Mike was sent to prison in 1969 as a conscientious objector for refusing to be drafted into the Vietnam War. In Allenwood federal penitentiary in Pennsylvania, which did not allow phone calls, Mike’s world seemed to be getting smaller. Mike wrote letters and received visits, but the men around him became his primary social life.
As he earned a reputation in the prison for his bravery, he sought to be heard for his morality. Don’t take my TV, he would advise people of their pre-prison antics. Go to the TV store and take all the TVs. As was true of the larger movement brewing among Black incarcerated people at the time, his was a message of solidarity, not legality. The pimps tried to maintain detachment, claiming they never harmed their own sisters. But it’s somebody’s sister, Mike replied.
During his first winter in prison, Mike wrote a play about Black history, which incorporated passages from notable figures such as Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois. In recent years, Black educators and students around the country had transformed an early twentieth-century idea of “Negro History Week” into something called Black History Month. It didn’t yet have official buy-in, but students were using it as an organizing opportunity. Inspired by the idea, Mike hoped his play could educate folks incarcerated in Allenwood about the Black radical tradition. He had never fancied himself a writer. But the prison was full of outcast autodidacts who had learned to play guitar, write poetry, file lawsuits, or carve wood. Why couldn’t he try his hand at being a playwright?
He corralled other Black men incarcerated in Allenwood to help mount a production. Everyone kept at it, and they were able to perform it in front of the prison population. It was enough of a success that, when the next February drew near, Mike put together another play, this time with a number of other incarcerated men who wanted to honor one of their number who had been transferred elsewhere.
The result was Mirror on Lennox Avenue (1971), a satirical look at what sent people to prison. Ventriloquized through the characters and weaving in contemporary R&B music, the men reflected on the predatory crimes of poverty. Mirror on Lennox Avenue was the first time many people, including the participants, had seen a play. They loved the performance. The play drew from the well of incarcerated talent: men incarcerated in Allenwood had written, performed, and designed the entire play. Mike marveled that the set, a silhouette of downtown Manhattan, was fit for Broadway.