ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The life of Fred A. Winn

About the Author

The life of Fred A. Winn

I grew up in church. An African American Church, although I was unaware of that term at the time. I was baptized at age eight by Pastor E. Ollison (who was also my uncle). My family and extended family attended Sunday School at 9:30 AM and Morning Worship Service at 11:00 AM each Sunday. We returned to Church on Sunday evening for Youth Meeting at 6:00 PM, followed by Evening Worship at 7:30 PM. That was just Sundays. We also attended services during the week.

My name is Fred Winn. I was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and lived there for the first three decades of my life. Although my immediate family was small, my father’s parents had over forty grandchildren. We all went to church. I thought this was normal. I thought everyone had forty or so first cousins and their parents that worshiped together. Although I still hold to the teaching I received in my youth, I do not self-identify as an evangelical.

I studied Library and Information Science at the University of California at Berkeley. In the mid-1980s, I accepted a Senior Librarian Position with the California Department of Corrections in Monterey County. I left the familiar Frisco Bay for the California Central Coast, exchanging the known for the unknown, and stayed for nearly 25 years.

As the librarian at Central Facility, I was responsible for maintaining the court-mandated law collection and the general and college collections for the inmate population. Most of the inmates entering the library had minimal library experience before coming to prison. I found it professionally rewarding to provide much-needed services for this underserved group.

Over the years, I have witnessed more than one inmate enter the library for the first time (with their class) as a ‘basic non-reader and several years later obtain a GED. I think I played a small part in their growth and development by providing the necessary tools to broaden their horizons and help expose them to a different worldview—a world beyond drugs, gangs, and crime. The inmates making the change did the work, and the teachers, other employees, and I provided the spark.