Each time a door clangs shut behind us, my heart races a little faster. We’ve taken off our shoes, belts, and jewelry to get through security, handed over our IDs, and left phones and laptops in the car.
We’re winding our way through a forest of fences topped with concertina wire that surround a series of bland, beige buildings. I try to open one of the doors, forgetting for a moment that we must get buzzed through each one.
Walking beside me is Winfield Ward Murray, a member of the Morehouse College faculty who drives more than an hour south every Friday night through rush-hour traffic to this building in the Burruss Correctional Training Center outside Forsyth. The medium security state prison is home to 800 male inmates, from juvenile offenders to old men, and it’s where Murray teaches a weekly class about the U.S. Constitution and race and law…