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The Ugly Side of Beautiful takes an unflinching look at the injustices of our prison system and strives to help us think outside the cage.
Racially profiled and wrongfully imprisoned during his second year at Harvard Law School, hip-hop activist Bryonn Bain successfully sued the New York City Police Department and wrote the Village Voice cover story “Walking While Black.” Now Bain has taken his own disturbing experiences of racial profiling and personal demoralization and turned them into teachable moments for an entire nation. The Ugly Side of Beautiful takes an unflinching look at the injustices of our prison system and strives to help us think outside the cage.
What would a modern-day prophet say on the day he returns home from prison?
“The Prophet Returns” tackles this question and honors the influential legacy of Kahlil Gibran. Once written off as a writer of “meaningless mysticism,” Gibran refused to limit his work to a single tradition, and brought together the Judeo-Christian and Islamic insights of his nation and family in his writings. With the exception of the Bible and Koran, Gibran’s 1923 masterpiece “The Prophet” reportedly outsold all other books in the 20th century. Working in prisons since the 1980’s, Bryonn Bain was wrongfully imprisoned while studying law at Harvard. A Brooklyn poet, prison activist and Nuyorican Grand Slam poetry champion, Bain has performed and lectured on hip hop, spoken word and the prison crisis at more than 100 campuses and correctional facilities nationwide.
Email for availability: bookbryonn@gmail.com