Book Talk: I am Maroon

About the Book

Russell Shoatz, III was born on May 7, 1967 to Thelma Christrian and Russell Shoatz Jr. He is well-versed in a multitude of healing modalities and restorative justice/equity practices. Russell has lived a life of unique complexities that are the sum total of resilience. His father, a Black Panther, was imprisoned in 1972. Russell championed the campaign to free his father. 

Russell Shoatz was a gang member in inner Philadelphia starting at age eleven. But at twenty-three, after hearing Malcolm X speak, his life changed course. Shoatz would become a lifelong crusader for justice, a soldier in the most militant units of the Black Liberation Army, and a community organizer who was

constantly brushing up against the notorious Frank Rizzo and his police commandos in Philly. As the struggle for self-determination among Black communities intensified, Shoatz was convicted to life in prison following a coordinated attack in…