Throughout his narrative, Cleaver describes not only his transformation from a marijuana dealer and serial rapist into a convinced Malcolm X adherent and Marxist revolutionary, but also his analogous relationship to the politics of America.

While imprisoned at Soledad, Cleaver obtained his high school diploma and read the works of Thomas Paine, Richard Wright, Lenin, Machiavelli, Karl Marx, Voltaire, Malcolm X, and W. E. B.

[4][5] When he arrived at Folsom, he began to regularly write freely upon the subject of his "social" and physical imprisonment and the events of the era; eight years later his lawyer, Beverly Axelrod, took the compositions to Ramparts and they were immediately published.

"[7] Cleaver uses the informal essays to navigate through the history and present state of America, covering topics such as the murders of Malcolm X and Emmett Till; the race riots and Vietnam War; U.S. Foreign Policy and the American Flag; Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King Jr. and other "black celebrities;" Richard Wright's Native Son; Islam and Christianity; day-to-day prison life; and the relationship between black men and white women.

[8] In the book, Cleaver admitted to raping black girls as a "practice run" before seeking white women as prey, but claims that in jail he had come to consider those acts as inhuman and, inspired by Malcolm X, had repudiated racism.