History

The Great Books prison outreach program traces its beginning to 1999, when Thomas McNeely, an attorney living in Natchez, Mississippi, and already part of the Natchez Great Books Club, decided to launch a book group for prisoners in the nearby Woodville prison. He chose the Introduction to Great Books series as texts for discussion.

In 2003, following conversations between McNeely and Daniel Born, then the Foundation's vice president for postsecondary programs, a systematic effort began to start more book groups for prisoners. The result was new contacts in Mississippi and, later on, Tennessee. There, Sharmila Patel, the education director for the Tennessee Department of Correction, and Philip Phillips, an English professor at Middle Tennessee State University, led the way in launching three prison book groups.

The Foundation now counts seven prison book groups—four in Tennessee and three in Mississippi—among its more than 800 affiliated book groups, most of which meet in more conventional settings such as churches, libraries, and homes.