandmother in High Springs, Florida
with the brutal lessons of addiction and thievery.
With the publication of his first book, Poetry From the Soul of a Black
Man, in December 2000, Washington began to follow his grandmother's advice to
make his life a living sermon. He quotes the Book of Proverbs as the
touchstone for his new awareness: "Before honor comes humility and pride
cometh before destruction."
His early life did not portend of his adult difficulties. Born in
Gainsville, Florida on February 14, 1964; he was raised by his aunt and uncle
in nearby High Springs, Florida in a supportive environment. His family
members were fairly well-educated and accomplished; his grandfather was the
National Secretary of A. Philip Randolph's Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
Porters, the first union of predominantly black workers to be granted a
charter by the American Federation of Labor.
Washington was an early reader; he started reading the Bible at the age
of four. He later sought out books about famous blacks like Arthur Ashe in
the school library.
Patterned for achievement by his eighty-nine year old grandmother, his
family of seven brothers and five sisters were encouraged to strive for
higher education. Most of his brothers and sisters have finished college
with many completing graduate degrees.
After finishing high school near the top of his class, Washington
received an A.A. degree in l984 from Santa Fe Community College near
Gainesville in 1984. Two years later he had a daughter, Brennin Yuri.
Although he and the child's mother did not live together, her birth sparked
Julian's ambitions to improve his lot in life. He entered Aviation Officer
Candidate School under the auspices of the United States Navy. He had a
traumatic experience in the program after eight weeks when he could not
obtain needed help in preparing for a barracks inspection-he saw the
indifference of the senior cadets as indicative of a deep, pervasive racism
and left the program.
After this discouraging incident, Washington became a man without
direction. Drifting from one dead-end job to another in Tampa, Florida,
living from pillar to post with no stable residence, he began selling and
using marijuana and cocaine. After arrests for stealing two cars and
burglary, Julian C. Washington, the young man with so much promise was sent
to prison for thirty months in Lake Butler, Florida.
His time in prison was spent reading the Bible and black history tomes.
Every night he attended a church meeting and turned his life over to the
Lord. He also decided that he should begin taking psychotropic medications which
had been earlier prescribed for him but had refused to take.
He began to observe his fellow inmates' plight and wrote:
You have degraded yourself
Even denigrated yourself
Even played yourself
Selling crack rock to your own kind
Nigger, have you lost your mind?
After his release from prison after one year and four days, he was
required to do three months of supervised probation; he complied with the
mandatory work requirement by work in the farms near his boyhood home,
picking tobacco and watermelons.
Julian followed one of his brothers to Orlando working light industrial
work. Later he went to Washington, D. C. in 1992 and began to perform his
poetry in clubs and coffee houses. He stayed in the shelter started by the
famous homeless advocate Mitch Snyder and met and worked with a fellow
shelter resident Keith Mitchell who was elected as a Advisory Neighborhood
Council member.
He returned to college and received a bachelor's degree in Psychology for the
University of Central Florida in 1998. He found that his felony convictions
would still hinder him despite furthering his education-he lost a potential
job as Director of Human Resources for a major corporation when his prison
record came to light.
He came to New York in 2000 to look for work and to sell his newly published
book.
His mission now is to stay on a positive path and to complete a Ph.D. in
Clinical Psychology and to become a naturalistic doctor. He plans to continue
to write books as his interest evolve.. He feels his various life experiences
have taught his many life lessons which will sharpen his capacities to help
other black men realize the importance of a strong belief in God. One of his
favorite Biblical passages comes from the book of Romans: "All things work
together for the good of him who love the Lord and are called according to
his purpose."
Washington says that "even an ex-convict such can look forward to the day
when my head is laid to rest, I will be spoken of as a good man. I have been
through some tumultuous times but God has blessed me and I have found a way
out. Malcolm X said that prison will bring out the best in you or the worst
in you. I thank God that it brought out the best in me."
His daughter is thankful too.
| 
