Synopsis

 "Freedom Road" is a barren stretch of road that leads into and out of a
 women's maximum-security prison. For those coming out, it symbolizes
 freedom but for those going in, it is just the opposite. Yet for the some of
 the incarcerated women, freedom has been redefined as that which can be
 attained—through the power of the pen.

 "Freedom Road" is a half-hour length portrait of imprisoned women who have
 liberated their voices through writing and sharing their life-stories. As
 participants in a memoir writing workshop called "Woman is the Word" 
 these women  have come to recognize the liberating power of writing and 
 telling their own stories. Fusing interviews with the women, their instructors
 and family members with verite footage of classroom discussion "Freedom
 Road" contrasts some of the systemic forces which have helped shape the
 destinies of these women: poverty, undereducation, domestic abuse with the
 liberating effect of claiming and re-telling their life story.

 Ultimately, "Freedom Road" examines the devastating impact of increasing
 imprisonment for the poor and underprivileged, and how such policies
 contribute to the recycling of people through the criminal justice system. 

Photo by Chris Pedota

 The Origins of “Woman of the Word”

 While an English professor at Eastern Illinois University in 1998, Professor 
 Michele Lise Tarter set up a classroom in one the most unlikely places 
 imaginable—a woman’s maximum-security prison.  “I loved it so much I  
 realized I was never going to stop,” she said. 

 So when Tarter later relocated to The College of New Jersey, she brought her 
 passion; in 2001, she created a memoir-writing workshop called “Woman is
 the Word” at a women's maximum-security prison in New Jersey.  Each
 semester, she takes along a few students and supervises the teaching
 projects that they create for the women as part of an independent study. 
 Every Thursday morning for two straight hours, Tarter and her students go to
 the prison to teach 15 women, all of whom sign up for the program at will
 and have probably spent over a year on a waiting list.

 Although the women in the course initially reject the idea of writing their life
 story, Tarter said that they eventually build up the courage to do so after
 reading and discussing autobiographies from across the ages as a group. 
 According to Tarter, the initial difficulty results from the fact that “no one’s
 ever asked them to tell their own story in their own words.  The courts and
 attorneys have rewritten it and in prison they’re silenced and suppressed.”

 Each woman is assigned a student from the College who types up her 
 memoirs, then prints them on elegant paper and binds them in a book, which
 is presented to her upon graduating the course. 

 “When we are in that room,” Tarter said, “good things happen.”  When the
 women receive their books, she said they feel a deep sense of achievement,
 whether evident through the cheering at their graduation ceremony or the
 looks on their faces.

 Capturing the Journey on Film

 Filmmaker Lorna Johnson, a Communications Studies professor at the 
 College, called Tarter one day and pitched the idea for creating a
 documentary on “Woman is the Word.”  Initially, Tarter doubted the
 feasibility of the project and how it would be received by the prisoners and
 their security guards. 

 However, Johnson accompanied Tarter and her students to the prison one
 week and introduced herself to the women in the workshop.  She won their
 trust and, after securing the prison’s permission, began filming in October
 2002.  The film was completed in August 2004.