A lot has changed since 2021
A lot has changed since Bobby Bostic's last feature on the Pelipost blog in 2021. He was released on parole in November 2022 after serving 27 years of a 241-year sentence. Pelipost was part of his life on the inside, helping keep him connected with friends and family through photographs.
In Bobby's words
Bobby started using Pelipost during his sentence to receive pictures of his loved ones. He went to prison in 1995 at age 16. He was released at age 44, four months before writing this essay.
"I want to thank Pelipost for its wonderful service of helping prisoners like me to be able to get visuals of the free world. Words can't express how much prison separates us from the streets."
From inside a cell, Bobby describes pictures as more than decoration. They were anchor points. He wrote an entire chapter on the subject in his book Time: Endless Moments in Prison, and returns to the theme in his autobiography Humbled to the Dust: Still I Rise.
The message he kept coming back to
"Pictures are not motionless in prison. Pictures are our motion picture to the free world."
Bobby's mother used to tell him pictures are worth a thousand words. Inside, he says, they are worth much more. They are years of visual connection to a life that keeps moving without you, and proof that somebody is saving a place.
Follow Bobby's advocacy and writing at minddiamonds.net.