Demico Boothe facts for kids
Demico Boothe is an African-American bestselling author of several books on the plight of African-American men in the American prison system.
Boothe spent nearly 13 years in federal prison and was released in 2003. He wrote his first book, entitled Why Are So Many Black Men in Prison?, while incarcerated. To date, he has written and published three other books, including: Getting Out & Staying Out: A Black Man's Guide to Success After Prison and The Top 25 Things Black Folks Do That We Need To Stop!!! The latter was published in January 2009, and received much critical acclaim within the African-American community.
Early life
Boothe was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up partly in his mother's home in the Castalia Heights Projects in South Memphis, and partly at his father's home, in a part of Memphis that was originally “residential, crime-free” but that degenerated during Boothe's teen years.
Career
Boothe is a noted expert on many subjects and issues concerning the African-American community, with an emphasis on the U.S. criminal justice system.
Besides addressing the issue of anti-black racism in the legal and prison system, Boothe is an advocate for education and lifelong learning. He notes, for example, that the black men he met in prison were very badly educated.
On the back of his book, Why Are So Many Black Men in Prison?, Boothe states that, while he was incarcerated, he read and studied over 500 books, including the entire Webster's Dictionary, the Bible, the Qur'an, as well as every alphabetical entry in the 1998 Encyclopædia Britannica.
Boothe also advocates taking a pragmatic approach to avoiding the "school to prison pipeline". In his 2012 book, Getting Out and Staying Out: A Black Man's Guide to Success After Prison, he suggests "taking full control and responsibility of yourself and your actions from that point on, despite any injustices or wrongful actions that may have been committed against you by the system." Other suggestions are, as above, embarking on a serious reading program while still in prison, and when out, developing an entrepreneurial work style, and growing, fostering, and maintaining a committed, supportive relationship and permanent family unit.
Works
- Why Are So Many Black Men in Prison? (Full Surface Publishing, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-9792953-0-0)
- The Top 25 Things Black Folks Do that We Need to Stop!!! (2009)
- Getting Out & Staying Out: A Black Man's Guide to Success after Prison (Full Surface Publishing, 2012, ISBN: 978-0-9792953-5-5)
- The U.S. Child Support System and the Black Family (2018)
