Shaka Senghor spent 19 years in prison, including seven years in solitary confinement, after being convicted of murder at age 19. He transformed himself behind bars through literacy, philosophy, and journaling, eventually becoming a bestselling author and globally recognized resilience expert. His book How to Be Free argues that everyone—not just the incarcerated—lives in “hidden prisons” of shame, anger, unforgiveness, and self-doubt, and offers a framework for escaping them.
Early Life and the Path to Prison
Grew up in Detroit in a household that appeared stable from the outside—middle-class, brick bungalows, tree-lined streets—but was marked by severe physical and emotional abuse.
Ran away at 13 and was drawn into crack cocaine culture during its first wave through the Midwest. Within six months he was robbed at gunpoint, beaten nearly to death, and his childhood friend was murdered.
Quit the addiction cold turkey as a teenager, motivated by wanting money for sneakers, but remained in the drug culture.
At 17, was shot multiple times in the leg and foot by a stranger during a brief argument. The shooter drove off; Shaka never saw his face. Police responded with victim-blaming rather than support, and he was back in his neighborhood within days.
Developed severe anxiety and PTSD without language for it. Convinced himself he was only safe carrying a gun and would shoot first in any conflict.
In July 1991, at 19, got into a 2 a.m. conflict, turned to walk away, then turned back and fired four shots, killing a man. Was charged with open murder and sentenced to 17 to 40 years.
Early Years Behind Bars
Entered prison certain he would die there. Shut down emotionally—mentally “closed the folders” on friends, family, his unborn child, and any future.
Accumulated 36 misconducts in his first five years: drug trafficking, assaults on inmates and officers, dangerous contraband. The first facility was nicknamed “the Gladiator School” because of daily stabbings and fights.
Made a daring escape attempt from county jail using a pipe and bedsheets to pop cell doors, only to be caught when a guard’s flashlight beam hit the window—they were roughly 12 floors up and would have fallen to their deaths.
A turning point came when he was sent to the prison library and met older men serving life sentences who became mentors. They challenged him through books and intense discussions about philosophy, history, and culture—essentially running a book club.
Read Malcolm X’s autobiography, which planted the seed that transformation was possible, but he wasn’t ready to change yet.
Solitary Confinement: Seven Years in a Cage
Spent a total of seven years in solitary confinement, including one stretch of 4.5 consecutive years (1999–2004).
Described solitary as the most barbaric and inhumane practice carried out in society’s name. Men with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder were punished for symptoms of their illness. Officers pepper-sprayed and brutalized people daily.
One man set himself on fire after relentless harassment about his sexuality; he was returned to his cell two days later with severe burns.
Communication between cells happened through improvised means: talking under doors, through toilet pipes, or using “fish lines” made from underwear string and toothpaste tubes to slide notes under doors.
Locked down 23 hours a day (24 hours two days a week). Recreation meant being handcuffed to a leash and placed in an outdoor dog kennel. In winter, inmates were left outside in flimsy clothing until they nearly broke from cold.
Shaka survived because he was literate in an environment where 70% of inmates read below a fourth-grade level. He read philosophy, world history, and spiritual texts. He structured his days like a university schedule: morning study, afternoon philosophy, evening writing.
A psychiatrist’s book, Cages of Steel, listed 40–50 psychological effects of prolonged isolation (hallucinations, inability to hold normal conversations). When Shaka recognized these symptoms in himself, he would grab the nearest book—fiction or nonfiction—and read to move his mind forward. This became his core insight: if I can get through the pain of the moment, I can come out on the other side of anything.
The Letter That Changed Everything
Began journaling to answer the question “How did I get here?” Wrote out every harm done to his physical body—molestation, attempted molestation, beatings—and began reassigning responsibility. He had internalized the belief that something was wrong with him; journaling helped him separate what was done to him from what he had done.
Read James Allen’s As a Man Thinketh, which argues that thought seeds blossom into reality. Shaka tested the theory: he wanted access to a typewriter more than anything, so he wrote a philosophical letter to the warden arguing that if the warden believed his negative promises (to break rules), he should also believe his positive ones (to write books and mentor others to read).
The warden wrote back for the first time, calling the argument compelling, and advocated for Shaka’s release from solitary. The process took two and a half years of denials and approvals through multiple levels of bureaucracy.
That response gave Shaka just enough hope to keep preparing his mind for eventual release.
Publishing Books from Prison
After returning to general population, typed up four handwritten manuscripts and began sending query letters to publishers, magazines, and even rappers—anyone he thought might be interested. He had no money, so he traded ramen noodles for photocopies and smuggled manuscripts back into his cell.
Received only rejection letters. Taught himself self-publishing from a book he ordered and published his first novel in 2008 from behind bars.
The state sued him for a million dollars, claiming 90% of his earnings under a law that allows the state to take most income from incarcerated people. Shaka backdated a contract limiting his proceeds to 10% after production costs, then ensured sales never exceeded the threshold. The judge ruled she had to side with the state on principle but told Shaka she believed he should be free to create.
Went up for parole three times. The first two times he was denied. The third time, a Black pastor on the parole board asked Shaka’s father, “Who have you watched your son become?” His father described the transformation he’d witnessed through 18 years of letters. Shaka was granted parole.
Release and Building a Career
Released one day after his 38th birthday—he had been in prison for as long as he had been free.
Sold his first book out of his trunk in the parole office parking lot to another man coming home, who gave him more than half his cash.
Sold books everywhere: parks, strip clubs, churches, schools. Carried a backpack with 10 books and refused to go home until they were all sold.
Started reviewing music for a local newspaper after posting on Facebook that he needed to catch up on eight years of missed music. The paper gave him more assignments, then feature stories.
Became a fellow at MIT Media Lab. At an event in Utah, he sent 100 self-published books to be placed in swag bags. A woman at the event—former president of Harpo Studios—took one home, read it, and gave it to Oprah.
Oprah initially dismissed the book because of the author photo (tattoos, prison setting), but kept moving it around her house. On a flight from Chicago to LA, she picked it up, read 50 pages, and decided she wanted to interview him.
They spoke for 3.5 hours at Oprah’s house. She called it one of the best conversations of her life and gave Shaka her personal number. They developed a genuine friendship.
The Hidden Prisons Framework
How to Be Free is structured around the hardest emotions—grief, anger, shame—followed by the tools to overcome them: vulnerability, forgiveness, resilience, hope, love, joy, and success.
The book is patterned after how Shaka served time: starting in the hardest darkness and working toward light. Each chapter includes a “door” symbolizing that people move in and out of these emotional states.
Shaka argues that hidden prisons are often invisible because people compare their suffering to others’ and decide theirs isn’t “bad enough” to address. But unprocessed pain—whether from a breakup, a career disappointment, or childhood betrayal—operates in the background and wreaks havoc.
Examples of hidden prisons: the helicopter parent who never lets go, the lover who stays a friend out of comfort rather than love, the CEO who wears a mask of toughness, the person carrying childhood pain as invisible weight, toxic relationships clung to out of fear, and the cultural mindset of entitlement.
The tools are universal: journaling, meditation, mindfulness, exercise, structured routines, and writing through hard things. Shaka wrote the book during the pandemic after a Medium article he wrote for friends—“7 Things I Learned in Solitary Confinement You Can Apply Right Now”—went viral and led to a conversation with Oprah.
Forgiveness: The Hardest and Most Liberating Work
About five years into his sentence, Shaka received a letter from Nancy, the godmother of the man he killed. She described who David was—father, son, friend—and told Shaka she forgave him because “that’s what God would do.” At the time, he was too broken to accept the gift. He almost threw the letter away but kept it, reading it week after week for years until he was ready.
They corresponded for years. Nancy asked not just what happened but who was that 19-year-old kid with a gun—what led him down that path. This forced Shaka to examine himself with the rigor of Socratic inquiry.
At age 50, Shaka learned the identity of the man who had shot him at 17. A friend sent screenshots of a letter from the shooter, who was now serving life for murder. The man had been reading Writing My Wrongs in prison, realized he was the shooter from a story in the book, and wrote Shaka an apologetic letter taking responsibility for how Shaka’s life unfolded.
Shaka felt a flash of revenge—he had connections and could have had the man harmed—but sat with it. He decided not to write back, recognizing that forgiveness was for him, not for the shooter. Writing a letter would have felt performative. He looked up the man’s face online so he could close that chapter.
That experience inspired him to write a letter to his mother, recognizing that she had been abused as a child, had her first baby at 16, and had no framework for being any other kind of parent than the one she was.
Anger, Vulnerability, and Emotional Control
For years after prison, Shaka was terrified of anger because the last time he gave in to it, a man died. He practiced hypervigilance, suppressing any rising emotion.
His brother was killed in July 2021. In October 2021, his family’s puppy died under suspicious circumstances at a trainer’s facility. The trainer lied about what happened. Shaka’s rage was so intense he told his girlfriend he was going to drive over the trainer’s new puppy so the trainer could feel what it was like as a father.
Verbalizing that thought was a turning point: he recognized it as an irrational expression of real grief and injustice, not a genuine intent. He was able to say, “It’s okay to have an angry thought. I’m not going to act on it.” This was the beginning of a healthier relationship with anger.
He argues that perpetual anger usually masks something deeper—in his case, suppressed shame and childhood betrayals he had no language for as a kid. Once he separated what he was responsible for from what was done to him, the anger lost its grip.
Vulnerability, he says, is his greatest strength. It takes more courage to be emotionally available and honest than to wear a mask of toughness.
Culture Shock and Life After Prison
Described reentry as “Fred Flintstone walking into an episode of the Jetsons.” Didn’t know the difference between a Word document and the internet. Had panic attacks in crowded bars. Depth perception was skewed from years of walking in circles on a prison yard.
Driving was terrifying—he almost accidentally crossed into Canada with paper directions and a 1999 Civic. The pace of life, the noise, the technology were all overwhelming.
The first time he woke up alone in a house and heard birds chirping—something absent from prison because there were no trees—he sat in the kitchen drinking orange juice and cried. Rubbing a puppy for the first time in over 20 years, sitting under a shade of a tree, tasting good orange juice—these small details carried enormous weight.
Now 15 years out, life is surreal in the best way. He is a bestselling author, global speaker, and father. His wedding was featured in People magazine. Detroit opened the Shaka Senghor Literary Lounge, featuring his original prison manuscripts on the walls, where kids sit and read his work.
He finds the most joy in small things: watering plants, browsing a chaotic used bookstore called Sideshow Books, being present with his children, and traveling the world to mentor young people.
Prison Reform and Resources
Shaka gave How to Be Free to 1,300 prisons and jails via the Edovo platform, reaching close to a million incarcerated people, because the hard work of transformation must happen while people are still inside.
He launched a prison tour starting at Riker’s Island and has visited prisons in Ghana, Germany, London, and St. Martin. In Germany, he was stunned by a system that treats incarcerated people as still being citizens—they have constitutional rights to family access, community work, and social connection. A German warden wept when she learned he had spent seven years in solitary.
Recommended resources: Ava DuVernay’s 13th (the definitive film on the prison industrial complex), The Alabama Solution (a new film made with smuggled cell phones by incarcerated men in Alabama), Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, and Malcolm X’s autobiography.
Organizations to support: Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) in LA, Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan (which hosts the world’s largest exhibition of prison-based art every spring).
Key statistics: 70% of incarcerated people who return to prison are illiterate; only 6% receive reading education; those who gain literacy have a 16% recidivism rate versus 70% for those who remain illiterate. Shaka was paid 17 cents an hour for paralegal-level work in the prison law library.
He believes everyone should visit a prison, because society pays for the system and should understand what it funds.
