The Finger of God

It was cold that night in federal prison when I was unceremoniously arrested for the second time and thrown into solitary confinement, the Special Housing Unit, better known by those who have experienced it as the SHU, at Butner Federal Prison in Butner, North Carolina. I had been helping men who could not read or write fill out pardon applications, a process that at our nation’s founding, the Founders could not have imagined as part of their constitutional process; if they had, they certainly would have included such a process in the Constitution and in their deliberations, and if they deemed it necessary, they would have explicitly stated that.

On my first night in solitary, the arresting officers could not give me a reason I was being arrested. It was on the third day, Monday, in the morning that the captain told me that I was being charged with organizing in prison.

I told the captain that the prison chaplain had given me permission to help these men and use the chapel for that purpose, but the chaplain who had authorized my activity had been moved to some other location in the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the current chaplain had not authorized me to do so. Never had I been told that I needed additional permission from the new ecclesiastical authority.

I remember how cold it was. The SHU seemed to be made of steel and concrete. The toilet, the showers, the mattressless bunk, and even the peephole in the iron-reinforced door were cold, and I was shivering. I had exchanged my camp uniform (a button-up shirt, pants, and standard-issue boots) for an orange jumpsuit, which was like overalls. To stay warm that night, I shriveled my head into my jumpsuit and relied on my breath to warm my body.

By the next morning, the anger had set in because I had in my opinion been denied my due process rights to hear the charges against me and to defend my actions in the camp.

However, that Saturday night, a warmth descended on me that defied explanation. The ambient temperature had not changed; it was still very cold, but I was no longer angry. I said, “And he shall, and he shall, and he shall grant reprieves and pardons.” Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 reads, “And he shall have Power to grant reprieves and pardons” is the language of Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of our Constitution, and I could not stop saying it. I said, “Who in the hell begins a sentence with the word and?” I knew that I needed to get out of the mental and spiritual hell I had put myself in.

In that cell, I knew that the Spirit had descended on me and that I would be granted an opportunity to share with the nation the only way out of the hell I was in and consequently a way out of the hell the nation was in.

My mind and the energy that flowed through me transformed my cold cell into a steam room of thought, reflection, and activity. I was directed to the first book I had read and completed; it had been given to me decades earlier by my younger brother, Jonathan Luther Jackson. “And,” I said, “he shall grant reprieves and pardons.” I remembered the first chapter of Strength to Love12 by Martin Luther King Jr., and after I was released from solitary confinement, I couldn’t wait for a friend on the outside to send me a copy of that book.