Internationalist

The Internationalist Prison Books Collective is a not-for-profit, all-volunteer group that sends out free books and informational material, by request, to prison inmates in Mississippi and Alabama. We are based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but we have chosen to serve these two states because there was no other program fully dedicated to serving inmates in this region (even though the need there is so dire).

The work of the Internationalist Prison Books Collective is an extension of the outreach efforts of Internationalist Books and Community Center in Chapel Hill, NC. This relationship is not only a natural outgrowth of the Internationalist’s mission to advocate for social justice for underrepresented groups, but it is also a vital component of how the books-to-prisoners program works. Due to prison restrictions, most prisoners are prevented from receiving books sent by friends or relatives. A family member could not take a book from their own shelf or buy a book from a bookstore and send it to their relative in prison. They have made it nearly impossible for prisoners to have access to any good reading material. It’s because of these restrictions that we now exist. The Internationalist Prison Books Collective is able to bypass these restrictions by working as an arm of the bookstore—which does have permission to send books to prisoners. Our mandate is to provide free reading materials to prisoners as per request. All of these items are donated by the community. Also, we rely on donations to cover the price of postage.