By – Brittany K. Barnett
Let me start by saying A Knock at Midnight is probably the best diary I have perused in quite a while and certainly a competitor for my best books of the year. In it, Brittany K. Barnett shares her astonishing life journey and simultaneously clarifies precisely how the “Battle on Drugs” unfairly incarcerated a huge number of Black, Brown and poor individuals. Barnett shares her initial encounters with drugs seeping her own locality, and how the law tried to punish the people respect to the degree of involvement.
Her mother spent more than one spell in prison, including two years in jail on drug charges. More than anything in her life, the heartbreak of visits to her mother in jail changed the course of Brittany’s life. Gradually she made the move from a vocation as a high paid corporate bookkeeper to a youthful lawyer battling to liberate individuals from an incredibly long, wildly unfair drug sentences.
What I cherished most about A Knock at Midnight was that Barnett put faces on the brutality of the “Battle on Drugs.” Last summer I read books by Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Neshi Coates, and others that discussed how the “100 to 1” laws began filling jails with Black and Brown individuals during the 80″s, destroying whole communities and filling our jail systems to flooding. In her journal, Barnett shares the practically mind-blowing number of individuals she battled to liberated from the Federal Justice System.
Their sentences were shocking, as the laws permitted an ever-increasing number of years to be heaped on, frequently with almost no proof. I learned so much from A Knock at Midnight, besides all this it had the “could not put it down” the nature of an extraordinary novel. I am so happy that I read this diary. Add this one to your list of MUST read!
