AOW #1: Reading Helps One Man Get Through Prison
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MINNEAPOLIS — When A.J. Briscoe woke up on Monday, Sept. 29, it was pouring rain. He had to cancel
a meeting at his favorite coffee shop because his van had broken down the day before.
Instead, he worked from the dining room table of his small, tidy home in north Minneapolis. Still, for
Briscoe, the rain and broken-down van were extremely minor problems on this “amazing” day.
Liberation Day
It was liberation day for Briscoe. It was the first time in 22 years he wasn’t in prison, on parole, or on
probation. The former Vice Lord gang member and five-time felon was finally free of supervision by the
government.
For 22 years he had to report his daily actions, live only where others said, and submit to surprise visits
by his probation officer.
Now Briscoe has new rights and responsibilities. He can vote. He can leave the state without asking
permission. And most importantly, he can pursue his dream of being an entrepreneur who encourages
young people to read with a message of hope. He wants to stop young people from going down the
tempting but destructive path that he took.
The idea that he is completely free now — free to pursue his goals and dreams — thrills him, and keeps
him awake at night.
“I’ve been struggling to stay optimistic, to stay encouraged,” said Briscoe, who is married and has a 5year-old son with whom he is working to rebuild a relationship.
"People Can Change"
Over the past 22 years of state supervision inside prison and out, Briscoe has regularly had to face his
bad decisions: dropping out of school in the seventh grade; transforming from a straight-A student to a
successful drug dealer in 32 states who was shot twice and spent more than 10 years behind bars.
One struggle for Briscoe is financial — he made a lot of money as a drug dealer, and now that he’s
following the law, he has not yet been able to support his family. His probation officer, Kim Peterson,
believes in him, but she acknowledges that he faces a difficult road ahead.
“Kim told me, ‘You can’t do anything related to your past life, because you’ll destroy people’s faith and
hope that people can change.’”
He repeats her words like a mantra, louder this time. “‘People can CHANGE!’ She put so much pressure
on me by being so insightful. But, man, I accepted the challenge.”
The Unraveling
Albert Joseph Briscoe III attended grade school in Tennessee, then moved back to Minneapolis with his
mother, Debra Haynes, to be closer to his grandmother, who largely raised him. Charlene and her
husband, Albert Briscoe Sr., were upstanding people with deep Minneapolis roots.
Briscoe was a gifted student and was getting invitations from prestigious schools in his area. “But it
wasn’t cool” to be smart, he said, and the lure of the streets was strong.
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AOW #1: Reading Helps One Man Get Through Prison
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Briscoe’s father was heavily involved in criminal street activity and served prison time for manslaughter.
His mother struggled to pay the bills to support him and his sister, but she guided them with love.
Briscoe began to idolize neighborhood guys who were getting rich by breaking the law — he saw young
men with new cars, with jewels.
At 12, Briscoe was arrested for the first time, stopped by police with crack cocaine, which got him a
week of juvenile detention. By age 14, he said, he had made $200,000 from drug sales, with the money
stored in safety deposit boxes.
“I couldn’t buy anything,” he said, laughing at the memory, “because I couldn’t drive.”
Briscoe told himself he wasn’t really hurting anybody — he was just selling drugs like meth, crack,
cocaine, marijuana, Ecstasy and prescription pills.
“I wasn’t breaking into people’s homes. I wasn’t stealing money,” he said.
His life began to take on a familiar rhythm — arrests, criminal charges, group homes, jails and prisons
from Minnesota to Tennessee to West Virginia.
His grandmother never gave up on him, traveling to visit him and writing him letters encouraging him
“to tap into my potential through words.” She died in 2012, but not before she sensed a powerful
transformation occurring within her beloved grandson.
Transformed By Reading
The transformation had begun years earlier when Briscoe overheard a fellow prisoner struggling to read
a children’s book to his child. The prisoner was illiterate, Briscoe said. Even though Briscoe had a GED —
he took a test for a high school diploma — and he could read, he was still worried about how he would
teach his own children.
“It haunted me to think about my own son asking me to help him with his homework,” he said.
Briscoe began to educate himself in prison — it became his college.
Once, while facing serious criminal charges, Briscoe dug into a law book and discovered an error in the
case against him. He presented it to his lawyer, who presented it to the judge. Briscoe got three years
for that crime, instead of 60, and Briscoe reflects that “reading literally saved my life.”
From then on, he read everything he could get his hands on, particularly inspired by authors Farrah
Gray, a black businesses man and philanthropist, and J.A. Rogers, a Jamaican-American author who
wrote about the African-American experience in America.
Spreading The Word
Briscoe began to spread his pro-reading message by creating a prison literacy program in Tennessee
where prisoners each contributed a small amount of money to update the prison library.
Recently, he’s set his sights on a new target: the young people who might be facing the same
temptations he did when he was 12.
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AOW #1: Reading Helps One Man Get Through Prison
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Two years ago, while still on parole, Briscoe founded a community literacy project called To Succeed You
Must Read! The program reaches students in schools and libraries, and includes a summer book club.
Briscoe aims to visit 200 inner-city schools to promote literacy and to get kids to “act on their ideals
instead of on fear."
Today, Briscoe lives with his wife, Sundia, in a home filled with stunning African art. Their front porch
features a bookshelf stacked with young-adult literature free for the taking. And there is plenty of
taking, Sundia said with a laugh.
“Every day, in the summer especially, I come home to kids waiting on the stairs. They want to eat,
because he’s always cooking or baking. They grab a book. They’re so excited to just be around him," she
said.
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