Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned Themes

Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned Themes

Socrates achieves his job success because he patiently persists to be true to himself, to achieve what is right despite rules as absurd as those on the Bounty application. "If I don't work I cain't afford no phone," he says. "If I don't have no phone then I cain't work. You might as well just put me in the ground."

Socrates applies in his life the critical understanding he gained not long after he left prison, when he wandered into the Capricorn Bookshop one day hoping for air conditioning. He found there "the Afro-American literature." He learned that there were "black cowboys" and "black scientists and war heroes and con men." Socrates was free to stay and discuss what he read with the owners and clientele, and it was the turning point for him. "Twenty-three years angry and poor, twenty-seven more in prison, and then all of a...
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