Keen On

Shaka Senghor is one of America’s great survivors. Having spent 19 years in high-security prison, he has reinvented himself as a best-selling writer and public speaker on individual freedom and responsibility. In his new book, How to Be Free, Senghor argues that everyone — inside and outside jail — lives in hidden prisons of trauma, shame, and grief. Drawing from his own personal transformation in solitary confinement, he offers practical tools for emancipation from mental and emotional captivity. Senghor’s remarkable work and life embody the quintessentially American belief in that most magical of things - the second chance. 1. Mental prisons are often harder to escape than physical ones Senghor argues that the psychological barriers of trauma, shame, and grief can be more confining than actual prison bars, affecting people across all walks of life.2. Literacy was his lifeline to transformation Being able to read at an above-average level (compared to the typical third-grade reading level in prison) allowed