A man wearing a traditionally patterned headwrap and glasses looking left. Yellow title stacked right, white subtitle and author name below. A man wearing a traditionally patterned headwrap and glasses looking left. Yellow title stacked right, white subtitle and author name below.

Size: 5.5 x 8.25
Pages: 200
Illustrations:

Civil Rights
 Memoir & Biography
 African American Studies
 paperback
 ebook
 Forthcoming
 Books
 Open Access Ebook

Justice Is Worth the Journey, paperback original

My Road from Imprisonment to Empowerment

paperback original

Kamau Marcharia

Paperback
978-1-64336-623-4
Published: Feb 2 2027

$22.99

Hardcover

 Published:

Spiral Bound

 Published:

Ebook
978-1-64336-689-0
 Published: Feb 2 2027

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OA Ebook
978-1-64336-689-0
 Published: Feb 2 2027

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The inclusion of this book in the Open Carolina collection is made possible by the generous funding of University of South Carolina Libraries

A powerful memoir of incarceration and transformation

Born Robert Lewis in rural South Carolina and raised in deep poverty in New Jersey, Kamau Marcharia came of age amid racism and violence. At nineteen, he was wrongly convicted of assault and sentenced to decades in prison. What transpired during his incarceration was a profound personal and political awakening.

After his release from prison, Marcharia helped found the Ad Hoc Parole Committee, supporting incarcerated people as they navigated a complicated and capricious parole system. Returning to South Carolina, he became a tireless grassroots organizer who confronted racial injustice and police abuse in some of the state's most neglected communities. As director of Fairfield United Action, and later as a member of Fairfield County Council, he demonstrated that deliberate, community-based struggle can challenge entrenched power—and win.

Justice Is Worth the Journey is the story of a life defined by resilience and hard-earned wisdom. Marcharia offers a rare, ground-level view of post-civil rights activism that can serve as a model for community organizing rooted in courage, commitment, and collective action.



Kamau Marcharia is a grassroots political activist who has worked as a community organizer for more than fifty years. He was director of Fairfield United Action and, from 1999 – 2017, served as a member of County Council in Fairfield County, South Carolina.

"In the tradition of classic African American prison and activist narratives, Justice is Worth the Journey tells the story of an unsung organizer whose life demonstrates how political consciousness is forged through struggle."—W. Lawrence Hogue, University of Houston

"This memoir is unique in that the author's life syncs up with many of the major trends in the civil rights movement. This memoir covers the gamut of the world of civil rights activism in the mid-to-late twentieth century. Kamau Macharia certainly has lived an incredible life and has done better for more people than most people ever will."—John Paul Kelleher, Cecil College