Antonne Henshaw was recently accepted to Rutgers-Camden for graduate school. He discusses the struggles of his early childhood and selling drugs by the time he was in middle school. Antonne was incarcerated for thirty years. During this time, he was involved in the creation of NJSTEP.
“And, for the first time in my life being incarcerated, that day of the graduation was the only, that’s the freest I’ve ever felt, ...”
Annotations
Learn More : “Founding and Jurisdiction.” History, State of New Jersey Office of the Public Defender, accessed 2020.
Learn More [2] : “Apply For a Public Defender.” State of New Jersey Office of the Public Defender, accessed 2020.
Learn More [3] : Nix, Naomi. “Fee for Public Defender Jumps $150 in Newark.” Essex, NJ.com, NJ Advance Media, last modified March 29, 2019.
Learn More : “Parole Hearings.” U.S. Parole Commission, U.S. Department of Justice, last modified Sept. 11, 2015.
Learn More [2] : “Overview.” About Us, New Jersey State Parole Board, last modified Oct. 22, 2020.
Learn More [3] : O’Dea, Colleen. “Explainer: Inside Look at How Parole Really Works in New Jersey.” Social, NJ Spotlight News, Feb. 4, 2020.
Transcript
Interview conducted by John Keller
New Brunswick , NJ
June 19th, 2019
Transcription by Ryan Neely
Annotations by Nora Mohamed
00: 00: 00
This is John Keller with CoLab Arts, um; it is June 19th, 2019. We're located at first reform church here in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Uh and uh we're here with--
Antonne Henshaw.
Great, Antonne if you don't mind sharing, uh, what's your birthday?
My birthdate is October 17, 1969.
Great, and where were you born?
I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Great. Um, were there any, are there any kind of like uh, family stories that you ah, where you were told about the--your birthdate or when you were born?
Umm, I was told that when I was born, um…they weren't ready for me.
(Laughter)
And I just had all of this energy and just, li--, and it's just like I came in the world at a time of, uh, a lot of things going on and...Just, I was a busy body as a baby, I required a lot of attention, I had a lotta energy and it was like...constantly attentive to everything I’d do, like, if nobody was paying me any mind, I would yell, "yo I'm over here" like as a baby, just screaming out and...That’s pretty much what they told me about me, but, you know...I didn't--I didn't, I didn't seem to--seem to think that fit...cause of the way I was growing up, I became introverted, I...you know, but only became extroverted when I played sports or...musical instruments or...performing or something like that. Anything academic, or performing then I would...I would see that energy.
Yea
...But as far as everyday life I was…I—eh--I was introverted. I---very seldom, I didn't speak...
0:02:00.9
.... well...bad thing happened, my mother left us. And when she left us I think I was 2. I didn't talk until I was 4. So I guess, from that traumatic experience and then, I guess that kinda changed my energy and my path and my trajectory. Um, they took us...back from my father, took us to my mother, and...She left again when I was four. I didn't see my mother again until I was 12. And...when I saw her at 12 , I didn't recognize her; I didn't know that that was my mother. And...My father, and my mother, we were at---unfortun--unfortunately, we were at a McDonald's on 17th and Allegheny in North Philadelphia. And...she walked up and she said, um, she said "hi" and this and that, I'm looking at her like, who are you? And she was like, "You don't remember me?" And I was like, "No, who are you?" And…she started crying, and I was like, y'know, looking at my dad and my dad is not saying anything so I'm like, this must be somebody important and...She was like "I didn't mean for you to forget me." And I'm like, "forget who?" And she was like, "I'm your mom." And in my mind, the person that I remember how beautiful she was, how...her, her hair was to the floor and back up, um....she was a...a Blackfoot Indian mixed with Cherokee and African American, so she had this real long, beautiful hair that came all the way down to the floor. She had this evening, um… skin color, that was just radiant and...In those eight years like, life just tore her up and it wasn't the person, and then it wasn't until she smiled that I realized that that was my mom. And when she smiled, she was like "what's wrong?" I said, "I know who you are now." And she was like, "how?" I said, "It wasn't until you smiled." And she was like, "You remember me from my smile?" I was like, "I remember the smile." But you know--and then your mind that's encoded from a baby, so when it was in the smile and...she was like "I'm so sorry." And, you know, she apologized for everything and for a lotta years I carried that, ah-I--because it didn't happen until I was born so I thought that, I--I carried that--that thing was she didn't leave until I was born, so it was something about me, even though it had nothing to do with me, but I carried that for years.
0:04:39.0
So when, uh, so as like a, as a younger kid, when you were--you were born, what was the family structure like at home? So, you said you were the youngest one, so there were older siblings in the house?
Well, I had an older brother at that time, so it was him and I and...
And then both of your parents?
And my--no, I didn't know who my father was, cause my father wasn't there, I only knew my mother, so at that point they were already married and then...when my mother abandoned us the first time, that's who came and got me was my father and my grandmother--his mother--Lucille Henshaw--and...that’s when I didn't know them, so I wouldn't talk to 'em, so they would have my brother talk to me. And they would like, I learnt just later, that they would stand by the door, just to hear my voice, cause I would never talk. And we would a been in the bathtub or we would be in the room, and they would get him to get me to talk, and they would realize that, it's not that he can't talk, he doesn't know us, so he is not gonna talk to us. And...And that's when they started, you know, and then, um, to their credit they didn't pressure me, they let me when he eventually, like my grandmother, said my first words to her were "Yes. Yes please!" And...and I used to always say shit like "I'll never forget the first words you ever said to me" and it was like, out of, like she said it just happened so naturally and she--sh--I think she asked me did I want, um, she made these, um, peach preserves--we had a peach tree in the back yard and she had--she would make preserves out of 'em. And we were having peanut butter and jelly and she said, "Do you want preserve--the peach preserves on your peanut butter and jelly?" And I said, "yes, please." And she called my dad immediately like "He spoke me to me, he talked to me!" and that was the most exciting time in our life and she never forgot that.
0:06:40.2
Um, when you were, uh, so when you were born you were born in Philadelphia--?
Yes--
And then when you were two and your dad came to get you, where did you move to?
He moved us--we still were in Philadelphia for a while--and then we moved to Camden. Camden, New Jersey. And my brother--
Do you remember how old you were when you moved to Camden?
I was, think I was four. So we stayed from, from what I remember being born, my first memories are Philadelphia, uh, Park Avenue, um, and Glenwood. Park Ave and Glenwood. In North Philadelphia, right on the side of Joe Frazier's gym [Transcriber Note: Joe Frazier was an American Boxer and the undisputed heavyweight champion from 1970 to 1973] where Joe Frazier's gym used to be. Um, I remember that we were right in front of the, uh, firehouse, I remember the firehouse, like, you know, and when I got old enough to go back I knew exactly where the house was and they were like, "he remembers everything." And it was a, um, restaurant on the street on the--on the corner they used to make these hamburgers that I loved as a kid, and they moved it across the street. And what was there, was a Laundromat. I was like "the Laundromat wasn't there" and they was like "how does he remember this?" I was like, "so where happened to the restaurant?" but I smelt the hamburgers and it was across the street on Park Ave now and I walked across, and I walked in and the man knew, the ma—uh--Me and my mother are like twins, we're spitting images, it's so crazy when I go back to North Philadelphia, I'm walking down the street and they'll say "Hi Sandra."
0:08:12.2
Easily. And I'll be like; I don't even know these people, "how do you know? "And it's like "you look just like your mom. You smile just like her." You know what I mean, and I'm just like, I would--I remember, um...being in the supermarket and a lady walked up to me and she just started talking to me and I'm just looking at her and I, now, begin to like, like get real hesitant, and I'm like "how do you even know me?" She was like, "If you ain't Sandra's son--" I don't know how like, I couldn't see it, but I see it now.
How old were you when stuff like that would happen?
This was about 13, 14, stuff like that, so when my f--my, my father wouldn't allow us to go back with my mother until she signed the divorce papers and then she sign--she signed the papers for him having, um, sole custody of us. So what happened with before when she left the first time, he never went to court and got a court order for our custody, so when they took us back from him and he went to try to get the police involved, they were like "there's nothing we can do."
So what was the, so, your, you said your mom kind of first left when you were 2--
Right--
And your dad and your grandmother came to get you, so that's from 2 to 4--
Right--
And then your mom came back when you were 4?
When we were 4, and I had had a little sister then.
And then did you move with your mom?
They took us, and we put us--gave us back to our mom. So my grandfather owned a house, he owned property in Philadelphia, in West Philadelphia, on Wyalusing Avenue and he gave her a house and gave us--gave me and my brother back. So it was me and my brother and my baby sister and...We were all together, and this and that, and then when my dad tried to come get us again, it was like, we were, were taken, and he couldn't get us back so he tried to go through the courts, but he had no legal standing, so the next time after she left this time my grandfather had to like, ok, you, you, you, you, you wound up my dad and now you can't take care of us and he took us from him---
(Phone Rings)
I'm sorry, let me turn this phone off--
No worries. Do you need to get it?
Nah…I keep forgetting to turn these off, but um…
So, uh, who was the--was child protective services that were getting involved?
You know, you talking about--
Just family--
This-- You're talking about '71, '72, so I don't really--
Yea, sure--
--at that time. I don't even know what was happening in Philadelphia at that time.
0:10:55.5
So, um, what was your...you shared their stories about, you know, kind of first living with your dad and your grandmother, what was that relationship like? Did you-Did you have a good relationship with them?
Well, my--my--at that time, what my grandmother, like...I would say she was one of the very few besides my mother's father who really understood me. You know, like you just gotta let him go through what he goes through, and trying to force him into something that he doesn't want to do, he doesn't care what the consequences are, he's just not going to do it, and...my father would have a hard time just like, you know, he was an authoritarian. Um, what I say, you gonna do what I say, and uh duh duh, or there's nothing else, so--but he learned real quick that you know--you know, my--I think my grandmother spanked me one time, in my entire life. My, my mother's father never hit me and they could not understand, but like, sh-my, my, my father's mother was like "why is it that they can tell him to do something and he does it, and I tell him to do something and he doesn't do it? And he doesn't care about the consequences of not doing it. You can threaten him, you can beat him, you can do whatever and it's not--and...my, my grandmother sh--and my grandfather, um...even though they were on both sides they had saw something very early and it's that if you talk to him, and if you listen to him, he'll listen to you. But if you don't listen to him, he's not gonna listen to you. And they understood, like, whatever it was, just hear him out. And then, and it's like, ok, well, and they'll say, "well, ok, I get what you're saying, but still you can't do this." But at least I was heard. And there was--there were adults in my life that were constantly, "you do what your told, ah duh duh duh duh duh duh" but as if to say--they was--my grandmother and my grandfather would say, "you don't realize, he has an old soul" like, "he has the ability to communicate at--even at that young age, on a level to where, he get it if you just take your time and explain why it is as opposed to just saying 'because I said so.'"
0:13:24.5
So most adults felt as though they don’t have to explain what they need t--uh--to a child. And whenever I encountered that I would shut down and, well it's whatever, so you're shutting down I'm shutting down.
How much older was your brother?
My brother is--I'm 49, he's 51, he's about to be 52, I'm about to be 50, so he's about 2 years older.
So you're still pretty close in age?
Yea, but not in relationship.
Yea.
So, you know, he...with me being away so long, and...him... ... the strain on our relationship has always been me and him, until my sister came. So for me, when I went away...like, it was no support from him, it was no support, but what I had to learn was, not too many people can deal with incarceration. And people deal with it in a way, so I had to learn to forgive him, so like for the last 15 years of my incarceration he has not been a part of my life, and then when I came home he got jealous of my best friend who was a part of my life the entire incarceration and he's like--you know he would complain to our family like "he's just a friend, he's not his brother, I'm his brother, he can't take my place." And I was like, "nah, that ain't the point. It's not about him taking your place. He supported me and came to see me and visited me and wrote me the entire 30 years. You were gone for the last 15. And I'm not mad at you, but now don't impose a relationship." Like, if it's gonna happen it's gonna happen organically, let it happen naturally, but we haven't had a discussion even as grown men about stuff that happened as kids, and stuff that happened while I was away. So until that conversation happens, I mean, I've forgiven him and I've moved on but--I'm, I'm not--he's not a priority. I feel as though I wasn't a priority and I'm here, you know what I mean, and I'm doing the work that I enjoy and I love and we're in two different fields, so we're not gonna be in, in, in contact unless you're gonna come, um, when I'm speaking, or when I'm, um, doing a community event, you know, and even here, out--you haven't said, "yo, what are you doing this weekend? Um, are you going somewhere or can I come?" You know, he hasn't expressed, but my best friend is like, "yo, whatch'all doing this weekend?" I'm like, "yo, we having an open house in Camden on the 22nd, come through if you can from 12 to 5." He was like, "alright, I'll be there."
Hm.
But my brother...no interest. So--and it's--it's sad, but it is, it is what it is.
0:16:06.4
When you were, so, your mom came back when you were 4, then you moved back in with her, and then she, you said she left again?
Yes.
Um, did you get a sense of where she was during this period of time?
Nah, we never knew what happened but the last, the--the one where she left when we were 4 we had our sister now, so she left my sister and us. So...and it was the most heartbreaking conversation that I ever listened to from my aunt. So now they’re all over my grandfather’s house, my aunts--her--my mother's sisters. And they're trying to decide what to do with us. Everybody's fighting over my sister, but nobody wanted to take me and my brother. So they actually broke us up and for years, um...it was a devaluing type of--I interpreted--like I said--I carried a lot of stuff from my childhood that really had nothing to do with me, but because no one--and I didn't talk--so I would never tell anybody this. And they only started learning this as an adult and then they were like, "why, why didn't you say something? I woulda never let you live your life thinking that way." And again, when you're introverted, you just hold. You know what I mean? And then there was--it wasn't until I learned later, like, I'm carrying things needlessly and then most of the people that I'm carrying it about, don't even know it exists. So I'm actually blaming people who don't even know, that--what I perceive that they did wrong, that they did anything wrong.
And it wasn't until I started talking to them, I started getting closure, and I started healing, and was like--it was like, "no it wasn't that, it was that we didn't know what to do with you, ah, as you--your brother was getting ready to start school. You were starting school after. We didn't have birth certificates, we didn't have social security cards." And then it began to make sense. "How do we justify, she was just born. We can go down and get a social security card and get a birth certificate. You know, and we don't have to do the child protective custody stuff. With you guys, it would've been totally different. Your father had all of that stuff, we didn't have anything." So, my mother was able to register my brother in school in Philly, but I never went to school in Philly, I went to school in Camden.
0:18:29.2
So, when-- you had mentioned your--your aunts on your mom's side, was there any other extended family around at the time?
Mmm, no.
How many aunts did you--
Umm at that time, I--I had a--I, um--it was my two aunts, my older aunts. My Aunt, um, Diane and my Aunt Linda and they were...arguing over my sister Mikasa. And we were sitting on the steps. And we're looking and they told us to go upstairs and we're sitting on the steps and we're looking at this, I'm looking at my brother and he's looking at me and I'm like, "they don't want us." And he was like, "so what?" And I was like, he was like, "daddy gonna come get us." And...I remember the next coupla days my, my dad did come get us and we moved back t--back to Camden. You know, but at the same time I always wanted to be with my mother and my father couldn't understand, she left you twice. And he would, like, say stuff like that growing up. "How do you want to be with somebody who left you?" And then I would as--growing up I would talk to my grandmother, even though I didn't accept it, um, she would tell me like, "your mother went through a lot, and...she was sick, and...she had a lot to deal with, and... ...having you guys early."--I didn't know she had my brother at 16, had me at 17. And then she got married at 16. So I didn't know, like, these are the stories that you don't hear about. You had a marriage in the house, like, back then if you got a girl pregnant you married her. And you married her wherever it was, almost like a shotgun wedding, but in the city. And, they were married and I actually seen, um, ah--one of my pictures of her is at the wedding when she was pregnant with my brother, and then there's a picture of her where my brother was born and she's sitting on a porch and I'm in her stomach. And, you know, like, and I'll be like--for a lotta times I've never seen pictures of me as a child and I should think I was adopted cause of this stuff and then when I started seeing the pictures and all the different stuff, like, memories, like a lotta that stuff from a lotta trauma suppressed 'em. But then when I started seeing the pictures, ok, I remember this and it just starts triggering things. But then if something bad is attached to it, I just wouldn't be like, I--I wouldn't even let myself unlock it. I would just be like, "yea I don't remember that one." You know, so, but she...(Sighs), she was beautiful. Um...I couldn't of picked a better mother to come through---come into this world through and she had her problems just like everybody else, and that was the biggest thing for my grandmother, trying to get me to understand and like, she would always say that. And then one day, while I was away, I--I was like I get it. I get it. And then I just, in that moment, in that space I was able to forgive her and move on.
0:21:42.8
How old were you?
I think I was, I wanna say, I was in my 30s before I finally could forgive her. So from 4 when I realized that--I--I realized that too, but I always used to think that she just went to the store. And it wasn't at 4 until she left again and then one day we were, I think I was about 14, we were in the supermarket and I couldn't find her, and I thought she did it again. And, like I panicked, and I'm running around the store looking for her. And when I finally found her, she was like, "what's wrong?" She looked at me, my face. And I just said, "nothing, I'm ok." And she said, "what's wrong?" And I was like, "I thought you left again." She's like "I'm never gonna leave you again, you ok. You Ok." And I was like, "wow" but this was at the supermarket, something totally unrelated cause I didn't see her. She went down an aisle, and I went another way and I went to come back to that aisle and she wasn't there.
This when you were 4?
No, 14.
Oh, when you're 14.
And I panicked--
Yea--
Like, Oh My God, she did the same thing as she did as to, us at, 4 at 14. And there wasn't--she just went another way. She was like "Oh no, there's a little cut through over here." And I didn't see the cut through, and I lost it. And I was like "uh, uh." Like, "I'm gonna cuss her out" under like--do--in my mind, you took me to the supermarket to leave me in the supermarket, knowing that I would be safe and I could get back home. Even though I wasn't living with her, I was still living with my father. And there wasn't nothing for me to just call my dad, "yo, I'm at the supermarket, I don't know where she at." But, it wasn't that, and I knew--and it wasn't until I said that that she realized like, "ok, I can't just walk away from him and leave him in places when we're out." And she never did it again, she was like ok, she was like, make sure he sees me. And...and that's just what it was. I guess that I was a Momma's Boy, but I didn't know it, but it turned out to be that way--my aunts' hated that. It's like "Oh my god, like, he won't eat unless Sandra makes his plate. He won't go to the store for us, unless Sandra tells him to go to the store. Like, like, when he gets around her he's just...this baby. Like, if his mom tells him whatever his mom tells him and like..." Even after all of that happened, she-- that's one of the things that she loved about me, like no matter what, he loves me, he...cares for me, and what I think about him is more important than anything like, he--he'll--I'll be around all of them, they'll call me all of this--all kinds of crazy stuff and long as she didn't, I was good with it. It was only a matter of what I look like in her eyes.
0:24:31.6
So...you were both, both sides of your family were living in Philadelphia and you moved to, when you were 2 you moved in with your dad, and then your dad moved to Camden--
Right--
And then, your mom came back and you moved back in with your mom in Philadelphia.
Right.
And then when you were 4 you went back with your dad--
Right--
In Camden, and that's where you started school?
Yes.
And then, what was--what was that like, what was like..?
Well, that was...Cooper Point was, Ms. Fenderson, Mr. Thomashevist, those were my principles. My--Ms. Ms. Fenderson was the principle, Mr. Thomashevist was the assest--assistant principal. And they were two of the most beautiful educators I ever came across cause they knew everybody's name, they knew everybody's parents, and they were actively engaged in the life, in and out of school. So, for my first couple of years of school, I went to school every day. I never missed, I got perfect attendance. Um...excellent, um, grades, and...never missed a day of school, I think, I--first time I missed a day a school was probably 3rd grade...And that was like towards the end, and I missed perfect attendance by may--I think, maybe 2 days and that was because of doctors appointments. And, but uh...beautiful school, cried like a baby when I graduated, um...and went to, uh, middle school because we moved from--we moved from North Philadelphia to West Philadelphia. And from West Philadelphia we moved...to North Camden. And, we moved 805 North Front Street in North Camden, um... on State Street is where Cooper Point is, right down the street from my house, two blocks. And, loved the school, loved the environment, all--uh--ah--pretty much all my friends that are still alive from Cooper Point we're still tight. That's how...community driven and nurturing that environment was. To this day, it's like, the relationships are still powerful and they're still strong. So, they...they really...made an educational impact and then the summertime they didn't just let you go out and just empty summer. No, they had summer program, they took us to Rutgers Camden, and things like that. And I used to tell Ms. Fenderson, you know, when I grow up and I graduate from here and...she was like "you keep going to school every day and getting good grades, you can go to any school in this country." And...I went about it the long way, but I graduated from Rutgers Newark, as opposed to Rutgers Camden, but I just got admitted to Rutgers Camden for graduate school for this fall.
Great, congratulations.
0:27:22.3
So--thank you--but, um, I always held Ms. Fenderson dear and close to my heart. We used to see her at Penn's Landing [Transcribers Note: Penn’s Landing is a waterfront area of Center City Philadelphia along the Delaware River. Its name commemorates the landing of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania] in Philadelphia at Jazz Concerts during the summer. And we would run up to her, me and my brother, and we would run up to her, and...her family like, all of these kids wherever we go just run up to you and just...and she used to have these big rolls of rulers with rubber bands, and, you know--and parents would give permission for her to discipline you, you know. And it's'll--be like, you don't wanna seem them rulers Ms. Fenderson got. I never got a, I never got hit by Ms. Fenderson with the rulers or nothing like that cause she was... she was, she was...she was, stern, but she was fair and she was honest and you could trust her. Like, you would just wouldn't arbitrarily just go in there and she would do something because she could. But, she was a good educator, and...it--it made me love school, but when we moved to East Camden, that's when...like, I--you moved me away from my comfort zone, and my friends, and I had to make new friends, I'm living in a housing project that is notorious for drugs, gangs, um...fighting.
[ Annotation 1 ]
Where had you lived before you--so when you were in elementary school, were you living in a house or...?
No, we were living in, a, in a housing project called John Wesley Village in North Camden. But it was right around the corner from the school, so I didn't have that far to go. So we were good, and North Camden was like, everybody knew each cause it was only, I think, North Camden, is only maybe ten blocks. It's a small section, but it's, it's more wider than it is long. So, it goes just to the Tenth Street Bridge and that's all North Camden, and coming back. So, and...we had, uh...I really, I think I may have had, in elementary school from kindergarten to fifth grade, I may have had 3 fights. 3. And my entire elementary school experience, but when I got to--when we moved from John Wesley Village to...uh...McGuire Gardens housing project in East Camden, first day outside got stabbed with a screwdriver in my side.
0:29:55.4
Fightin' and all this, carrying on and a Phillip head screwdriver, guy threw it, and this and that and it was like oh my god. And now I'm learning how to navigate a new landscape, new politics, new street codes, and stuff like that, like we didn't--we didn't have these experiences, so--and even going to school. Now I'm in--I'm no longer in elementary school, I'm going to school in middle school with people that if you weren't from my project I didn't know you. So they already got cliques from elementary school that they already went to. All my people are in--uh--Pine Point in North Camden. So, I'm in East Camden middle, middle school and I'll, if you're not living where I live, we walk to school together every day to keep from getting jumped by 28th Street, Leonard Street, all these different street, Carmen Street. Like, you gotta walk and navigate these social landmines to get back and forth as a collective and you--your hierarchy was based on what you did in the projects. So, here it is, I'm first there, me and my brother, I--my first day there I get stabbed with a screwdriver, so...and, but the thing to my credit, I didn't tell, I didn't do all of this and that, so he solid, but he could walk to school. And I'm walking to school everyday with the guy that stabbed me with the screwdriver. You know, and wound up being a good friend, good graphic artist. Um, I think he does work for DreamWorks [Transcriber Note: DreamWorks is an American animation studio that is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures. It produces animated feature films, television programs, and online virtual games including Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon franchises among others], that's how good of an artist he was, for cartoons and stuff like that. But, um…fun turn out when I came home. I mean we been buddies way before that, but it wasn't, you know, and...it turned out like, for East Middle, um...that was the first place I ever got a F. And it was my last, uh, marking period in 8th grade on my way to high school. I got an F in English. I couldn't tell you what a verb was, I couldn't tell you what a noun, or any parts a speech to the sentence and I was getting over a for a long time, just passing through, and my English --I can't remember his name, but he...he finally gave me a grade that was commensurate with wh--with what my work was. Like, he was like; you have absolutely no clue about what a verb or a noun in a sentence was. You couldn't even tell me, like; I wouldn't be able to tell you what an adjective or a pronoun was.
What grade were you?
And this was--8th, 8th grade. So, but--I, I--prior to that all AT classes, I don't know how I did it. Well, I read very well, so...but when it came to English, English was just average, but Math, Science and um...Math, Science and History and Social Studies were my, my, my go to. Like, and they knew that, and it was like, you know, I was doing Algebra in 5th grade and...It, it was to the point where...school...became my safe place, where I could be me. And I-nobody could tell me what to do or how fast to go or, or anything like that. And...uh...outside of my home life, that was the place that I fit in the most.
0:33:36.6
And then, so you finished up, so it was basically what, like, 6th, 7th, 8th grade in that school--
Right. Right--
Um, and then...uh...what was, what was the transition like into, into high school?
Well, the transition into high school, for me, was drastic--
And--I'm sorry, and not--I didn't mean to interrupt you there. So it was like, so then you reconnected with your mom when you were 12, right?
Right.
So that was, in the sa--during middle school.
Right, during middle school.
And then--how--what was you relationship like then, at that point when you--when you were reconnected with her, 12, did you see her regularly?
Anytime I wanted. Anytime I wanted.
Was she living in Camden?
No, she lived in Philly. So, I would go, and that's when my dad, when he--I would just go back and forth, between her and him. And...we'd been riding public transportation since we were 4, like, stuff that my father was into. Like, we knew how to get from Camden to Philly at 4 and 5. And that he would give us test runs, like, how do you get to your grandmother's house? And had that--the only thing, the only demand was ya'll better hold hands the entire time. If I catch your hands, you're not holding hands; ya'll know what it is. And...he would literally, let us go, we'd go get the money, he would have the money set aside for the transportation cost, the stuff like that and we would go, me and my brother we would go right--and we would be at--and when we would get there, my father would be sitting right on my grandmother's, um, couch. And my grandmother would be going through it, "I have told you to stop doing that." He was like, "if something happens to me, they have to know how to get here." She was like, "they're too young." We were frying chicken since we were 2. We didn’t' have a mother, so, he would like, "no, you're gonna learn," and my grandmother made sure, she was like, "because you don't have a mother, and I can't be there all the time, I'm going to teach you the things, how to take care a yourself." A Singer sewing machine [Transcriber note: Singer was a popular sewing machine made by the Singer Corporation, first established in 1851 in New York], we could do all a that. Everything. Like, she would make sure we knew how to sew, how to--buttons, how to--uh--socks. Pants, hem 'em. All a that stuff. And...she was like, you know, "because you don't have a mother to do it, and until you mother gets herself together, you have to know how to do these things. Cause don't no one--no--," she would say, "don't no woman what no man they gotta take care of."
0:36:00.3
And, we been, you know, and we would come over, my father would have female guests and we would be into the kitchen. You know, 2 and 4 frying chicken, and they were like, "aren’t they gonna get burned?" Sh-they'd be like, "they're not gonna get burned." She was like, "but how did they know how to do that?" She was li--he's like, "I taught 'em." Like, so, it wasn't like, from now I won't cook anything, like, and that's the crazy part. And I used to love to cook, but I won't cook anything. Cause when I came out, everybody wants to cook for me, so I was like Ok, I'm gonna let y'all cook. And then they'd be like, "do you know how to make any--" like I'm, I’m a baby now. Like, "no, I don't know how to cook, I been away so long I forgot how to cook. I can cook--I been cooking since I was 2.
So...but, yea, she, uh...she--during that period, I think that. That I--now that you ask, I really didn't think about it like that, but it was and did help my adjustment. In middle school, with me being able to go there on the weekends, every weekend. Like I would be with there, and then all the holidays I would be with her. And my dad, he was just like, I don't, I don't get it. Like, how does somebody that abandons you twice--and the thing is that, my father, which he's learned now, the power of forgiveness. You know, and it's the most powerful--and sometimes forgiving the person is not for them, it's for you, so you can let go and move on. And now he's learning that, like, you know, like, forgiveness is for you, not the other person. And you don't need the other person to forgive them, you can just make it in your heart in your mind and say, I forgive you, and never say nothing to the person about their forgiveness. And you can move on and you can create a new space in which to exist. And I--I was--I don't know how I was able to do it as a kid, but I loved my mother so, it was, it was a, it was a no brainer for me. He couldn't do that, but then as we've gotten older now, like, his thing is like, yo, like he blames himself for not getting me a lawyer and my thing is, is like, ok that part is done, I've forgiven you, I--that's over with, let's just move on and let's deal with what we have left.
0:38:34.9
You know what I mean, we can't undo that. That's done. You know what I mean. So, and--for those things that we can't change let's work on the things we can ch--we can make sure that this never happens again, to nobody else in our family, and...that's what we've been working on, so like now--if I'd like--about now, I'm--I needed--I can't get from work and I don't have a ride or something like that, I'll be like, "Dad, can you come pick me up?" He's like "Sure, son." Like, it's not, you know, but with my other brothers--you know what I mean, cause he knows like, he is like, this guy every time. Like I can barely get him on the phone, so, and it's like when I do call, like, he's like, he doesn't call me unless he exhausted everything and he can't do it and he really needs help. Whereas my other brothers, "Dad," you know, "Dad, Dad," and he's like "why don't you be like him?" You know, and--but it's, I guess it's a good and a bad thing at the same time, or neutral.
So when you were, uh, you were kind of finishing up middle school and then to high school, were you dating all at the time or was there any...?
I was terrible with females, I was absolutely terrible. I was light skinned, uh, curly hair, um, good at sports, fight my ass off, had a reputation in the street, and...I um…I started really going hard in the street when...I realized we were poor. Up until that point I never knew what poverty was, I thought everybody had a car, bought a, had a house, and two TVs and this and that. And then, it was until I came across drug dealers, that I realized that there was some kind of disparity economically. And what they wore, and what the girls like, and stuff like that. And then, it was like; the girls went after the flash and stuff like that. Then I'm like, no, then I had cousins that sold drugs that had jewelry, had cars, had all the girls. And I become enamored with that, and then I was like--so I went to a coupla crews and I was like, "yo, how can I get them?" They was like "get out of here and go to school a dah dah dah dah dah."
How old were you ....?
I was, I was 12.
Mm hm.
And...then at 13, um...a rival pulled up on a scooter, and "get your little dirty self outta here" and start talking trash to me and it's not--I'm looking at this dude like "alright." So, I got my little, uh...my little moneys together and went and bought some--a small package from, um, a guy that I knew from Philly and...I never looked back. Went to school every day. I never stopped going to school, though. And people never, they was like--so, I would have nice stuff but I-I couldn't hide it, so...you can't have jewelry, cars, all this stuff, so I think it was, uh...my freshman year of high school, I bought a Fleetwood Brougham 1982 brand new Cadillac [Transcriber Note: Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham is a luxury car manufactured by Cadillac from 1977 to 1986. Cadillac was among the first automobile brands in the world, named after Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, who founded Detroit, Michigan] from Disimones Cadillac in um, South Jersey, and...I paid $14,000 cash and I'm like, they're like, "how does a 13 year old, at this age, at this time have this kind of money?" So you're talking about, 1984, 83, somewhere, '84, '85, somewhere around there. And, the drug... the drug game, at that time was very profitable. And...for, for a kid, like, it changed everything, and how I saw the world. It changed how, everything that I've done after that point, because it wasn't until I entered that, that I was ever faced with death.
[ Annotation 2 ]
0:42:56.3
And, right after I became successful at it, the older dudes--it's funny because me and my daughter and I were just having this conversation last night. And, she was like, "Dad, what made you change from, just what you were to what you, wha-what happened to you?" And I said, you know, being that introvert, I just said, I've never told anybody this until I came out, I said, "I remember what triggered me and it was, my favorite boxer, welterweight boxer, was from my project."
His name was Lou Rivera. I think at the time he may have been the number 1 or number 2 welterweight in the world. And he had a coke habit, but he grew up with us, and he was the best boxer I ever seen in my life and I loved it. So, the guy that I looked up to and him were friends, but Lou couldn't beat the guy that I looked up, Grainger, Greedy Grainger. And...these 2 dudes were like street fighting legends to me, and...anything in the world they wanted, just to be around them, I would, you know--And Lou wound up getting strung out and hooked on cocaine. And he started sniffing, then he started freebasing cocaine. And he developed a habit, and...his boxing career went down. But, the funny thing about it was, I never looked down on him. He was, even in his lowest state, I still looked up at him, he knew that.
So, when he would, um...come out and he didn't have money, he would rob (Sneezes). Excuse me. And when we would rob, he would mess up the flow. So, I would give him coke for free, absolutely free, like, "Lou, just take this and go on the house." And he was like "Nah, lil' Tone, I-you can't- I can't take it from ya." I said, "Yea, you gonna take it from me, you gonna go in the house. And you're not gonna mess this up. Let us do what we doin, and this and that. And if you need something just come on out and I'll give it to you." Now mind you I'm 13 years old and this is a grown man and he's accepting something for his habit from a kid, and he felt like that hurt him even more, and he was like, "but I'mma pay you back. I'mma pay you back." And I was like, " don't matter even if you don't. Do this and this a fair exchange, no robbery. You allowing us to make money without interruption and you can go ahead and enjoy yourself." But he always paid me back. He always paid me back. And, a rival crew, a older crew, they were grown men, they paid him to kill me.
0:45:40.2
And he couldn't do it. He knew that like, this guy has been looking up to me since he was a kid and you gonna pay me, they paid him, they gave him cocaine, they gave him--I think a couple of thousand dollars, and...three guns. Cause I had a nice little setup. And they gave him a 30 aught 6 [Transcribers Note: This refers to the type of cartridge for a gun], a single, a twelve gauge single gauge shot--shot gun, and a .38. And he came and he was in the back where he shouldn't of been, and we had security there, and was like "yo, whoever you is, you about to get shot. Like, what are you doing?" And he was like, "'Tonne, it's me, Lou." And I was like, "why are you back here?" He was like, "I need to talk to you." So I'm going-I said, "Lou, I'm not going back there. There's no light. I can't see you." But my dudes--my man on the roof, and my man right here, like "what are you doin?" And he was like, "oh, shit." So I said, "Lou, what are you doin?" He was like, "come here." I was like "nah." He was like, "please, just--I just w-I don't wanna-I don't wanna say this in front of them." So that's when I knew it was serious, and I wouldn't talk him. And he was like, "yo, they paid me to kill you." And it was at that moment, everything in my life changed. It was like, who pays somebody that they look up to, to kill a 13-year-old kid? And I wasn't the same ever since. And I never told anybody--ev--even my old head, I told him only because I knew he could make them back off, which they did. But we never had the conversation again, and I never told the guys in my crew. And--because I knew that it would like, we grew up together, and up until that point there has never been an attempt on any of our lives because we were--we were selling drugs to make money even though it was wrong to begin with. I don't--I wanna be clear about that. That choice was 100 % wrong and...it actually decimated my community, and it destroyed the health of my community. And we have yet to recover from those choices that we made in the 80s, currently, to--currently, but, I mean, you know, and my whole push now is public health, and not public safety. So--and that's why I go so hard about restoring health, and restoring the health of my community and...and everybody's has been affected by just violence, whether it be behavior, or whether it be structural, whether it be cultural. You know, going at it as a public health issue, even with the guns, it's a public health issue, it's not a public safety issue. So, and...
0:48:25.1
But looking back at that moment, that critical moment and I'm at the crossroads and I could choose, I couldn't of chose a more wicked decision to say, "F it, if I'm gonna die out here," you know what I mean, "I might as well go all in." And I just went all in, and at that point I expected to be dead before I was 18. And I lived that way in my head, that introverted way where, you know, um...my grandmother was like, "what is wrong with you?" You know what I mean. And then like, I would only reveal what I wanted to reveal. She still had inroads, but she couldn't have...the streets had already got me. And I remember when I got to high school, my freshman year, when I became disillusioned with school. I was--I walked in, remember I said I'd been doing algebra since the 5th grade. So I walked into Algebra I in high school and they give me this book, I'm looking at the book, I'm like "Man, I been doing this since 5th grade," so...I did all the homeworks in the book, it took me a week. Did 'em all, put 'em in my little trapper keeper, had 'em put a--then put the--put my name on the-put the dates, I don't know what they gonna assign, but the book is done, in a week. So, um...I think about maybe, maybe a month and a half into it, my father comes home from work and says, "where's your homework at?" And I was like, "Oh, I already did it." So, me not thinking, you know, that I did the whole book, he was like, "well, um, what did you have?" I said, "I only had math." So I handed him the whole folder, with all of them in there. And...I--I--in my mind I'm rushing to go play basketball, so I'm not thinking, just take out the homework that's due, that so I'd be done and hand it to him. So...I hand him the whole thing, so he said, "What the hell is the rest of this?" So I'm like, I said, "Oh, that's the whole book." He said, "What you mean it's the whole book?" And I was like, "I did the whole book." And he was like...so he said, "So this is due...um, tomorrow?" I was like, "yeah." He said, "the rest of it," and he ripped it.
0:50:58.1
I said, "ok." And after that, every test I took in math, I failed. I went all the way back down to uh, general math. And the counselors, like, never saw, like it became, like-- but instead if-if I was like, I look back at it and I said, if I was a father in that situation and my son did the whole book in a week I'd a took him up to the school, and said, "listen, he needs another class. That's not even challenging to him. You need to challenge him or give him something harder." You know what I mean. But, for him to like, he didn't look at it, like he looked at it as if I was getting over, but he didn't realize that, I'd been algebra since 5th grade and Ms. Fenderson and Ms. Thomachevits they pushed us hard, to get us ready for, like I didn't know it was for high school, I'm like, "What? This? Like, this is nothing." So, now mind you I was in AT classes in, um, middle school for math. So..
And what is, uh, AT? What is that?
Um, what do you call it? Uh..
Advanced track?
Advanced track, yeah. So, and...for the math and the science, and they were like, "yo, like, it was that time I could look at the clouds and tell you what kind of clouds they were and whether or not it was gonna rain and be able to say, "nah, this kind of cloud, it needs to hit this kind of cloud and if it hits that one, that really right there doesn't have any moisture in it. That's why it's so puffy. But...it may be hot, it may be cold, but because the sun is on it and it's so bright, it's actually hot, so it would have to hit something cold with moisture in order for it to rain." And they were like, "how the hell did you know this?" But it was because, as a kid these they--they're like the things that I was interested in. I had principals and assistant principals that--Vice Principals--that were like, "ok, we're gonna go"--like History, they would take us on he summer to Trenton, to look at when Washington crossed the Delaware and all of that stuff and like--like I knew that stuff like, off the back of my hand, like, he was like "wow" and then I'm like, "oh yeah, this is where this was and this and that." And this was out of the books where we're actually at the original landmarks and me and other--4 other guys that were good at history and they would do all of this extra stuff, they would go be above and beyond to take us to places and things like this. Cohen--my 2nd grade teacher, she would do the same thing, you know. It's like, like, I could tell you, like the ones that really really took an interest cause even at 49 I still remember how they were when it came to that. But my father, like, I remember him telling me; he said, uh, he said it wasn't until I went to try to use your education that I realize how wrong I was. Like, he was saying, he was saying like, "I couldn't understand, like, how did you get all of those good grades, but that you acted so terrible outside of the classroom?" And then I told him like, even as an adult, I said-- when he sees me now, he says, "you graduated summa cum laude, like, how do you do that, in the environment that you were in." I said, "That's always been my safe space." So inside, I made it my safe space too.
0.54:25.5
And he was like, he said "if I would a know it, if you woulda talked" I said, "but sometimes people can't talk." Certain things like, I know about my kids, like I know, just naturally, that--it's certain things that they just wanna be heard. Don't say a word. Don't offer a rebuttal. Don't judge. Just listen. And it's in that listening that you'll learn a lot more about them than anything that you would ever have a conversation with them. And then he was like, you know--I tell--my--my daughters mothers--they was like, "I Don't understand how they tell you everything, and then I have to pry it out of them." I said, "because, you're not listening." And they be like, "I listen to 'em, honestly" No, you don't understand, I said, "you hear them and hearing is something different. Hearing is sound bouncing off the eardrum. Listening is active participation in what you're doing." And my thing is that I'll sit there and be like, "ok" like with the interview and this and that. And it's not even a interview, it's just life. So, and it's like, ok, just tell me, like-wh-whatever it is you want me to know I'm here and its--if it takes 2, 3 hours they be like, "one thing I know about my dad, he care about me cause he listens to me. He may not agree with me, but he listens to me." And I understood that about myself so I knew al--almost inherently that my kids would be the same way and, then tell 'em like, see I don’t h--they'll tell their mothers, "I don't have that problem with my dad, cause he'll sit there and then I have to ask him like, dad are you listening," I'll be like, "yeah, I'm listening." And then they was like, "why aren't you saying anything?" "Cause I just wanna listen. This is for you to get it out, and once you get it out, now it's your job, you have the keys to yourself. I hope you don't think I have the keys to you. I'm just now letting you, run through the stuff and get it out. "And that's how we go.
But, my father at that--that high school point was very critical for me, cause I would go to school every day, but I wouldn't go to home room, and that’s how I got kicked out. I didn't realize that homeroom was the most important part of the day, you could not go to all your classes, but if you went to homeroom you got marked in for the whole day. Whether you went to your classes was irrelevant, but in my mind, I'm not going to home room, so I'mma go to--I'mma go to my 1st period class, and I would go to 1st period from--from 1 to 8 and I remember th-the guidance counselor saying like, "well, he...he missed too many days, and it's not"--and he'd go, "how the hell do you go from perfect attendance to missing all a these days." And I was like, and again he wouldn't listen, I was like, "I went to school every day." He was like, "no you didn't, don't tell me, it's right here." And then, when I finally could get a word in edgewise I was like, "look at the other classes." So the guidance counselor, but that's what she didn--she omitted--she didn't tell my dad. She was like, "oh, he went to all his classes, but homeroom is the one we count."
0:57:47.5
"We don't count the other classes. He could go from 1st period to 8th period every day, but if he's not marked here in homeroom, by the state standard it doesn't count." So here was the structural violence. Like, but he'd never ask, "Why didn't you go to home room?" Because I kept beating up the same guys every day. They were the ones bullying the students in there, so I'm saying "I'm not going in there and beat these dudes up and slap 'em around every day, I just ride back up" and then I'm not telling anybody cause, we're not--we got a no snitch culture, so I'm like, nah. So--and then it got the point where I’m like, "yo, I'm just outta this, I'm just not going." But I would go with my friend and didn't realize, and let him sign into home room and hang out in his home room instead of being there, which I could of did, was asked to be changed from the home room to another home room. That wasn't an option back then in my head, that didn't make any sense, but it would a been easier.
When, when did all of this go down?
I think my, uh...I wanna say...I was a freshman--my sophomore year.
And then did you wind up leaving school?
Yea. I wind up leaving school. I went to a program, um...it was called uh...it was at, uh...I wanna say...Fets, Fetters, Fetters School, F-Fetters School downtown Camden and it was a program they paid you to get your GED, high school diploma. Or, um...uh, and go to work. So you would go to school to learn the skills you needed to pass the GED or work on your credits towards your high school diploma. So, being that I had missed all of those days I wasn't--I wasn't gonna be able to get a high school diploma, but I coulda got my GED. So I went there, and then the craziest thing happened. You go there to work on your GED in the morning, then you go to a job that they help you get. So you get a job from the program, you get a check from the program, and you get a job, and you get a check from the job. That was the worst thing happened, that just sent my drug sales to a whole nother level. I got more infusion to cash and it just allowed me to buy more stuff and it just...so, I would come to school 5, $10,000 in my pocket every day. And that was like, that was in the course of...I wanna say, a month and a half. And I would get these checks every week and it would go into buying more stuff and it just increase, and...It increased um, sales, it increased everything and my ability to bring on more people and it just, it was just a cycle of just violence in my own head and doing a lot of stuff as opposed to transferring those skills into something more positive and things like that. That just wasn't my track at that point. But uh...I look back at that and I, you know...if I knew what I know now then, I'd probably be without-without the drugs and selling drugs, I'd probably be a millionaire right now. Because, just being able to take that--those skills and transferring them and I--who knows where I'd be right now, whether we'd be having this conversation right now. But, I'm on my way I, I got a, uh, a new start. So, and the difference is, is that even when I came home this time: offer me everything, like "yo, you can run this, you can do this." Like, I'm good.
(Knock on door)
We''ll take a pause there.
[ Annotation 3 ]
1:01:51.3
Audio File #2:
0:00:00.0
So, so this was, so it was around your sophomore year, so you were around 15, 16--?
Yea, 15.
--When this happened? So then you went into this other program, how long were you in this program for?
I was--I was in the program, I wanna say...less than 6 months. Like, once it became profitable, I was out. I was--
So you left the program before you, before you did that?
Yea.
Um, because, your business was basically--
Yea, and it was like, you know. I started pulling up and all a these cars and jumping out, going to the programs and it got to the point I would treat everybody to lunch. And, the staff, and the students, and stuff like that. And it got to the point where, I'm like, what am I getting up, and I just left home and got my own apartment. And started living on my own and, and that was--
How did your family, was, did your family take notice of kind of like the changes that were happening?
No, because, my father...my father u--you couldn’t show flash around him. So, I would literally have to hide the cars, the jewelry, the clothes.
So he would ask questions?
He--he--if he found out.
Yea--
And it wasn't my, my biggest was two things that the only time I ever felt ashamed of what I did was, my my younger brother, LeBron. He came around to the set while I was selling drugs and I was serving a customer and he saw me. And, I'm like, like he knew that he wasn't allowed around here, so when he, when he comes, like I would be the one to take care of him because of my father was always somewhere. So his mother said "give your brother the money, and tell him where you want to go this weekend." So when she would drop him off, I would be the one. Like, if he wanted to go skating, if he wanted to go the arcade, she would send him money and I would make sure he went for the weekend. Or to the movies, whichever, whatever he wanted to do Saturday and Sunday, I was the one to make sure of that. And he, I remember, he had his soccer uniform on. This is before soccer was popular in America, but he played, he was West--West Thorofare, West Deptford in South Jersey. And...He had his little soccer uniform on with his little shin protectors and he's standing there, I turn and look, and I scared him so bad I was like, "what the fuck are you doing around here?" And he was like, "what are you doing? What did you give him?" And this and that. And then I was like, listen, I was like man. So I grabbed him by his shirt, I was like "take your ass, don't you come around here ever again!" And it was just, that, that shame to--for him to ever see me sell drugs.
0:02:49.0
So you had a, so you had an older brother, and then when your mom came back here, a younger sister, where--when did you--how many more siblings?
I had, shoot, that I know of. I had 13 sisters, and 9 brothers. That I know of.
And are these kind of like from both sides of your family?
No, only 1 that's on the both si--everybody else is--my sister is from my mother. The only one that's everybody else is from my father--
OK--
My father's kids, so and it's like...it's a lot of us, so when we, like, need so--like, it's too many of us, like, if we were planning something, it's, I would say, we're...I have 10 grandkids, so...just on the grandkids, the great grandkids, like, he may even have, maybe, I wanna say... ... uh... ...almost 10 or 15 great grands. And that’s not counting the grands.
That's a whole restaurant.
Yea, so he had, he has a lot. And, um, but for me, I was the one that was, made sure that my brothers and sisters were ok. As far as like, before I started selling drugs and even when I sold drugs. Like, they were good, like I would make sure, he was good, but my grandfather came and got out of the car one day and a guy walked up to em. And this is how I knew that, I was immersed in a culture that I couldn’t even identify something that was dear to me. So, he pulled his van over, and I looked at the van but because I’m looking at it through the lens of a drug dealer I'm not realizing that this is my grandfather's van who I grew up riding in, all my life. It looked like it was something totally different, and I looked the man in the face and he got out and he came over. He was walking across and the guy ran up to him to sell him something, and he was like, nah I’m good. And it wasn't until I heard his voice; I was like "yo, get away from him." And he actually watched me make a sale, and he say "well, I remember standing out there" and he asked me in this normal tone, like he always do, it's indicting but it's not judging, he was like "what's you doin?" And I was like, "I'm doing what I gotta do." He was like, "you’re smarter than that, you know that. You know you're smarter than this." He said, "you're doin this cause you wanna do it. Because it's easy." He said, "just be honest about it." He was like, "what did you just sell?" And I was looking at the ground, I wouldn't look at him. He was like, "look at me." You know, and it was like, and it was that, that, that shame in that face that I wouldn't even look him in his eyes and say, "I just sold a mass of coke." And he was like, "as long as you have that, there's hope for you." You know what I mean. He said, "as long as you can't look me in my face." He said, "the day you can look me in the face and tell me you sell drugs" He said, "there's no hope for you." He said, "but as long as you keep looking at that ground, you can do something about it. When you're ready."
0:06:18.1
And I was like, and I couldn't look up, I would not look up, like, you know. And my dudes was like, "yo" and they was like, "who is this guy?" And it was like, like they'd never seen anybody make me just shut down and just, all my shit, like get it out of here and...He was a powerful man and very influential, and they were like, "yo." And for like an hour, I just sat on the crate and I didn't talk, I just gave the dude the drug and I was like, "yo, finish that for me." And they were like, "yo what the hell was that" and then an hour later I was like, "that was my grandfather." They said, "why you just now saying that?" I was like, "man, I was so ashamed, like, that he even saw me trapping." They was like, "man, my mom seen trapping all the time." I said, "but you don't understand, you don't let that man see you trapping." You know, and it was that genuine love that he had for me growing up, like, he, he could reach me. He never put his hands on me. And he knew, I would--just being around him was enough, being in a space with him, I loved to go fishing with him, I loved to work in the garden with him, and he would just be like, "yo"—and if, like if I’d do something, he'd be like "nah." So to have that people that behaved that way around me, you know, you can't be in my garden. You bring that bad energy to my, my, my, what I'm growing, like and--I try, have my little tantrums and this and that--unwielding. Unbending. He's like, "nah." You know. "Wanna go fishing?" First thing I did, he was like, "just be good." Um, it was a Sunday, he said "if you're good from today til next Sunday I'll take you out on the boat with me." So...I'd do something, like "ahh, he ain't gonna remember it, it's Monday." I’d do something Tuesday, I'd start getting my act together Wednesday. I'd do something crazy Thursday. So, I was like, "alright, two more days, I can get it together." and this and that. And do some real good stuff. And man, when he took in (indistinguishable sound), Sunday morning I get up, 4 in the morning. Soon as I hear him, I jump up, I go wash up. Get the tackle boxes, go get the worms, get all the stuff, get everything loaded in the van and then when I go to get in the van, he said, "where you going?" I was like, "we going fishing?" He said, "Monday you did this and he just gave me the whole list." A da da da da da. He said, "I told you Sunday." He said, "Now go in the house." I cried from the time they left at 5 in the morning, til they came back 6 that evening. My grandmother was so tired of me; she was like go on the porch and cry. And when they came back and he was like, "come here." He was like, "grab the stuff, take it in the basement." So I grabbed the stuff, I'm still crying (Mock crying sounds). I go downstairs and we sitting downstairs and he has me doing these different for the, for the fishing string. And he's talking to me. And that’s what I loved about him, because he would always be teaching me something physically, but that’s what he understood because of my hyperactivity. He has to be doing something physically while you're talking to him to control his energy and he was like, "um show me such and such." And we would do this, he was like, "alright, take it apart, now do this for me." And he was like, "the only reason I left you this morning." He was like, "it hurt me to leave you." He said, "but you have to understand when you make an agreement with me, you have to keep your word." and I said, "I'll never break my word to you again." And I went to every fishing trip after that and never broke my word to him. And--
0:10:13.3
(Laughter)
How old were you?
I was, I think I was about, like 7 or 8. You know what I mean, and he--he taught me the value of keeping your word. If you give a man your word, keep it. You know what I mean. And if you break it, if you have to break it for whatever reason at least go to that man and tell him, I broke my word and I apologize. And then enter into a new agreement--I didn't know I could enter in a new agreement every time I messed up. But, and then he was, you know, but, those are the type of things like, like for...monumental change, uh…in my behavior and things like that. And then I got to--but middle school was the worst. I used to get jumped all the time. And that's when I started fighting real crazy. Because it was different neighborhoods. And, I didn't know them and they didn't know me. And then they got to the point, where I was in line, I was in Mr. Ballicides class, 8th grade, and...this guy elbowed me in the face; I was standing behind him in line. We were waiting to go to the uh, cafeteria, and I remember him elbowing me. And I never forget this guy, Carlos Rice, big, tall Spanish kid. WHAM! Bust my nose and my mouth with his elbow. I fell on the floor, everybody start laughing and I jumped up and I choke slammed him down, boom. And I just started going on Mr. Ballicades like "you're a coward, you attacked a man from the back!" And this and that. And he didn't--he didn't see the whole incident, this and that. So, and I went off...and at that--it was at that point I was like, nobody's ever going to hurt me again. Like, that's it, I'm done. And, it was like triggers, like I can remember now back then I couldn't. You--if you asked me then, like why you doing what you doing? It was like, I was on autopilot. Because there was no introspection. I was never sat down, to say like, like, "think about what you're doing and why you're doing it? And when did you start getting to the root of why I do what I do? The way I was thinking, the way I was behaving?" And then when I started doing the introspection, I remember critical moments that triggered certain things and then, when you're doing that to someone who's already traumatized, here's what happens.
0:12:44.0
Let me see what time it is, cause I know that I--what time is it?
It's uh, about quarter after 5.
I uh, I only had til 5 o clock on the, um,
Oh, on the meter
Yea.
Do you wanna take a pause on this?
Yea.
Audio File #3:
0:00:00.0
Great, so, uh, I think where I want to pick up to is you had mentioned, a couple of times, your daughters, and I was just curious, when when did they come into the picture? Were you, was this, when were they born?
They were born; my oldest daughter was born in 1987.
K
And my youngest daughter and my son were born in 1988.
Ok
So, from the culture and the lifestyle, my oldest daughter, um she was born October 27th, 1987. So, 10 days after my birthday. Me and her mother were born on the same day, same year. And...She’s born, I think 1 o’ clock in the afternoon and I'm born 5 that evening. So I'm born in Philadelphia, she's born in, uh...Salem County, New Jersey. But, somehow our ships passed, we have a child, our--my oldest daughter. Latoneya, Toni. So, and...she...uh...prior to her, but another thing is that, I lost another daughter before her, took from us, my olde--my son's mother. I had a daughter by, I was, we were having a daughter and..she got hot and, that was another critical moment. I did never knew I--I didn't know how to handle death and--
How old were you--?
I was, I think I was 16, 17 and...It just, like, all a this stuff on top of just, trauma building on trauma. It just, for me created a recipe, but...to--on my part, I never said anything. I never spoke about it, I just internally locked myself into these, to these thoughts and these processes, that was, detrimental not just to me, but to my community and things like that. To where as I held everything, and then everything just started exploding on top of things, so when you don't deal with root causes, you just add to stuff to it. And it just, for me, so for me, losing...uh...Nydira was a critical moment, but I knew that I was having another baby, but that didn't do anything. And it wasn't until Latonya was born that I realized that like, what everything like, her presence made me feel like. I wouldn't touch her, like when I was in the hospital, an--she was the only one I was actually on the street for. That I actually held, that I actually spent time with. And, her mother would be like, touch her. And I'd be like, "she's too pure, I'm too dirty." I'm involved in too much bull shit, like why would I, why would I put my fifth on something so precious? And so, you know, and I would just touch her like this, and she was like, "boy if you don't pick her up and you don't uh da da da, still your daughter, she's gonna love you no matter what." And I was like, you know, and I couldn't see, and it was like I would break her with all the poison and all the mess--the evil stuff that I was into. And it was like, I didn't want to--you know--she made me pick her up and hold her, and I spent the whole time fearful that I was gonna drop her and break her. And then it got to the point where at the--I just fell in love, like, this is my baby, like, yo. Like, and it changed my life, and it changed my life. Her birth changed my life about.
0:04:00.3
Now I begin to see, alright, how you treat you women, is that how you want her to be treated. And I changed everything, it was--a lot of it was too late cause I was already in deep, but as I begin to move towards changing my life and just, now I--already--when she was born I wanted to go into the service, I was like I can't sell drugs for the rest of my life, there's not future, there's no retirement in this. And...But what happened was, anything with like, greed, greed is never satisfied, you know. And as long as it was profitable it was like, alright, I'm gonna do another hundred thou and I’m out. And, it-it was always another hundred thou, it's always another, let me get another 20k, another 10. And I'm gonna just do this last one and I’m then I’m a--and that last one never came. And it--as long as it was lucrative and profitable it just what it--what it was. So, but, she...she, LaTonya was that pivotal moment and then, um, when I lost, um, Nydira that I learned about Sierra, that Sierra was on the way. Her mother didn't tell me that Sierra was coming, so, then I found out that Sierra was going away. That led to a big thing. Then Sierra was born, um, March 22nd 1988, but I was already incarcerated when she was born. She was conceived when I was out and then my son, he wasn't born until October 2nd 1980--1988. So they're all months apart, and uh, and that was the lifestyle and multiple women, doing this and that, not wearing condoms, not protecting myself or protecting them and just living a lawless and reckless life. And...But, I can honestly say...they were one of my compelling reasons for getting out and then staying out because it was like I just wanted them to know that you do have a father, you have a father that loves you. And, um, I wanted them to experience me in the world and not on a 2 and half hour visit on a Saturday or a Sunday. So, that's how it was with them, um..
What was the sequence of events that kind of led to the, the incident, that led to your incarceration?
0:06:47.5
Well, when Nydera died I--I prayed to God if he let her live that would change my life. She died. So, I took that as a signal, again, me being this introvert. God don't give an F about me, he doesn't care, ah da da da da da, and...I stopped caring. So, I--my prayer wasn't answered, like, she was innocent so...and I just went, this particular night, I never...tried--I don't get high, this and that. So, they were like, this dude, so, at the time they were drinking beer and they were drinking--taking Xanax and it was the first time we ever tried Xanaxes. I never had, I don't even know what it was, never heard of it before prior to that. And at the time what they were doing was, the addicts would go, say they were having cravings and things like that, so, Big Pharm back then would say take the Xanax's, it takes the stress away from wanting to use and things like that. So what wound up happening was...the, the people that were hooked on coke and dope would sell the dealers the Xanaex's in order to support their habit. So it became a perpetual ring of this and that, and this particular night they put some in the beer. We took a couple of them and, I guzzled down 40 ounces and stuff like that and happened to get in the car with one of my partners who was from, uh...another project, and we got into the car and we were going--they didn't have a connect, so I was taking him to the connect to get good coke for his project, and...We get out there, um, some stuff happened, but what happened with me is the Xanex's kick in. At the time I'm 5' 4" 118 pounds, I never got high before, never drunk any beer or...none of that stuff. My, like, they'll tell you like, I -I never met a guy that was so serious about not getting high until that night and it was like, "yo" like "just give him this. Take this, you'll calm down. And you'll feel better" and this and that but what ha--we had an adverse reaction. I cou--would black out, I couldn't remember anything. So we get out to arrival area which we weren't even supposed to be in, we were on 32nd street in East Camden and...they start harassing a girl that's walking with a guy and when they start harassing her, they're like, "yo babe, you don't need to be with him, come get in the car with us" a da da da da da da. Now mind you, I'm in and out of consciousness, what is this going on? So, we're going to--we're supposed to be going to Crenn Hill to a, um... wholesaler to sell us coke. And, that's where we're supposed to be going, but somehow we wound up where this guy, other guy that's driving, where he wanted to go. They get into a discussion, we pull around, they pull off. We get out the car. I go pee. The guy happens to come walking up and sees the car and sees the guys and he starts to argue with them.
0:10:09.9
When they start arguing about, "yo, you disrespectful" this and that, a da da da da da da. I was like, "yo back up." One shot. From the autopsy report, the, the guy supposedly reached for the gun, the bullet went through his wrist, on his forearm and then lodged in his forehead and killed him. And, when he--we get, when everything is happening, I'm out, I hear the bang, I get startled, but again, I'm blacking in and out. I'm still standing there, peeing. They come back and get me, put me in the car. When we go--we get to the thing, uh...we get to...back to the--to where I'm from, my project, one of the guys, um...he throws the guns--cause we're going to make a purchase so you have to worry about getting robbed with this kind of money or what they trying to--they try--I think he was trying to buy...um, I don't know if it was a half a kilo, or a whole K. And back then they were, I wanna say...$26,000. So we had $26,000 cash, we're going into a rival neighborhood and we got guns on us and they're arguing about the girl, cause they feel and know--we got all this money, a da da da da da, we made it--and an innocent man lost his life. Absolutely for no reason, for no other reason than he was walking down the street with his girlfriend who happened to be very attractive. And, what wound up happening was, when they threw away the guns, and threw the guns in the river, stuff like that, they brought me back and put me in my car. But I'm unconscious, so, in their minds this--and this is crazy cause over the weekend I learned that the--the statement went: "we are from this project, so we gonna put this on him." And, I went to prison for 30 years, and then when we got to trial, the girl was like, "that's not him. Like, he's too light. The guy that shot my boyfriend was dark skinned." And it was 2 light skinned guys in the car and 2 dark skinned guys, and I was not dark skinned and I wound up serving, again, I'm--don--get it it twisted--all I had to do was tell 'em, but I didn't tell and I didn't--I didn't break street code and--for, no--it cost me my family, it cost me time with my children. And this is what I try to advocate people, like, don't put yourself in a situation where the streets mean more to you than the people you love, and that care about you and need you.
0:13:00.2
Because there is no compromise, you know, like you--I can never get that back and I'm just fortunate, like, my son, me and him we're not close but he'll come around, but the thing is, is in his mind he does what I do. He runs a narrative and he carries that narrative through. And I know like, yo I'm gonna let you do it, like, cause I understand. I know it's a false narrative, but I need you to recognize that it's a false narrative, there's nothing I can do to change it. So...but my daughters are like, yo I’m just happy my dad here, I love my dad, I been waiting for me like, no, and there's nothing that I won't do for them like, and they know that, like, they be like, I call my dad and in a minute he's like what happened. You know, and it was just being able to get here to be able to show them like, what love is, what somebody love, like--I can love you, but that don't mean I have to put up with your bullshit. You know what I mean? Like, when you doing bullshit I'm gonna call bullshit on bullshit. And I tell em all the time, "you trying to teach me how to bullshit? I already know how it goes. I spent 3 decades in a cage for bullshit, like, are we really gonna do this right now?" And then they'll be like, "alright, dad, just say what it is and we can move past it and we can be honest about it." But if we can't be honest about your bullshit, like, I knew--like, I was reckless, I didn't care anymore. With that death, that death, and now I realize, like once I made peace with it, like, even inside, I had to really decide for myself, like, how are you gonna come out of here? And I had to say like, my who--my biggest thing was I’m not dying here, I'm not gonna die here and that's what I been working so--and then you must do the work of the living. If you're not gonna die here, then you must do the work of the living here, and then let that transfer. And what I found that over the years I was with some good people, and it was in service of others that you really find that, you know...whether or not a person is sincere about their transformation and things like that and everybody that I found that was in service when they left that place, never came back because they continued that service when they got out because they realized that that's where the healing is. You know what I mean? It's not like I said, a lotta times it's not about you, and, but that's where I--you know, and that's how I got there, and I came home and it--I--I can honestly say that there was a lotta structural things that happened, but I'm not--I told my kids, you never heard me blame anybody, I take full responsibility for my choices that led to that event. Nobody made me get in that car, nobody made me drink that beer, nobody made take those pills. You know what I mean, it was just all, a critical moment at a critical time.
0:16:01.4
And in crisis, instead of me saying, "yo I just need somebody to talk to me, somebody to listen to me." I didn't call my grandfather, I didn’t call my grandmother. People that coulda made a big difference. Like, I tried to handle something that was bigger than me by myself. And that's why I tell them now, "when it's bigger than you, I wanna be the first person on your, uh..." What do you call a, um...your, um, on them game shows when you could phone a friend--
Oh, one of your lifelines?--
--You lifeline and like, I wanna be number 1. You know, and if you--if you don't want me to be number 1 , I wanna be in that top 3 or top 5, you know what I mean. But you have to have 'em, and I realized that from inside. Like, you know, when you can't call nobody. Like, you need somebody that's going to be there, that you'll be able to talk to--and I found good friends inside, Russell Owens, who you'll meet very soon, um...very beautiful person, uh, ordained minister from the inside. Got his PhD in theology, uh...very well educated and this and that. All that stuff that we worked on inside and like, he knew, like, and I used to say, he was like, "how do you know who gonna do what when we picking teams?" I said, "because I surround myself." I said, "I don't do it all the time," I said, "but for the most part what I do is I look for people that's in service of others and people that could potentially learn to be in service of others, so they have a means of doing this." And then they can learn from. And then I look at people that don't--do nothing for nobody, and I put them in the mixture and we just go. And...they either do it or they don't, but it's still they--they have skills now, and they be like ok, this is why 'Tonne tells me no all the time. I said, "what are you gonna do for somebody else?" Or, you want me to do this, you want me to do that, well, "what are you willing to do for someone else? If I do that for you, what are you willing to do with somebody? How you gonna help somebody else?" And they be like, "well, what you want me to do?" It's not the question, what are you gonna do for somebody else? I can’t tell what I want you to do all day and you're only doing it because I want you to do it. What are you willing to do for somebody else? "Well, I'll help a guy if he need tutoring, I'll do some one on one for him." I said, "Ok, you can do that, you can--how many days a week can you commit to that?" "I got 1." I was like, "alright" And then all of a sudden they were like, "yo, I really like tutoring." Because you build on a personal relationship. But the point is, is to teach 'em like, yo you can be good at this too.
0:18:42.2
So when you, so...I guess uh, it leads to a couple of questions just in terms of like, also when you got connected with NJ step, when that all got started, but--when you, you had mentioned something about one of the things your father said was that he regretted not getting you an attorney--
Right--
So, this all happened--was this all 1988?
No, this was recently.
No, no, no, sorry the um...the...
Nah, I get it, me getting a attorney.
Yea, so your trial was in 1987, 88?
1988.
'88.
Yea.
And then, did you have a public defender?
Public defender, I had a pool attorney assigned to the case, and the public defender had my father believe that he had this elaborate defense, like I wasn't gonna go to prison. So let's be clear, I’ve never had a juvenile record; I've never had any prior contact with the criminal justice system besides this conviction. This is my only contact. And I believed naively that there's no way in hell they’re gonna send me to prison, I've never been in trouble before, and I'm definitely not gonna get a life sentence. First time of the shoe. Ok, I just served 30 years.
[ Annotation 4 ]
So how long was the trial itself?
The trial was about 7 days.
Was there any-was there any kind of uh, like, uh, uh...waiting period between the time you were convicted, between the time you indicted, and the time the trial started?
Yea, it was about, I think the whole process took about, I wanna say I had...300 something days jail credits, so, um...anywhere between 9 months. It was a 9-month process.
And where were you in jail?
I was in Camden County jail.
In Camden jail. And then, uh, when you were convicted where were you? Where did you then go to?
Um, I went straight to New Jersey State Prison, I didn't go to a juvenile facility. And they knew that I was never incarcerated before and they didn't care, they just said--
And you hadn't turned 18 yet?
I was--I'd just turned 18-
You had just turned 18.
So, they sent me straight to--and you know, the juvenile, juveniles in New Jersey are from 18, from 16 to 25 you're considered a juvenile in New Jersey's criminal justice system. From 16 to 25. And I didn't to Yardville, I didn't go to Bordentown, I didn't go to Mountainview. Or any of those places. I went straight to the worst place. Trenton State Prison, New Jersey State Prison. As a first time offender. And I was in there with all adults. I was 5' 4" 118 pounds and had no carceral experience whatsoever and I had to learn on the fly.
[ Annotation 5 ]
Do you remember your 1st night?
I--
Arriving, or..?
0:21:43:8
I remember my 1st night, um; we were, um, we were in a dorm in...the south compound. And it was 4 of us came from our, our county jail together to Trenton, but it wasn’t the first night that was the craziest. Because it seemed like, ok we're in the new part of the jail and it wa--they didn't have place for us in the old part of the jail. And when--normally when you come in, they put you straight in solitary until they find a place for you in general population. And I remember walking into solitary that next day and I’m like, wow, I'm looking at this box and I'm like I got a fresh 30 year sentence, 30 years to life, serving a life term and I'm saying to myself you could touch the wall, you could touch the ceiling. And I'm like, oh my goodness. So I'm calling the C.O., I have to go the bathroom and he's like, "what's up, what you want?" I was like, "I go the bathroom?" He said, "Well, go to the bathroom." I said, "where's the, where's the toilet at?" He said, "it's in there." I was like, "man, there ain't no toilet in there." He said, "Turn the light on." Turn the light on, he was like--I was like, "where is that?" He said, "Oh, move the cardboard." And there was this hole that dry rotted out and rusted that you had to back your body into like this (sounds of demonstrating) Look at it, and it had a shelf that goes over the top so you can't just sit down and go to the bathroom, you have to go this way. Or if you were (indistinguishable, moves away from mic to demonstrate) you had to go in this way, and I'm sitting there for the first time, never being incarcerated in my life and saying, "ain't no way in the hell I'm gonna live 30 years like this, this is not gonna happen." But I'm talking out loud, and then I hear this voice like, um, uh, what'd he say? "Youngin'" I was like, like "wait a minute, who the hell is like, in my head, like." It was like, he was like, "youngin'" I was like, I was like "yo, what's up?" So I don't--I can't make out where it's coming from, but it's coming through the wall. And the guy says, um, "can you do a hour in that cell?" I was like, "yea, I can do a hour." He said, "could you do 5 hours in the cell?" I was like, "yeah." He said, "how bout 12?" I said, "yeah." He said, "Can you do a whole day?" I said, "yea." He said, "alright." He said, "I want you to do 1 day at a time. And if you can do 1 day, you can do 1 day at a time." He said, "but if you try to do the whole 30 years in your head, you're gonna go crazy. Do 1 day, and only think about the day that you're doing." And that has gotten me through.
0:24:46.0
Had he not--see I don't know who that guy was, all I saw was an eye in a hole that was at the top of the cell that he was standing there talking to me. I'm like, "yo, who you?" He was like, "I'm right here." And I looked up and I saw the eye peeking through the hole, I was like, "oh my god." So, and he was like, he said, "you can make it, youngin'. Just do it one day a time. Don't give up, just keep fighting." But he said, "Don't try to do more. Don't do a week, don't do 2 days," he said, "Just do 1 day at a time and you'll make it." And when people ask me, I was like, it was that one stranger who had the conversation when I was in isolation about how to do the 30 years cause he overheard what I was saying out loud. And now, imagine if I'd a stuck with that in my head and didn't say it out loud and this was one of the few times that I would ever utter something that's going on inside my mind and because I did that, I was able to get that jewel and do 1 day at a time.
Were there any other kind of, like, moments during that time, um--I mean you had mentioned briefly a couple of times before you had moments of, like forgiveness, forgiving yourself for things or, or kind of coming to an understanding, you know, were there other moments or are there things that kind of helped you get there? Or was it--
Um, our prison filer, Mr. Jerome Perkins. This guy was incredible, I u--again, I was always fascinated by strong and powerful men, but not just strong and powerful that didn't have to be violent and people--he moved people, he moved things. And, my old head on the street was like that, he would say something and people be like, "alright, alright Greedy." And then would just be--and it was like, my father was the same way, and my grandfathers were the same way. And my grandmother, like, and then my great grandmother was the same way. And I used to always be like, why do everybody just move on, like, you know--and they don't raise their voice and that's what I--I was like, wow, I wanted to be like that. So...and he took a liking to me and, I think like, one of my choices when I got to population, they were like, "listen, what kind a person you gonna be? Are you gonna go to school or are you gonna be out here playing basketball and be in the yard all day or try to think about that day that you lead and what kind a person you gonna be?" And, and they were like, you know--I had these 2 brothers. Sanbria Brothers, and they would do orientation and stuff like that and they would come down and they would do this pitch and like, yo you can sign up for these programs, this and that or you can, you know, you could be like everybody else until you figure it out. And I signed up for school, and Mr. Perkins had found out that I signed up for school. And one thing about prison, prison is like a fishbowl, everything--every--they see, everybody sees everything you do; there's no secrets in prison.
[ Annotation 6 ]
0:27:54.8
And he would watch me, he would watch on visit and he would notice things like my father would come every Sunday, first visit, and bring my brothers and sisters, and my kids. And, he would bring them up and we would all sit out there and then it got to the point where, well, that's when visits were less restrictive, that I would call friends out and be out there with my f--with my family, so--cause they didn't get visits so we would go out there and we would have a good time and then go back. And then I would go back in the prison, acting my wild, crazy self and trying to earn my respect through violence and chumping and calling people out and just doing all types a crazy stuff. And, they would always call Mr. Perkins. And it goes back to what I was telling you about my grandmother and my grandfather, like, they knew, like, they would say something, he ain't listening but if Mr. Perk said (Laughter) the same type of thing and he had that, and it was like, Mr. Perk don't holler at him, Mr. Perk--and it would be like again, he would know--I--one particular day I was getting ready to fight a guy in the back of the shower and we were coming in from the yard. I was like; oh let's go in the back. And this and that. And they had heard us coming in, getting ready to set this fight up, and we were gonna go back here and do it. We go upstairs, they go upstairs and tell Mr. Perk, so...he would say, "'Tonne." He would just make like, outta a million voices I would hear this tone. I be like, "yeah, Mr. Perk." He was like; "I need to see you right now." I be like, "alright, I'm gonna w--" He said, "right now." I be like, "I'm on my way right now." He say, "I don't hear your feet movin." (Laughter). So, but at the time, I didn't know they were the ones and it was 2 older guys. One of them I'm real cool with, the other one I car--I could care less about 'em. But, they would always, they had my best interest at heart and they would tell Mr. Perk, like, when I was about to get into something crazy, like "'Tonne gettin ready to go down there and fight that boy." This and that. So I would come upstairs and Mr. Perk would be like, "what you getting ready to do?" And I was like, it's obviously he know because he's like my father and my grandfather, they never ask you a question that they don't know, already know the answer to. So to lie would be disrespectful to yourself first, and disrespectful to them. So I was like, "dude was outside running his mouth." He said, "what I tell you about people and their agency?" I'm like, "what do you mean?" He was like, "what did I tell you about people and their agency?" It was like, "you can't control how people exercise their agency, you can only control how you respond to it." I was like--he said, "so go on back down there and do what you were gonna do to him. I just wanted to, you to tell me what I told you. That you knew it. And if you can go down there and get--" And by the time I get back down there, like, it was just that one conversation, I'll be like, "nah man, we good." And there wouldn't be no fight.
0:31:07.6
And he was good, he was magical at this. He was just ma--and not just in my life, thousands of young guys the he came into contact with, he wound up pulling, I think, almost close to 40 years in prison. So, I think, uh, he, he was very instrumental. The Sanbria brothers, um, Louis DeLorbe, uh...Carlos Colon, um, uh...Eddie Cakes. It was so many guys, uh...David Russo, uh Gene Berda, like these guys, like I never knew, you know. And then, I was getting ready to do something real, real foolish one time and Mr. Perkins like, he called me, he said, "listen," He called me upstairs again, and I went upstairs, I'm like, "nah, Mr. Perk, you ain't talking me outta this, I'm fuckin' him up, like.." a da da da da da. He said, "ok," he said, "I want you to go down there," he said, "I want you to do just that." He said, "but I want you to think about something before you do it." He said, "Your father comes up here every Sunday, every week to see you, how are you gonna explain this Thursday why you don't--you're not out in population for your father to come see him, and who's gonna call him? Tell him that you're in lockup, you ain't think about that...So you're gonna make your father drive all the way up here knowing that you go down there and you do what you getting ready to do. There's gonna be a code called, and you're gonna go to the hole, and your father's gonna be up here Sunday and you don't even have the decency to say, 'dad, don't come up, I'll be in the hole.'" He said, "but I want you to think about something. You gonna do what you wanna do, you're your own man, you can decide for yourself." He said, "but the next time you go into the visitor hall, I want you to do something for me." He said, "I want you to look around and I want you to tell me how many of their fathers come to see them like yours on Sunday." So me, in my little evil self, I walk downstairs and all he did was just drop it. I get downstairs, and by the time I get to the flats, the wheels are turning and resonating, another disaster abated and I went to the visit, and I look, and there's only me and another guy whose father was with him in a visit. He was like, he said, "you know the last time I saw my father, man?" And like, everytime like, he would use that as a teachable moment. But it was in my crisis. He wouldn't just teach me in times of peace, like we're all relaxed here and this and that. And that's where like, where, where w-me on the inside and with me on the outside. Like I tell, like people that I'm working with, when we're working with you I said, "nah" I said, "you keep trying to work with 'em in times of peace that matters nothing." It's in those critical moments, that, you know--and we always use the space shuttle analogy. And, like when we're training people they be like, like I never thought about it that way and it goes like this: people think that the space shuttle just goes up and down at will. It doesn't. It can only hit the window at a right time, right angle, and at the right velocity. If not, it'll burn up, it'll crash. The--the, The atmosphere won't let it enter or exit, it has to hit the window so there's a lot of math involved and it has to be strategically planned. I said, so when you speak to a kid out of season, he's not gonna hear ya.
0:35:03.1
So, some kids you can't talk to when they're angry. You know what I mean? Sometimes you just need to be in close proximity too. Then let them know I'm with you and whatever you decide, like he said, Mr. Perk always told me, "I'm with you. Whatever you decide to do, I'm with you. But I just want you to think about this." And he would take that opportunity as a, a point of saying when it hits that atmosphere, you're either gonna successfully navigate exit or enter that atmosphere or you're gonna burn up on entry or exit. However you decide, it's your decision. And, when we do that with people on the outside, they be like, you know, they find it fascinating that we would use a space shuttle analogy when it comes to reaching people and reaching situations and things like that and we're saying, when the space shuttle is blowing up like, it's, it's too late, it's done. What's done is done. And, they they now, I'm starting to see, you know what I mean? As we begin to change the narrative, change the language, they're like, "ok, O-maybe these guys are onto something." And I tell 'em this all the time, and I’m like the alliance. Sometimes you gonna have to listen to somebody that you may think have done the worst things possible, but they'll have the best solutions that you'll ever think of. I said, what better way to stop a murder than talking to somebody who committed one? But because you look at the behavior and demonize the person you lose the public health aspect of it. The how-to-heal and how-to-keep-this-from-happening-again, because all you're concerned about is public safety. It's not a bad thing, but it's bad when you're trying--only trying to look through the lens of trying to save people lives and trying to keep people from going down these paths. So when you tell me, they tell me, um, everywhere I go 16 to 25s that nobody wants to deal with them. I was that dude. And then they go, like, "well, how--how do you guys do that?" Well, who better to do it than us? And if you partner with us, we can do some great things. But, you keep thinking that we're stuck, you're only looking at one day. And we're looking at, a bunch a bad days as one day. Back to what dude said, one day at a time. So, we're not looking at that day, we know tomorrow he can make this better than that day that led him into your courtroom. Or led him to your organization. And then, when they go, "well, where Mr. Tonne at, why he ain't here?" And they go, "wait a minute, what the hell did he say to you." "He ain't say nothing, he just cool as hell. Like." But it gets, it's like, I was that kid and the--when I, and I put together teams of guys that were those kids, but we're adults now. What better way? And then they go, but, again, it's as if they want, if they really want, uh, transformation that's where I question a lotta this stuff. If you want healthy people sometimes in order for me to get healthy, like I said from the beginning, I have to be in service of others. In order for me to heal, I have to talk.
0:38:42.2
Do you kinda remember, was there a moment when you...when you kind of saw yourself become a Mr. Perkins, you know? So there's a moment in which you, in your life, when you kind of need these figures or your--and then there's a moment where you're kind of--
Nah, it wasn't until...um, I was working on a guy’s legal case. And...He, our agreement was if you--I never charged a person for doing legal work inside. Never took a dime. Only thing I ask, if you didn't go to school and you didn't finish school, finish your GED or get your high school diploma and if you did that, if you had that coming in, just take programs. In exchange for me doing your legal work. So we had this particular kid, same thing that was offered to me, were you gonna be a guy in the yard or were you gonna be a guy in school. So, the guy heard about me and was like, "yo, can you take my case, can you work on my case and tell me what you see and if I have any appealable issues?" I said, "ok," I said, "but let's be clear, here's my conditions: you go to school every day, 5 days a week. No days off. And we good, and I'll work on your case, but you're not going to be in the yard while I'm in the law library looking at your case. And working on your case, and you're not filling your part." He was like, "alright, cool, that’s it?" He was like, "alright." He signed up for school, made sure he was in school, got his state test and about 2 months in, this kid was, it was on a Tuesday or Thursday and he was walking past a window to the library. He didn't think the library window faced, um, the track to where it going towards the yard, and I just happened to look up and see him on his way to the yard when he was supposed to be in the school.
So I got his stuff together, went in my locker, put all his stuff, put it all back into envelopes, nice and neat, closed them. Got the badge, went over to the housing unit, and I walked on and I saw the officer, now I'm not technically supposed to be on this unit, I said, um, so I said to the officer, I said, "Officer Sellnal, I need a favor." Um, he was like, "what's up?" I said, "what cell is," I forgot the kid’s name. He was like, "yo, he's upstairs in 3 tier and this and that" and I said, "can you take me up there?" And I put his legal work in the cell. I said, "me and the guy had a agreement, I would work on his case if he went to school everyday. He went to the yard." He was like, "yeah," he was like, "yeah, I saw, he did go the yard." I said, "so, I don't want no problems, I just wanna make sure he get all his legal work back and that I know that I safely put it on, on his bed and he double locked the door." He was like; I can do that for you. Went up there, put it in there and that's when I knew that, because that's what Mr. Perkins do, that's how he moves.
0:41:51.4
And that the officer, like normally they won't even let you on their unit if you're not from their unit, they don't care what kind a badge you on, we're in general pop. But the fact that he did it, so when he came, when the kid came back, he called my unit and said, "send Henshaw over here." So the kid is standing down on the flats with the officer and the officer is telling him, he was like, "what's all my legal stuff doing on my bed?" He said, "you promised that man that you would go to school every day, and you went outside and he saw you." He said, "Somebody snitched on you." He was like, "nah, the man saw you himself." So he called me all the way down there, he said, "wait right here." He called, I came. And as we was talking, he was like, "yo." I said, "oh," I said, um, "yea, I was looking out the law library window and I saw you broke our contract, so I'm under no obligation to keep enforcing our contract. Even though it was verbal. The stuff is in your room, and you can enjoy the yard." And the officer looked at him and he was like, "so who snitched on you?" I said, "Oh he thought somebody snitched on you?" I said, "no, I saw you with my own eyes" And...and it was at that moment that--and I walked away--and then every day he was in the mess hall trying to convince me like, "yo" and this and that. But I--I made him wait like about a week to where--and it was like Mr. Perkins and, and that's when I seen like, ok, like you have to decide for your life what's important to you. Now if you woulda just said, like, "yo 'Tonne, I got something going on, I need to go outside, the school is not for me today" you know what I mean? You coulda sent somebody to me to say any of that. You--you got options. It's not like it's either-or, there's gray areas in itself. Sometimes I didn't feel like going to school every day, but Mr. Perkins didn't let me do any of that. "Get yo ass up." He was--I would--when I'd be like, "yo, I'm tired." He was like, "ok, when you're dead you can sleep all you want. Right now the day is for the living." You know what I mean? And he would constantly, like, say these crazy clichés. And then I find myself, like, with this, with this particular kid, it wasn't until him that I realized that, ok I'm officially a Mr. Perk. (Laughter) You know. Because he really wanted, like he knew, like I-I-I cared about him, and I--but I wasn't gonna waste my time, you're not gonna impose on my time. I could be doing my own thing and the kid wound up getting out and staying out and never coming back and he got his GED. So, those, like, if it wasn't for him and a few other guys--but Mr. Perk was...he was, for me he was that dude when I came home, um, he was in the hospital and I went to see him, I was going to Rutgers Newark and--when they told me he was in the hospital I went there to see him and I like, went to pieces. But I knew, like, I had to be strong for him and he's a energy guy. So when you touch him, he's like--he knows, like he used to tell me, um, like when I’m on some bullshit, he be like, "bad energy. bad energy." And I used to be like, "my god, how the fuck does he know this shit?" He was like, "what's going on? We need to talk to talk?" I was like, "yea, I’ll be up there." And he'll be like--but he would literally just by touching me or the way I hugged him, like, and then, when, when I went to the hospital room, and I hugged him, and the first thing he said was "good energy. This is some positive energy," he said, "I need this right now."
0:45:40.7
So, the guy that took me with him, Tariq, um, Tariq was like, "I want some!" And then we just stood there hugging each other, grown ass men, just having a moment, and he was like, "Bro, I am so proud of you." And then he was telling me about--I had wrote him a letter when I got granted parole, and I was telling parole about--and they was like, "well, what--wh-what was your moment of like, wh--wh--inside, what was that moment?" And I was like, it was a complete stranger that cared about me that didn't know me from nothin and just took a interest in me and I've never asked him, like, you know what he saw in me or never had that discussion. I was just, it was just beautiful for me that he saw it and that he invested in me. And I had wrote him a letter and I told him everything I told parole about him and parole, he couldn't even finish reading that letter because again, I'm--I'm very introverted. Like, I'll, I could--I could really be "I love you" and this and that, but I'd, I would sometimes I would never, like all the stuff that me and him would go through, I would never really tell him how much he impacted my life. So when I wrote the letter to tell him, and it was like I-I-I deliberately just went into to all of this stuff and didn't tell him until like, the 5th page of the letter that I got granted parole, so I would hint up to it and then just, you know, I would use my writing skills to like climax and then he'd be like, "yo, well, what happened?" And then by the point before he, l think he got, he said, "I got to the back of the second page." He said, "and I just, your words just made me break down and cry and I couldn't even finish it," so his wife name, we call her, uh, Mother Theresa, but her--his wife name is Theresa, so we--but we call her Mother Theresa and she's like, he said, "I had to get Theresa to read the letter and the--finish reading the letter and by the time she got to the end of that page, she's crying." And she was like, he was like, "is he doing this deliberately?" It's like, you know, it's that, no, I-I-it--cause he used to--he used to critique my writing and he used to be always on me like, "say it better. You can do better, do it again." And, and he was like, "yo" he was like, "and then at the end when she read I got granted parole, I'll be to see you," and he was like "yo..." like, and, and he was like--so when we talked at that moment in this hospital room, he was like, he said, "I never knew that's the way you felt about me." He was like, "you don't say shit, you just like a rock, like, and you think that it's not going in," like, and he's like, "and all of hits is a depository of all of this information." And I was like, "man I wouldn't a made it without you, like, if you didn't care," you know what I mean? "Even though my family came," I said, "with you inside, that's what really mattered to me." And he's still here with us, I gotta get up there, we supposed to have dinner but I haven't been up there. The only reason I haven't is because up until now I had not gotten into grad school, and now that I gotten into grad school, I'm just gonna go up there, and we just gonna sit down and we just gonna rock out, everything on me.
I'm just gonna pause the recorder for a second.
0:49:18.9
Follow up, Audio File #4
This is John Keller with CoLab Arts and Rutgers Oral History Archive. It’s about 2: 45 on Friday June 28th, 8th? Yes. Uh, at 2019 and we’re located in Camden, New Jersey and if you could give us the actual formal name of the location where we are.
We’re at D.A.R.E Academy we’re at Cylab where the, um, the actual youth center and our library of D.A.R.E. Academy at 1656, uh, Kaighn Avenue, Camden New Jersey um…
Great, and your name again.
My name is Antonne Henshaw.
Great, so, and this is part 2 of your, of your follow up—your oral history. Great, um, well yea, I think we can kinda swing back around to talk about this place a little bit too.
Ok.
For your oral history, but just to kind of pick up where we left off last time, we had started talking a little bit about uh, I got to listen to the recording a little bit, with—you kind of talked a few, kind of anecdotal stories about some of your time, uh, served, and I was just curious, maybe we could start with doing a timeline. We had talked about your 1st night in and that story about being put in uh, in solitary. Um, and I was just curious like, if you had to, if you could describe, like, the arc of the story of like, what happened to you, or how you changed or what it was like for you, you know, from day 1 until day, the last day you were there. Like, what was the, what was kind of like the overall journey for you?
They were trying to make me an animal and my resistance to that creation was central. So, and…prison is designed, or most people think that prison is designed to correct behavior. Nothing could be further from the truth. Prison is designed to break you, to make you docile, and to make you a passive participant in this society. Because they look at what you did as a means of now I must control this person, and this person must be controlled. For whatever choice or whatever decision they—they’ve made, so, but it’s in gaining that control they have to convince you that you’re an animal, that you’re subhuman, that you’re not a human being. And then what happens is, you have to fight to get your humanity back, and in that f—it’s in that fight that you either lose yourself or you find yourself. And, if you don’t know who you are, if you go in there knowing who you are now you’re trying to hold onto who you are. I was a kid, so I was still forming myself, I didn’t know what type a adult—I didn’t expect to live past my 18th birthday, and I lived according to that self uh, taught, um, um, thought prophecy. So, but then when I didn’t die, I’m like, well what are you gonna do, you’re living? So what kinda person you gonna be?
0:03:07.3
Wait a minute, what if you do make it to 30 years? How are you gonna get out, how are you gonna go back to your community? And then when you look at how when, well when I looked at how I was being socialized inside: with violence, control, domination, is that what I want it to be? Is that what I understood what it produced? It produced anger, bitter, sp—uh—spiteful, hatred inside. Now how can I battle that? On top of the undiagnosed trauma that I already went through. So, it’s the trauma building, and then it’s to the point where I had to have honest discussions with a few good friends about, like, “Tonne, you really not like that, you just acting that way.” Cause you’re responding to social strain, you’re responding to crisis in a way that you don’t know another way. And then like, I’ll give you an example: violence. Somebody punches you in the face in prison, you’re supposed to try to kill ‘em, if not, kill ‘em. But then, an incident happened to me where a guy, we were at a meeting, and he walked up for no apparent reason, and just punched me in the face. But because, I was at that time being taught by Dr. Cornel West and he said, “what does decency do in the face of…” “what does…” uh, he just started asking me four questions, I don’t remember them by heart, that W.E.B. DuBois, his mentor and teacher began to teach him. And that—and, and when this guy hit me, he hit me in that stage of growth and development. Now everybody that knows me, don’t put your hands on ‘Tonne. But in this space, the guy didn’t do his homework. Normally, that don’t happen, but when he went and did his homework he began to panic. Like, like, “dawg, this dude has the ability to make—take you off this planet, just on his word, or he’ll do it himself if he feel as though…” and this and that. So the dude is try to con—have a conversation with me, but I’m in a state of flux, like what do I do? I have this new information and I’m s—and I—and the, and the, and the, and—and the point of transforming myself, so, I’m questioning myself whereas before it was just, “Yeah, nigga you outta here. You done.” And then it was like, Ok, he made a mistake, I know he made a mistake. Whereas before it wasn’t a mistake, you deliberately did something to me. I know that if he had all the necessary information and he could make, at that point of making that decision, he woulda made a totally different decision.
[ Annotation 7 ]
0:05:59.1
But then I had to think about it, I had to put myself in that guy’s shoes, and that’s when I began to get it. Now this like, at the end. So, but I—for the first time in my life, because of Cornell West’s questions, that W.E.B. Dubois taught him and the rest of his cohorts that I began to say, “damn, somebody would of asked me that, how would I answer it?” But see, you can’t answer it until you have the experience. If nothing other than that, it’s just a rhetorical question, it’s just theoretical knowledge and this and that. But now here I’m in the crisis, you know, what kinda person am I gonna be. But I had one friend, Novis Parker um, he said “Tonne,” he said, “we know what you’re capable of.” He said, “and I know you struggle in it, I can see it in your face.” He said, “I know you wanna go get this dude,” He said, “But I’m asking you for me…find somewhere inside yourself and give him a pass and let that go.” And he said, “I guarantee you that it don’t make you less than a man, it don’t make you soft, it don’t make you—it actually shows more strength, that you can restrain yourself and then say, this violence that just happened, is gonna end with me. I’m gonna let that punch be a lesson to everybody else, even though everybody that yea, you go at him, it’s—it’s just on.” And, but it was a change in course that I wasn’t prepared to make, so I struggled. But if Novis Hanif Parker did not come to and say, like everybody else, like, they knew like, they was like, “yo, we talking to this dude, he looking us in the face,” but if they know I’m not gonna lie to ‘em, I nod my head, “I hear ya, I’mma listen you out.” But it was his counsel, outta everybody else that made the most sense. And then when I began to sit back and started thinking, like “yo, he hit me. He was the weak one.” I endured it, but it’s my—in my response, the only thing I can control is my response, I can’t control what he did. I can only control my response to what he did and how I control my response, what I didn’t know at the time, um, uh…I Vic, uh, another guy I was mentoring at the time, he was actually saying to the guy that hit me, “yo, you just don’t know what you just did.” But at the same time, he was looking for me to do anything contrary to what I was counseling him to do. Cause he was very violent, and I was getting to the root of his violence and why he was the way he was and how he was internalizing his violence and how you act out because you don’t have the words to say what’s on your heart and mind.
0:09:05.2
And…he…was waiting to see how I responded, to see if I was a liar. How could you counsel me to all a this stuff and then you hop on him? And, he began to explain all a this stuff, in the—in the—in the, in the post-mortem of the—the incident, but needless to say, I didn’t respond in violence. I actually talked to the guy, and the guy was so afraid, he was more afraid, and then that’s when I learned that sometimes the threat of violence is far more dangerous than the actual act itself. Because in his mind he’s used to being violated after he does something wrong and when he didn’t get that he didn’t know how to navigate that space, so now he became paranoid, “when is it gonna happen?” And I had never, I didn’t even make the decision for anything to happen, and then when the guys that locked on his unit were like, “yo, wassup? We waitin’ on your call.” And then when my call went out, leave him alone, he good. But he don’t know that. But he’s operating in this space to where—like, I need to know definitively and one thing about me on the inside they knew that if I gave you my word, my word meant more to me than it means to anybody, like I keep my word. And, so him and a—me and a guy that I had the altercation with, we talked and I was like, “listen.” He was like, “yo,” you know, he went to talking, I was like, “yo, just shut the fuck up. I said, that was the problem: you weren’t listening. And now you’re talking after making a mistake and you wanna be heard, the time to be heard was the time before you made that decision, we coulda talked that out. And it—you would of found that we were on the same page, we just had different, uh, means of getting to the same point. Which I was trying to show you, but you didn’t wannna hear it. You felt as though I chumped you, and I disrespected you and your only was, to walk up while I was talking to somebody, and punch me. And then my point to you, you punched me, without me looking and my—my—my—my—“ I said, “do you remember my response?” And he was like, “you said ‘you hit like a bitch’ “ I said, “yeah, when you hit somebody that’s not watching you and you steal off on him, you supposed to put him down or put him out. So I already knew that you weren’t gonna win a fight, but because you did it, I had went somewhere else in myself—inside myself that was dark, that I thought it was over until that incident. Now I had to make a decision, am I gonna go backwards or am I gonna move forward? How can now, once, uh, a purveyor of violence deal with violence when it comes to them?”
0:11:48.5
So now it—at that, at that—that—that—that last incident that I had inside, there was one more, um—
How old were you, when all of that happened?
When this just happened I was, uh…47. But prior to that, like you, like I’m trained to go, like whatever. Trained to go means, soon as something happens, I’m the first one out the door. I’m the first one on the front line. So, and that’s how I lived my life. But then as I began to get educated, and be around people that was like, like, like, “Tonne, there’s a different front line that you need to be on. You need to think your way through these things, instead of trying to feel your way.” So it’s like, finally realizing that you lived your entire life blind, and it was blinded by emotion and your response to those emotions. Like, I’m gonna feel sad, I’m gonna feel happy, I’m gonna feel angry, but it’s what you do in those moments that all that matters. So all a these things are constant, they’re gonna constantly happen, no matter how great my life turns out after this point, or how messed up life was prior to this. But it’s how I navigate those spaces is the only thing I can control is my choices in those moments. But when you try to live further to that day, that’s when things get—get hairy. So for me it was about living one day at a time and stop trying to live in my head and then when I need help, surround myself with people that can help me, or know where I can go and ask for help. Don’t sit and suffer in silence and let that stuff build up and turn into rage, to whereas I wouldn’t express anything and it all went back to what we initially talked about—my silence. As a kid when my mother left. So it’s like reliving those same things over and over and over all throughout your life and not connecting it. And that’s where, for me, once I learned like, nah ‘Tonne you can’t, right now you need to talk, you need to get this out. And it was like, I would tell people I’m exactly the opposite. People be like, “yo when they talking, then that’s when they be building up.” When I’m talking, I’m releasing. I’m healing. Whereas exactly opp—when I’m silent you know I’m plotting. I’m getting ready to do something crazy, I’m getting ready to do something stupid. And I was exactly the opposite of all my friends inside. But the ones that knew me, was like, “yo go talk to him.” It was like, “why won’t you go talk to him?” They was like, “he don’t wanna hear me right now, but he’s knows you don’t know this. That he’s sitting there quietly, he’s struggling. And it’s in the silence that we know he’s struggling, but if I got cause he knows I know he’s just gonna sit there and look at me and just nod his head like, yeah, and he’s just gonna yes me to death and just be like, but he’s still gonna be in that space.” But I think—I don’t –I don’t really know if they did it, that’s why they sent Hanif to me, like, “he’ll receive it from you, he won’t receive it from us, cause he knows you don’t him on that level, but he loves you enough and he trusts you enough that if you say it, and it’s gonna come a sincere place without you knowing it, it’s gonna be more authentic than it’s coming from me.” And strategically, they did, they did it and they were successful. But it was like that arch was, to get to the point where I feel safe in any environment that I find myself in. To where, my first reaction is not violence, my first reaction is not aggression.
0:15:26.4
You know what I mean? To where, I can be my true authentic self in any situation that I find and be confident in that space. Prison took that away from me, so I had to fight to get it. So, and it’s—it’s in that struggle and in those—the, that, that conflict that I learned that anything worth having is worth fighting for, and you gonna have to do—you gonna have a lot a more fights. And in fighting, fighting to be back out here was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Everything else is like, they be like, you make me sick out here like, to me. I don’t know anything more, uh, strenuous and stressful than going before New Jersey State Parole Board and asking for your life back, from 12 people who don’t know you.
Do you wanna talk about that? What—what’s your parole board experience like?
(Sighs) It was—It was depressive. It was demeaning. It was degrading, but it was liberating in the end. So I had to go through all a this negative stuff to get the outcome that I wanted. And, never being—going through it before, having references, but not having the actual experiences and waiting for those moments to the—for the—someone else’s experience to manifest itself in your hearing, was very like, ok, they told me about this. Alright, I know how to navigate this without any practice, and just—just going in there and just being yourself and being honest about who you are, what happened, and what’s going on to total strangers. And I was, um, my case, was very unique. And it was picked—
(Phone rings)
Do you need to take that?
Nah. It was picked to uh, to have students, listen to my hearing. To observe my hearing. So they came in and they said, “can you sign this?” and this and that. It doesn’t matter, you don’t have to, it’s not gonna play away on your hearing, but see, I understand something about human behavior that, they didn’t to understood. So it’s hard when people are watching, to do something unjust, when people are watching. So before, when the police used to assault us in Camden, and there was no camera, no footage and we was saying that they were, uh, police brutality. But now, when people are watching, it’s a whole visceral response to people who once believed, why would the police do that? They don’t never do that? But we been saying this for the last 100 years. So, but I understood that, and I was fortunate, I signed the paper, I didn’t have anything to hide. And, I’m truly transparent when it comes to telling my story, cause it’s my story.
[ Annotation 8 ]
0:18:42.1
And, whatever they asked, whatever, you know—and the students were sitting there and this and that. And it was like, you know, but my case was unique in the sense that, here it is you had someone who had no prior contact with the criminal justice system. And one day, he made a decision and his whole life turned around, but then inside he got it back together. Like, how--explain this to these kids, this is what they were asking me to do. Through, asking for my freedom back. Like, first, tell us that we’re safe, but teach them why we’re safe. So, I took the challenge like, yeah, cool it’s no problem. “But you don’t have to do it, it doesn’t, gonna make a outcome on your decision one way or another.” Like, yeah, you trying to get me to ignore human behavior like nah, this is the perfect opportunity, the more eyes on this the better. Because now you’re saying like if not him, then who? That was my—my—my motto: if not me, then who? So, and doing the things that I’ve done—I’ve made a lotta mistakes during my incarceration, let’s not be—let’s be clear about that. I was not, what you would consider, at one point, a model prisoner. That came later. But, and, when—but on that journey to get there and going through the parole process, it was always, it was too far to even imagine it. So when it came, it was like, you know, I remember when I got to…10 years left, right? Still 2 digits, when it got to 9 years left, we got like, single digits. So, and it’s like a little thing we do mentally as prisoners that a lotta people don’t understand. So we don’t, we don’t start counting until you get to single digits. None a that matters, it’s too far. So, once it got to 9 years and like, “yo,” he was like “Tonne, you in single digits.” And everybody knows it, “Tonne is in single digits.” So, now, you’re—you’re real friends they begin to shield you and protect you from all the, day-to-day prison bullshit. Don’t let you get up and get into, like, I couldn’t get into anything. They was like, “no, we need you out there. We need you, cause we know, what you gonna do when you go.” And it was their—their confidence in me that keeps me going everyday to get up every morning and come to CoLab and I was—yesterday I was in New York and to do all a this stuff. But it was about preparing for me, preparing for parole made all a what I’m doing today possible because it’s about knowing your audience, studying, and do the research. Knowing how to present yourself. And being able to articulate and to not allow your narrative to be misinterpreted. To be very clear and specific and pointed in what you’re saying, so there is no room to say, “ahh, got you here!”
0:21:53.2
So, to not create any boogeyman moments in my hearing. But um…I think that using the prosecutors narrative of how bad the crime was and saying exactly what they said, and no deviations from it, even though, I didn’t agree with it, it wasn’t true, but it was their untruth. But that’s the only one they want, they were the only ones that mattered. So, I had to create my narrative based on a lie, and then when you were, when you shed yourself of that façade of having to lie, and having to manipulate and then having to do that in order to gain your freedom, it’s like, for me it was a culture shock. I was depressed real bad for like, 8 months. Prior to my hearing. And then it was the waiting. It wasn’t even the hearing, it was the waiting that begun to tear at me, to stress me in ways like—you know—because nobody ever tells you it’s the way. Like, once you get in there you know, yes or no. At the 2 man panel. So I went to my 2 man panel, it was, uh, I wanna say a 35 minute hearing. It was through video conference. They said yes. And I was like “whew!” But then, that yes when I went to—got processed to go to the full board, I get a letter from the Camden County Prosecutor’s office in the city of Camden saying, “No, he should serve the life portion of his sentence. Inside, for the rest of life. He should not be allowed back in society.” The person who wrote the letter, when I looked him up, they weren’t even born when I went to prison. (Pause)
So I was like, “yo, look this name up, see who this person is. They work for the Camden County, uh, prosecutors office.” So, it was a—but again, I took it personally, I made it about me and it was like, “Tonne”—I had um, Robert Knight Stony a good paralegal friend of mine, he was like, “Tonne, they just doing their job. Don’t take it personally.” “Yea, but everybody else went up and no prosecutor opposed them and this and that, the prosecutor’s office.” He’s like, “Tonne, some do it, some don’t. Your county does.” And being able to like—again, that sent me like, that unknown—and then the thing is, is that I can only—and it was about getting back to, you can only control the variables that you know. And just stay flexible for the ones that you don’t.
0:24:34.9
And pretty much I actually over-prepared for my hearing, the things that I thought they were gonna ask me about, they didn’t. And besides the, uhm, they had one guy, I think he was the, um, a psy—uh, he was a psychologist by trade and sat on the parole board. He was the only monkey wrench, and the one that I thought was gonna be the monkey wrench, he tried something and said that I had lost a job and—twice while I was in prison. And I was like, you know, and I was like, “nah,” I said, um, “I got taken off that job one time and then I went to the Rec department, I didn’t go back.” He was like, “nah, you were taken off twice.” I said, “well,” I said “I’m—I lived it, so I’m sorry, but uh, you would have to show me that in a record.” And he didn’t expect that, so he’s stumbling through the records, I have it here I read it last night. “You can’t, you couldn’t have read it last night, it didn’t exist, I lived it...I only got—left the law library in Trenton State Prison one time, it was only, um, a job change one time. And I went to the Rec Department, and I never went back in Trenton State Prison to the law library. The next time I went to the law library was in East Jersey State Prison and I been working that ever since I got there in 2006 til I left, 11 year. I was a paralegal in East Jersey. So those are the only 3 jobs I ever had in prison. School, paralegal, Rec Department, paralegal.” (Phone rings) “So there is no other way to tell that story. So, there is no other way to tell that story. So, and if you have something different on paper, please show me.” So he went through the paperwork, “ahh, I thought it was in here somewhere” and that moved on. The next one was like, alright you trying to throw a monkey wrench, but I know my life. So the rest of the parole people around the table just started laughing, like, you tried him, he’s prepared. How many people come in here unprepared? You woulda got that off to somebody that wh—where’s that at? No, I know for a fact how many jobs I had. And I’ve only had 3 jobs—2, well 3 jobs in the course of my 30 years of incarceration. Paralegal, Rec Department, and school. That’s it.
So, the next one, he comes around the table, we get to him, I think he’s…3rd from the last person. And, he calls me a liar, he’s a pr—he’s a psych by trade, he said, “You’re a liar. Everything you told this panel today, you’re a liar.” And I sat there and I was like, ok. “So…” he says, “you’re not gonna say anything?” I said, “I mean, you didn’t ask a question, you made a declarative—statement. I’m here to answer questions, I don’t wanna be facetious or funny, but you made a statement, you didn’t ask a question. I didn’t know you wanted me to respond.” He said, “well, what do you think about what I said?” I said, uh “well, I’m sorry you feel that way.” He said, “why are you sorry I feel that way?” I said, “because I know if I come in here and lie, I stay in prison for the rest of my life. There’s not a question y’all ask me that I didn’t answer, whether you like my answer or not. Honestly, truthfully, and authentically. I told you to the best of my ability, to the best of my knowledge, and what I could recollect. And if I hadn’t shown anything, I’ve shown a willingness to be open and honest about all the negative things as well as the positive things that you’ve asked me about. And if you ask me anything about my positive stuff, I kinda shy away from that. Because I feel as though what I’m here for overshadows any positive things that I’ve done.”
0:28:36.5
“They does—there does not an equal balance in those two things. An innocent person lost their life.” And he’s like, “well, I still think you’re a liar.” I said, “well, I’m sorry you feel that way. You know, and…you know, that part of the hearing, I can’t control how you perceive me or how you feel about me. All I can do is present what I know to be true and authentic and hope the process works in my favor, but I know lying keeps me in prison forever. And I wouldn’t waste your time. I waited 34—30 years for this moment, why would I waste it with a lie? It tears down everything I’ve ever done.” He was like, “I have no more questions.” And the next guy, and we went through. And in the end, they voted to release me. Y’know, but their thing was they were even skeptical. It was like, “yo, you present well. You present very well. You know, but your work is not done, you’ve got a lotta work to do.” And this was from the parole board chairman, “You have a lotta work to do.” You know, I don’t know what he was talking about, I just was like—all I heard was we’re gonna take a chance, and my thing was I wasn’t asking for a chance. A chance implies gamble. You’re not taking a gamble on me, all I’m asking for is an opportunity. You open that door and I’m gonna hit that door running and, I’m gonna make sure that door stays open for people that’s coming behind me. That’s my job, to say yeah, you can take—give opportunities to people like me in my situation, to live my—rest of my life as an example of this why you vote yes on a New Jersey state parole board for people like this. So that’s what I try to live my life going forward as an example for them to say like, yeah, we may have got it wrong with that one, but these new ones here, they can do this. And if he’s out there and they’re connected to him, he’ll probably help steer them in the right direction. So that’s why—how I try to do it. But, I was happy, and then 2 weeks later I’m on a panel in Atlantic City with the same parole board chairman, Plumere—Plumeri, the commissioner of Corrections, um, uh…I can’t remember his name right now, and the former uh, parole board chairman who is now the casino parole board, um, guy down there talking about giving opportunities to people cause, you know, once the sports betting started, they couldn’t fill the jobs because you need a license to work in the casinos. But other people that were eligible for the jobs in Atlantic City couldn’t get the jobs because of the background checks, so they couldn’t take the photos, they couldn’t pass the—the, the, the, the legal barriers that the structural barriers that Michelle Alexander talks about, that are in, um…
0:31:37.7
That’s a, a battery…(Noise of chairs moving) That Michelle Alexander talks about, um, those procedural barriers that, that come long after incarceration is over. And, we begin to talk and this is like, almost, um, I think I—I got out that they let me go to the program in June 7th and I got out that September 5th and I think that October I was on the panel with them in Atlantic City. And I saw them, I wanna say April 14th of 2018 and by that October I was with them on a panel convincing the owners of the casinos to allow people to forgo that—that background check and let them process through, so they could now get people to cook the food, clean the rooms, and—cause nobody else wanted the jobs down there in Atlantic City. And, but you had all a this surplus labor coming home at, at that time it was like, $13 an hour and you got the sports betting, so now people are coming back to Atlantic City, but you can’t service them. Because of a law that you have blocking potential employees.
What was it like for you, being on that panel?
Wow! It was surreal. It was like, here it is, this man was George, Hayman, I’m gonna say Plumeri. He, he didn’t remember me at first until I started speaking, and then his and I conversation at the end of the hearing, you could see when he acknowledged like, ok, I just let this guy go, and look at where we are. So in essence, I was actually validating without any collaboration with them, what they were saying, as to why we should be giving the opportunity to work in the casino. I had just came home, I had just was issued my bachelor’s degree in justice studies from Rutgers Newark and, like, all a this stuff happened and we stood there, I had it in my bag, we took a picture together, I’m with the, the current uh, commissioner of corrections, the current, uh, chairman of the parole board and the current chairman of the casino control commission. A month after I’m home.
0:34:28.3
So, and, they were like, and that—I don’t know what it was. It was like, that was just the energy, like, I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. Like, I—before I—I would ignore sign posts in my life, but that’s where like, ok, you have to pay a little bit more attention to these sign posts when they become clear. To walk through your life blindly, emotionally, where I’m now, I’m—I’m watching, I’m looking and I’m like, wow. So things are happening and then it—I don’t, I don’t believe in coincidences, so that wasn’t a coincidence to me. I was supposed to be there at that moment, at that time. And, um, I met, um, Larry, uh…I can’t remember hi—Larry Ward. He was the, uh, the director of all the parole agents in the state of New Jersey. So they had called him back, um, as a consultant. And I had met him through Gale Muhammad, so as I’m talking to him he says, “listen, you have any problems with parole or anything like that, here’s my card.” So, I’m looking at this guy, he was like, “No, look at me. What you did today was great, you didn’t have to get up and say anything. Nobody woulda ever know who you were, but because you had the courage, and like, I don’t know what made you do it.” I was like, “well, I carry thousands of people on my back that’s still in those cages and I want them to know it’s ok, you can give us an opportunity. You know I mean, I don’t want you to take a gamble, I don’t want you to do what you’re doing when you put money in the slot, you’re taking a chance, I’m saying take a calculated—just make a calculated decision and provide an opportunity for us to succeed and the partnership will work out for everybody.”
And he was like, “yo,” so I seen him again at Kean University. Soon as he saw me, he walked up to me, I had a friend with me. Um, uh, William Steltz, he had just came home, and…uh, he came home January 2019. So we’re talking, we’re presenting with um, Lesniak about um, Senate Bill 761 – “earn your way out.” So we’re all on the panel, we’re talking and this and that, but um, Larry Ward walks up, he was like, “Antonne!” I’m like, this guy only saw me one time, how the hell does he know my name. He was like, “Come on, man! You made a hell of an impression on us, like, how would I forget you?” I’m like, so I wa—I said, “I was telling my man about you.” He was like, “you on parole?” He was like, “take my card.” So he was like, “what’s going on?” He was like, “if you got any problems with your parole officer, if you need anything just call that number, I will call you back, if I’m not on the—if I don’t answer it, or email me, and I will get right back to you, I promise you. Ask ‘Tonne.” And I was like, so he’s talking, he gave me a hug and this and that. He was like, “You Ok? How’s your parole?” I said, “Everything is good.” He said, “I know.” Cause he went and found out who my agents were and he was like, “you ain’t having no problems, you’re doing good, keep doing it.”
0:37:31.1
So I—w—w—I’m thinking now, like I said, I don’t believe in coincidences, I had got off the 1st phase of parole 2 months early and I couldn’t a—like, with uh—I didn’t know there was phases to this thing. So on the 1st phase they visit you twice a month, you go into the office and they mimic an in-home visit. On the 2nd phase you, um, you visit, they visit you at your home 1 time a month. Randomly, whatever the case may be, and then you don’t have to go in, your urine is at your house, if you have do urine and stuff like that. The 3rd is every 90 days, and then it’s every 6 months, and eventually it gets to once a year. So, depending on how—how the phases go. Now mind you, in prison this is written nowhere. Like, that, we don’t even know that these phases of parole exist. They have not given me a manual, I’ve only talk it—talk to ‘em and they explained this stuff to me, but I’ve yet to see this codified, written down on paper by anybody. So, and but I do believe that it’s in those relationships to whereas when I would shy away from like, when I was a kid I wouldn’t, “nah, I don’t know you, I don’t wanna talk to you.” And it’s in that where we cut ourself off from lifelines. And not stepping outside of, uh, our social networks, or what do they call…our strong ties and our loose ties. And it’s not even in our strong ties that matters, in our loose ties that matters the most, but we all are trained to think it’s in our strong ties and it’s not really. Cause you never know. I’ve gotten more from loose ties from people that I met: Larry Ward, twice, I’ve gotten more things done twice parole wise than I ever would of if I—if he was a part a my inner circle. And I’ve only met that man twice, and just from our relationship that was built through two talks, like, “just call me, just talk to me, I just wanna have a conversation.” I still haven’t called him, but, you know, I’m working through my cop thing. (Laughter) You know, he still a cop, but that’s the thing—but that’s just like, getting through those barriers, well oh, like he doesn’t know. Like, we never know what you been through until you tell us, but we assume that everybody else life if perfect and our lives are so messed up and that’s not the case. Everybody been through something and everybody is damaged in some form or way, it’s just how they manage that damage.
0:40:14.1
When was the first time you heard about NJSTEP?
(Popping Sound) I helped created it.
So how did it, what was the, what was the—how did the, what was the catalyst? What was the conversation?
Well, it started in Trenton when they took the second chan—well, not the second chance, when they took the Pell Grants, and I was in Mercer County Community College, I had just finished my GED with the Mercer County Community College. Took my first semester, did well, got a A and a B, I was excited, “oh I can do this college thing!” And, I went to sign up for the 2nd semester, wham! It’s gone. I’m like, “what happened? I just got in college, what do you mean?” They was like, “unless you can pay for it yourself. You can go to college, but you gotta pay for it, Pell Grants is over, they changed the law, prisoners don’t get access to Pell Grants anymore.” “Are you kidding me?” So that set, not just myself, but a few other prisoners was disgruntled about that. So we were like, yo—how—what can we do? Can we get professors to come in? Can we do this—this was in Trenton State Prison, I wanna say ’94, ’93, ’92.
[ Annotation 9 ]
How did it work, did—would professors come visit you? So when you were doing those first classes—
So, the, the profess—the school that was our…that we were taking courses through were Mercer County Community College. So they would offer, you would come in, you would register, you would sit down, you would take an AccuPlacer and depending on how scored on the AccuPlacer determined whether you got remedial classes, or you went straight into college. I scored high enough, went straight into college. Now, back then, th—this was the difference between Mercer County back then: you would take college credits and get the credits and get a transcript, but it wasn’t matriculating towards a degree. So, what—what was happening was, we learned, was guys was taking all a these credits and, it wasn’t towards any degree track, so would know, or like, for let’s just say liberal arts, you have your pre-reqs and then you have, um, your, uh, your electives. So you ev—when you’re on a degree track you have to take this. That never happened back then, we didn’t know, cause we didn’t know what was going on. So we were taking classes and we were just like, let’s just say hypothetically they had basket weaving. So, basket weaving only accounts for a certain amount of electives towards a degree, but you haven’t declared a degree, uh, uh, degree uh, track. So, you haven’t specialized. So, they just had awkward classes, topics in maths, um, film appreciation, like topics in Maths can count as one of your maths on the AA level, but film appreciation can only go towards an elective. Unless you were in filming or, or going on a d—degree track that had to do with filming or producing films or whatever the case may be.
0:43:46.1
So we just taking classes. Once they cancel them, we were like, how do we get it back? That took 28 years. So, what we did was, we began to…we created literacy programs, cause the—um, the administrators would tell us and downtown central office, the commissioners would tell us, “uh, ya’ll can’t teach, you’re not licensed to teach” and this and that, so you this and that. “Well, can we be trained as literacy tutors?” “Yea, if you can get somebody to come in from the community and train you.” So we all became literacy tutors. So we began to teach each other, through tutoring, once we got certified by um, Literacy Volunteers of America, they would come in, um, Bob and Ann, I can’t remember their last name right now. Um, they would come in and they would train us through the life program, “Literacy is For Everyone.” And we would teach adult literacy for people who couldn’t read and write in prison. Those were the formative years of our process to get to the point of NJSTEP, so it was about each one teach one. Like, and we did it through literacy. Then, another group formed: Hispanic Americans for Progress, and they had a literacy component, so we would train their literacy, but they h—but theirs was a little different, English as a second language. So, you couldn’t even test to get into school because you can’t speak English, and you can’t read English. So we would teach ‘em their ABCs and teach ‘em how to read certain words and this and that. And then get to the point where now they can take, um, the TABE Test the test into school. We would work with the math—we would start them s—like, a grown man, like, if it was in Spanish, he probably coulda knocked it out. But they didn’t have materials in Spanish, he had to learn it in English. So now you have the language barrier preventing the education from being processed, so now, which would actually turned out to be good because for those of us that couldn’t speak Spanish that well we began to learn Spanish in order to communicate to help the guy we were tutoring. So we have life program and we have the help program, um, through the H.A.P. So, one was for people that spoke English, and the people, English as a second language. And, and it was through those programs that we would get grants. We would win awards for literacy, and we would get $65,000 grants and stuff like that or awards, p—um, the people that, the professors or the volunteers that would come in would l—look at our work and they would nominate us, we didn’t know. And we would get funded, and that’s when we began to learn the politics of, education.
[ Annotation 10 ]
0:46:42.8
And that the D.O.C. really wasn’t at that time, about us educating ourselves because the whole part about it is social control. Security and control is the main thrust of the D.O.C. and when we go—was getting the grants, they were telling us you can’t get the money. We have organizational accounts, you can’t put that money in there. Because now we’re, we’re not dependent on the state, that’s how this stuff was formed. Well, we learned those lessons inside: oh, so he who gives you the money, what they say, “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” So, and then we began to understand, mind you, we’re kids, like, well we got our own money so why is this a problem? Because your money access is independent, I can’t control you, but if I’m giving you the money, if I give you $1000 and said, have your banquet, you can only have the banquet because I gave you a $1000, so if next year if I don’t like something you do, I don’t have to give you $1000, but if you went out and got $65,000 on your own, I can’t tell you you can’t have a banquet because you don’t have any money and there’s no money in the budget for you, you already got the money in your budget, I can’t control you. So, our organizational skills began to outpace the security and control of the D.O.C. inside Trenton State Prison. So, we had through the H.A.P. and the life program the largest set of volunteers in any institution, we have over 315 outside volunteers coming into the institution. And what the D.O.C. would tell us is you can have the class, but you need two people from the outside to come in, to chaperone the class. So it was like, ok, no problem. So we’ll call John Keller, “John, can you be here, uh, next Monday at—between 6 and 8.” “Sure, ‘Tonne we can be there.” And you come in, we have the class, this and that. Then they came, “oh, well his application,” like, everytime they came up with something. It was, “ok, they’re too resourceful, they’re too smart.” So, what wind up happening was we asked for college. “Oh, it’s not in the budget,” and this and that. So, we met, um, Dr. Patricia Fernandez Kelly of Princeton University and she—what she would do, she would do combined classes and bring students from Princeton University inside. And she created this program called, um, uh…see I got NJSTEP in my head…um, the, the theme of the program, it’ll come to me, was called “College is Possible, Scholarsh—Scholars and Residents Program.” And then—and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the motto of it is “College is Possible.” So if she asks you, “well, what do you, what do you guys wanna do?” “We wanna go to college.” This guy’s got life, what the hell are—why, what do they see in the importance of education?
[ Annotation 11 ]
0:50:06.5
And, so, sh—what she would do, she would take her classes at Princeton University and make it mandatory that you do a combined class, that you had to go inside and learn with us, and, it was for no credit. The Princeton University students would get credit for it, but we wouldn’t, we would get certificates which was ok. That was the precursor to NJSTEP, and we would do this for like 5 or 6 semesters.
When did that start? Around when was that happening?
I’m—I wanna say it’s the 90s, I don’t know the exact date, but I have the folder and I—but I can’t find my 1st certificate. It maybe even in the 2000s, I just can’t find the 1st certificate, but Dr. Kelly would come in and then she brought in Bruce Western who was then a professor at uh, uh, Princeton University then he went onto Harvard and now I think he’s at Columbia, they would come in and they would teach us Sociology, Criminology and all a these courses and we would have these combined classes with Princeton students and you be signed to like—and the hard part about before we began to get to the point of NJSTEP is nobody wanted to take a class for no credit. And I look at the guys now that, that have greatly benefited from it and like, and when I was inside I would get upset at them, like when they would talk certain and say certain things, and I was like—and they know, like I would give ‘em that look. And they be like, “yo, chill.” You know, and they be like, “what’s wrong?” And he’s like, “yo, we just pissed him off,” you know what I mean? Because I’m listening to him talk now, but then with—all the, all, all, all the look is, is self declare. I hear what you saying now, but let’s talk about when I initially came to you, like, “yo come up here, help me fill this classroom.” And I ain’t taking no classes for free, no credit, hell with that, that’s Princeton University, they making money off us. And no, it was literally that they weren’t making any money off—they don’t need you, they have a 36 billion dollar endow—endowment, they don’t need you, they’re not making any money off a you, but this what you told yourself. This is lie you told yourself to justify not putting in the earlier work. So when I would sit on the panels inside the prison when it came to NJSTEP, like you really have no argument, you weren’t—my, my analogy is simply this: I was building the bus. I was in the bus depot. What stop you got on after the bus came out the depot, determined how much you convinced me about you know this bus route. We planned the route. We took the classes when it wasn’t a bus. We built the bus. So now that I’m sitting in a room with you, you’re telling me the history of a bus that you had no part in building and you had no part in planning the route, but now you wanna change the route from it’s designed intent. No, we’re not doing that.
0:53:19.6
And then if it’s one of the guys that were there, that was offered the opportunity, I would just give ‘em the look. And they would be like, he right. And they be like, “why do y’all capitulate to him? Why would y’all fall back when he does that?” He’s like, “It’s not that we’re afraid, it’s that he understands something that we don’t know because we weren’t there. And when you talk, and you saying what you saying, it goes away from the design—The whole point of NJSTEP.” And this is where, um, Chris Agans and I, when I came home, um, we did a um, we were—we were having discussions and it was nothing negative, but it was tension and I’m trying to figure out why there’s tension. Again, you weren’t there when the bus was built, but I assumed you knew the history. That was my flaw. And I thought that everybody knew the history of it, that was my flaw. And then when everybody saying, “Tonne, unless you say it, nobody’s gonna know it.” So what wind up happening was we wind up having a workshop and Professor Nia Tuckson went to one of our early videos, from the life program, and what it—what it was about was the D.O.C always told us we could never teach each other because we didn’t have Masters degrees or PhDs or we weren’t, we didn’t have a Bachelors Degree. Ok, so we get Bachelors Degrees and Masters Degrees and our PhDs we can teach! So it was about creating scholars on the inside, so if something happened, they were right there on the block. They didn’t have—you didn’t have to wait cause it was a accident on the turnpike, or it was raining or it was a state of emergency, he’s over on two link, just call the movement out, go over to the school, start the class. He’s certified, he’s a professor, he can teach, for those that were never coming home. Did you use the resources that was naturally in the facility… to begin to help transforming peoples lives? To be that, that, that change agent or to, or facilitate that change, help be a pro—part of that process, so we began to say, Ok the only way we gonna start AA, BA, now we’re at the Masters. Now—and it’s about creating those scholars inside.
0:55:56.2
So—and when we would sit in meetings and I’m like, that’s not the point, the point is for those that we can get out, you return to the community a scholar—what we would call a uh, a new entry scholar. And those that are still there, you’re a carceral scholar, but you have to stay connected and keep the movement so, and that’s how we begin to do the work, but through um…uh, Dr. Kelly—um, she don’t, she’s, she wants me to call her Patricia now that I’m out and I keep doing that outta respect. And, uh…talking to them, and getting to this point—and I remember that folder, “College is Possible.” So, as we’re working, we’re going, we’re doing all a this stuff, we’re putting all a this stuff in play, we got all these programs going on. We, we like, “yo, we, we’re pumping out certificates and people are getting college education experience and stuff like that and then, um, our community volunteers, Anna Cookie Rivera, uh Gale Muhammad they came in and they sat down at a round table, we we were doing correction summons and stuff like that, um, Dr. Kelly was doing, presenting our arts, our poetry, um, our writings, at um, forums and symposiums to raise money to do the things that we were doing inside the prison, to make sure you know, everything was good. And, something crazy happened, Gale Muhammad was sitting one day, they had a code in the prison and nobody could move. They literally locked the prison down with us in the areas that we were in with our community volunteers til about 10 o clock that evening. Normally, they’re out at, at 9. But they had that extra hour, and we’re sitting in the rooms and we’re just in the offices, like “yo, just keep going. When they tell me y’all can move the civilians will move first, and then we’ll send you guys back to your units. So, and it’s in that 10 o clock to um, that 9 to 10 o clock space that she asked a question that changed everything in New Jersey’s prisons. She said, “what could I do for you, Mr. Antonne Henshaw, to make sure you don’t come back to prison and that when you go back to your community you’ll be an asset?” And I said, “education.”
0:58:46.3
She’s like, “that’s it?” I was like, “sounds like it’s something like, what, it’s supposed to be this big elaborate scheme?” I was like, “I just wanna go to school.” She said, “so you telling me if I can get you in school, it’s—you’re, you’re good.” I’m like, “I’m telling you—“ but, she didn’t know my story and I never shared my story, and as I shared my story school has always been my safe place. I’ve always been my true, authentic self when it came to academics so, I don’t know why I said it to her at that point but, I said it to her. And she was like, “alright, we gonna get you off school.” And she came in, we worked together for a while, she—she’s been with us for—her husband, backstory to her, Gale Muhammad her husband died in prison. And…when he died in prison, he never came home to her, she became a, a advocate for prisoners and their families. And her mission is to teach that jail is the worst four letter word, and she has done this for the last 25, 28 years. So while we working, she’s coming in, she’s comin—bringing in all these organizations, new people, that’s how we got our 315 number of wh—community volunteers and we’re working on this, um corrections community working summit and we’re working with the juvenile justice commission probation, parole state police, um corrections, and all a this stuff and we got 3 tracks. And, um, it’s: probation, parole, re-entry and education.
So she says, “Tonne, pick your teams, sit down” and this and that and…she said, “but before I do that, I’m gonna come in and I’mma teach you all, I’mma do a workshop on how bills are created and how laws are passed.” And she did a workshop on how shit gets passed through the legislature and how bills get written and this and that. It all starts from a policy paper called the white paper. I’m like, “the white paper?” You know, I said, “we already going through this white stuff with white people, now they got a white paper?” (Laughter) And she was like, “No, that’s not what it means,” you know, and she’s Nation of Islam so we’re like, how is the Nation of Islam lady is teaching us about a white paper? Like this is—doesn’t make sense. She was like, “no, it’s the paper that goes before, when, it’s just raw. It’s just raw information it’s not—it means clean. Like, white, there’s nothing on it. And when you sit down it’s like, all the policy from this white paper, when you put your ideas down on it, now they begin to craft it.”
1:01:39.1
So she was like, “get your team together.” We sat down, we began to discuss it. And I went back to the cell and I’m like, man, I’mma just write what I think how this stuff should go. So I write it, 2 days—this was on a Tuesday, she comes back in on a Thursday, so they met with us every Tuesday and Thursday nights, from uh…I think from 6 to, 6 to 8—no 6-9. And…I wrote the paper and she came and she was like, “you wrote this?” I was like, “yeah.” She was like, “so, from Tuesday to Thursday you wrote this?” And I’m like, “nah, I wrote it that night that you told me to sit down and write it.” She said, “did you have any help on it?” I said, “there’s probably mistakes in there.” She was like, “No, I’m just asking did you have any help on it?” I was like, “nah.” She was like, “this is good.” So, we presented it in the corrections thing, the recommendations to make it, and this and that. And, the thing was is to create something to where the law had to be passed where education is mandatory in all New Jersey’s prisons. And that’s what that white paper was on, but the recommendations wasn’t acted on, at that time. So they had the information, but they didn’t act on it. So I still had it in my word processor on a disc. So, she goes on her own and she’s talking at a community forum at town hall and she’s like “I’m going to meet with the New Jersey commissioner of corrections, George Heyman, and I’mma ask him, can I go inside and I’m gonna take Bonnie Watson Coleman and the legislators to tour our prisons. We’re gonna pick 7 prisons, I’mma pick my guys that I been working with. I’mma have panels and have them to go in there and…the talk…” And what wind up happening was she went in there, scared to death, not knowing how it’s gonna turn out, everybody doubt her, they never gonna let you in. She went in there and they said, “alright, Ms. Muhammad, yes.” And they let her go in there. She picked her teams, she did all the work, so when they did the tours the legislatures actually, for the first time in 30 years toured the prisons in New Jersey. And they came to each one of the 7 prisons that she had outlined with the guys that she picked as her think tanks, that she worked with first at New Jersey State Prison, that now got transferred and she used them as—pick guys that you know that I trust you to pick guys from in there that would help us do and present to the legislatures. Went perfect. Legislatures coming around, and what we learned for the first time they pass laws, but they don’t know how the laws affect. So they were asking us, you know, uh, then, assemblywoman Bonnie Watson called me, she said, “why are you still in prison?” Like they didn’t understand what a 32 mandatory minimum was. But yet they voted for it.
1:04:46.2
You don’t get no time off. You do the whole 30, you do 100 percent of the 30. But in their mind, that’s not how it translated when they were signing these laws, so what could we do. So, we had to present. I went back to that paper that I wrote, I’m a lot more polished now, tightened it up, present it, so Bonnie Watson call me, said, “well, if anything that we can have done to get you guys outta here and keep you guys outta here,” same question that--framed a little different—that Gale Muhammad asked, “what could I do?” I said, “make education mandatory in all New Jersey’s prisons.” She’s like, “well, what would that do?” I said, “well, think about it. You make people register sex offenders as mandatory, you make everybody required to give up their DNA, that’s mandatory, what’s it gonna do? Why not make education mandatory?” And she was like--so, they read it and then you had all other white paper submissions cause we had the workshops before she came and they had other that’s submitted, but what I submitted for my committee went in unedited. As it is, in 4202. And 4202 is what gave way to NJSTEP. So Corzine was up for re-election, it passed in the Assembly and the Senate to make education—and it was a—it took a whole bunch a reform bills and re-entry bills and just smooshed them together and he signed them. But it was a paper tiger, he didn’t fund it. So they weren’t gonna put any funding to it. So what wind up happening was, um…Margaret Atkins who is Gale Muhammad’s partner, who was their initial director of NJSTEP, um, they went out and when 4202 passed, they began to look for people. Christie comes in and he was like, yea he signed it so I’m not gonna do anything, but I’m not giving you no money and I’m not putting no money in the budget, but if you go out and partner with somebody and get money on your own, y’all can have it. Y’all can do it. So, the question was, are you gonna order, if we get this money, are you gonna order the D.O.C. to let us in. He’s like, you get the money and this and that. So, again, nobody wants taxpayer money paying for convicted felons free education. So they go somehow and do some…this, this part is they would have to tell you, but from the way I got it, the Sunshine Ladies Foundation, Warren Buffet’s wife, um, foundation, they donated 2 million dollars…For whoever pitched the idea of the social experiment of, does higher education affect recidivism and social outcomes and upward mobility? So it was a social experiment, we didn’t know. Well, we uh—we knew, we just wanted that opportunity, not a chance.
1:08:07.4
So, they gave us 2 million. Unbeknownst to us, Ford matched them with another 2 million. So we got a million a year for 4 years to get a 2-year degree. Some guys are fast, some guys are slow, we gonna see what this happens, and this and that. So, uh, we were…
And that was across all of the prisons?
That was supposed to be across all of the prisons. We had a contract with D.O.C. to go into all 13 prisons. We’re only in 7. We’re still missing, what, 6. For whatever reason. So, what wind up happening was, um…as we began to go into the different institutions, um…they began to set up the college classes, when we got the blowback from the officers. “Ohhhh, taxpayer dollars!” Then they learned it wasn’t taxpayer dollars. “Well, why my kids gotta go, I gotta pay all this money for my kids to go to school and they go free?” You can’t tell rich people what to do with their money. Be mad at Ford, go turn your Ford in and be mad at Warren Buffet’s wife, and her investment, or philanthropy group, to do whatever they want, they’re billionaires. They can do whatever they want. And…our job was to change the culture. Now these are things where first we had to create a culture in order to change a culture. And it was in that space of creating the culture of NJSTEP inside, so they came and they said, “all the people that we want on the advisory boards are the people that were on the panels that spoke to the legislators. We gonna get our team together.” So they went back, and they was like, “listen, put this out. We gonna have registration for guys to come sign up for school,” and this and that. And opportunities anybody you think should be a good fit or just tell ‘em to sign up and we’ll come in and interview everybody and we’ll pick. So, the other institutions were that way, Rahway was a total different monster.
Rahway was the only institution that allowed the influence of prisoners in the entrance process of NJSTEP, which is a unique monster in itself, but the problem with that was, it was what they call, in, uh…research, a unscientific method. So, and they can’t be duplicated, which it can, but it’s just that it’s, it can’t be…measured in a way that most, where they could say “quasi-experiments” and things like that. So, it was hard for uh, research organizations coming in trying to measure our outcomes to be different because of the way we selected it. So what we said was, “ok, there’s 10 of us—“ Well, actually it was 15. We were responsible for selecting 10 people, or asking 10 people to be submitted on our list, so we wind up submitting 150 people. And immediately it created an uproar.
1:11:36.5
Oh, because I’m cool with y’all, I couldn’t get on—I, so—but again, when you’re doing something for the first time everybody can’t go. So it created a lotta backlash, it created a lotta animosity, but we navigated those spaces to be like, “yo, we’re gonna have more opportunities we just, we had to start from somebody.” So we had a mixture, whereas the other ones they didn’t. We had…uh, intrinsically driven people, externally driven people, and people that were a mixture of both. And we had that intrinsic knowledge about who we were, so we had some guys that was—they didn’t need the program, they were gonna excel no matter what, the program just brought it—it was the vehicle in which to show their, uh, their scholarship. Then you had some that coulda went either way and some that was just, like, “we don’t know how this guy, this guy on some crazy shit.” But it was in that mixture that…those that excelled became mentors to those that struggled and examples to those that coulda went either way. And it beca—it was organically done, it was nothing that we did strategically, I don’t wanna give the impression that we did it. But it was the way our selection process gave us that, that, that, that melding. And…it changed not only…uh, us, it transformed us, but it transformed the space in which we were confined. It no longer was East Jersey State Prison, it became East Jersey University. And then, one of the side effects of it was, violence dropped immediately in the first year. It dropped immediately like 80 something percent. The next year, was at 90 something percent, and then the years after that—and maybe your squirmish or argument allowed argument, but the mess hall was safe. The yard was safe. And then they couldn’t understand why. Cause you had to be 2 years charge free in order to get into NJSTEP. Man, you ain’t fuckin up my chance to get into NJSTEP, I’m gonna get me a college education, you ain’t worth whupping your ass, I’m gonna let you have that. The culture began to change.
1: 14: 05.4
So now the officers, they began to ridicule and tease, “you ain’t getting no real degree, and if you do get a degree, you going out and you gonna be working at McDonald’s or Walmart.” “Cool, but I won’t be knocking you over the head, trying to take your mom’s money or robbing you. So which one you want? I ain’t think about it like that, so what you meant to ridicule was actually a compliment. I ain’t knocking you off, going in your pocket, stealing your car, car jacking you. I’m with a degree, and I’m working at Walmart, which means I got a plan cause I’m working towards something. Don’t mean that if I’m a greeter at Walmart that I’m gonna stay a greeter at Walmart. I might have plans to be running the regional director, to be—for North, Northeast Corridor.” And then they were like, “yeah, ok, I ain’t think about it like that.” But again, what they meant for ridicule we would go through the tide to, they would slam our, uh, TI-89 titanium calculators. These were $200 calculators. We were the only institution that were doing pre-cal and calculus. And we needed these calculators to do ‘em. And they were paying—they knew how much they cost because they were paying for kids that were going to, uh, um, I wanna say, well served school districts to buy these things for their kids. And they like, yo, do you know, like, I’m listening to the officers say to the other officer, “you know how much that damn calculator costs?” And you had this one officer, threw that shit. And hit the thing and everything just went crazy. So, the thing is, we knew, but the point was it was—that was our Selma. That was our Civil Rights Movement of nonviolence. Whatever’s gonna happen, let it happen and we just had good administrators that believed in us and believed in the program.
Um, Beverly Hastings was the, um, uh, the administrator of East Jersey State Prison and one of her associate, um, uh, assistants, administrators, was uhm, William Anderson. And, he would come in, we would make a report, “Well, don’t believe us, go look at the video tape and you’ll see Officer such-and-such throw Eddie’s calculator down the thing. It hit the thing, jumped off the c—the, the troth, hit the ground, hit the wall, by the officers barber shop and shattered.” So he shoots down, goes into uh, the rotunda, looks into, in the, in the thing. They don’t know he’s coming down there to look up nothing, so they didn’t erase it. He looks at it, he comes back out, he comes back upstairs, “I’ll take care of it.” Goes down to the veterans office, gets the information from, uh, from Eddie, gives him a, uh, claim form, fill it out. Write the incident of what happened on there, you’re gonna get your calculator, you’ll have it tomorrow. I promise you you’ll have your calculator tomorrow, that’ll never happen to you again.
1:17:19.6
And that went a long way to building the community, building a safe space, building a community of trust where because now we had people that believed and, and the mission was, and this is at the beginning. So now when you go in East Jersey, like, all the professors like, they like teaching for NJSTEP, but the flagship, the Ivy League of NJSTEP is East Jersey. So what they say is, and this is how NJSTEP recruits, “well, we know you wanna teach at East Jersey, but if you teach a semester (Laughter) down here in South Woods, we’ll let you teach two semesters in East Jersey.” Because that’s the flagship, so and that, well, but it came through, I don’t want anyone to think that—and we started 2000…the formulation started in 2012 and actual first class started in 2013 in East Jersey, we were the first adult male facility for NJSTEP. Everything else was either a project inside, um, Mountainview Community, and all these other ones—but they didn’t have—we’re the only program in the history of New Jersey that had the design degree track. Everything you take, remember I talked about the bus, is designed from what happened before we were just taking all of these classes and it wasn’t in the degree track. But our white paper made sure, that nah, this is towards a matriculated degree in liberal arts. So you know what’s required, and every thing you have—gotta do two maths, gotta do two sciences, two literatures, two histories and a certain amount of electives. So, you know what you gotta take. How you take ‘em is on you. And everybody, our first graduating class in East Jersey, 53, largest in the history of prisons in the state of New Jersey—I mean in the, in the country. Nobody talks about it. 53 degrees. Associate degrees. At one time. In East Jersey University. And, for the first time in my life being incarcerated, that day of the graduation was the only, that’s the freest I’ve ever felt, incarcerated ever.
1:19:59.2
Cause the day before, Major Jones, and…Patrick Nogan came in and they ran the, the little, like they wanted hands on, how this graduation was gonna go, how we were gonna march in and how we were gonna do the things we were doing. And I was like, “you ain’t picked up a book, you ain’t studied—took one test, and you’re telling us how to do our procession.” So anyway, they come in and they was like, “oh, we ain’t gonna look stupid.” And all this was about was a dog and pony show, to make them look good in front of the commissioner. This about—back then, we don’t, we never experienced this so we don’t have no point of reference. And, the next day when it went off and we coming through with our caps and gowns, and we walked in—now mind you, we didn’t know all of our professors from the first semester to our last semester were gonna be there, they were there and then uh—we knew our families were gonna be there cause we could only invite 4 and then you had people from the D.O.C. and we had the keynote speaker, the person who came and asked us what we need, Bonnie Watson Coleman, gave the keynote speech. And we’re all in there, and the guy that struggled the most, Thomas Dollar, Umar, good friend of mine. He has dyslexia, and…he for our side, he gave the graduating speech. And, he spoke about all the times he wanted to quit because of his disability, because he would never tell anybody that the words standing upside down, and this and that. And then, one day him and I was talking, but because of my literacy training I’m like, something’s wrong.
So I was actually trained by Bob and Ann to detect, um, dyslexia and stuff like that. So, I had asked him something and we were doing math and I said, um,” well show me where did you get that from?” He was like, “it’s right here.” And he went through the whole book, like three times looking for it, and what happened was his brain moved it on him. So what he saw was distorted by his disability, but it’s not in the book, it’s in his head. And he was looking for the distortion, but thinking that the distortion was on the page when actually it was in his mind. But he knew he was dyslexic, but he never told me. I said, “yo, have you ever been tested for dyslexia.” And he looked at me, he was like, “how did you know I had that?” I said, “cause ten—things tend to move when people have this dyslexia.” He said, “but how do you know about it?” I said, “oh, when I was going through literacy training, they trained us to detect, like people will think they saw something and then when you ask them to go show you where they saw it, it’s not there. There’s nothing wrong with them, it was there. It was real in their mind. And I’m saying, maybe that’s what happened.” And that opened the door, and he began to tell the story about, it was from that conversation that he felt ok to be able to be himself and when he would talk about quitting because of his disability. I said, “no, your disability is why you have to study longer and harder. Not give up, giving up is the easy part.” I said, “so” We shared the same space in the, in the dorm. He was like, “you make me sick.” And I’m like, “what?” He said, “you’ll sit there and you’ll read a whole assignment in 20 minutes,” I taught myself to speed-read. “So, and here it is, I said, I said, “Ok, “ I said, “but you know our class is on Tuesday.” And then we go back to class and the reading has to be done on Thursday. You know you need more time than me, but you now I read everything. But if you don’t start that night, and anything you’re missing you have me here, but you don’t know you’re missing anything if you don’t read it, so I’ll help you fill in the gaps. That’s what we’re here for.
1:24:22.4
So, and it was through him that we set up our tutoring programs to writing and how to do sentence structure, how to do paragraphs, and how to do academic papers and he began to tell the story, like, it’s different when you belonging to a community that won’t let you quit, cause you feel like, not that I’m failing myself, but I’m failing others. And I can’t fail others. I can fail myself all day, and be ok with it. But when other people are counting on me, ahhh…and, I didn’t know that he, like, i—it morphed that way in him. My thing was like, “nah, I’m right here. You’re not going nowhere.” He’s like, “but you make it look so easy.” I’m like, “Umar, I struggle, it’s just that I’ve learned to come up with coping skills to deal with my struggle. You haven’t learned to do that with your dyslexia.” Now he’s getting ready to graduate with his BA and go into his Masters. It took him a whole AA to know how to navigate the college stuff, but it—without our community—and I, so I tell him “I’ve never seen anybody fail that went to every tutoring session and turned in every assignment, and attended every class. I’ve never seen it forever happen in or outside of prison.” And, as he began to do this at the graduation, uh…something happened where it didn’t feel like prison—we were in the visiting hall, and the administrator that was talking shit to us the day before instantly became a human being. Like that fit—that space transformed those same officers that were ridiculing us, were assigned to the visiting hall that day, and they were in there.
So, it was one guy, uhm, Officer Goss , he wa—he was, he—he was from the hood, he w—he was well respected, he could play chess with the best of us. He would win some, but he would—it was like, if he beat us, that was, his uh…big blue moment. If you don’t know anything about chess, Big Blue [Transcribers note: Deep Blue was a chess playing computer developed by IBM, known for being the first computer to win a chess game against a world champion] is the computer that everybody tries to play and beat. So, he was like—and he would yell, “Big Blue” because they wear blue. Like, and to beat them it was like beating the computer Big Blue, but we would smack him around, and he—but it actually made his game on the street better, so when he’s going to these places, he doesn’t real—they don’t realize that he’s in prison playing top chess players in the state that plays—we actually played Princeton in East Jersey. We couldn’t get that in…in, in, in, uh—no, in Trenton New Jersey State Prison we actually played tournaments every year twice a year against Princeton University. But we couldn’t get it done in East Jersey so we would just set up tournaments on our own to play inside the prison and see who was the best in the jail.
So, he would walked up to us and he was like “Tonne.” I was like, “wassup?” So we got our little leather cases from Mercer County Community College. He was like, “that’s a real degree in there, right?” I was like, “yea.” He said “I told this dude that.” But it was one a the cops that was in the tie to ridiculing us, but he didn’t have the confidence to ask one of us to open it. So, what we found out was Goss bet him $200 it was a degree in there.
1: 27:49.2
He was like, “Tonne, can I see that?” I was, “Goss, take the shit, like, it’s all good.” He was like, “No.” I said, “Nah, that shit real sheep skin, for real.” So he opened it up, so he was like, “Muhfucker, gimme my $200!” So he was like, “Tonne,” I said, “Go ahead, Goss,” but I knew (Laughter) , cause I knew it was that particular group of cops that were in the visiting hall. So they walked over there, and he was like, he’s like, “Touch it! Touch it! Sheep skin, for real! This is real! I told you!” He was like, he’s like, “ain’t no way in hell—“ like, he bet $200 that it wasn’t a real degree inside that leather case. Like, this was all a façade but in his mind the entire two years that this program was going on, this wasn’t real to him And it truly transformed them, and us, and our families.
So, and Bonnie Watson Coleman, she got up there, she spoke and she was like, “when we did this, and we put this legislation together,” she said, “I never imagined this day.” She said, “so when y’all asked me to be the keynote speaker,” she’s like, “I cleared everything off my calendar, and I was like, ‘I have to do this.’” And she went on to later become A rep, House of Representatives, because of her work, her grassroots work. And she was one of, a few of the legislators that actually toured the prisons. Which a lot of them need to do because you need to understand that the laws you pass have consequences. And the structural violence, and the structural damage that you do to communities and people, and…just the prison system, may be unintended, but if you see it and you witness it, you be like, “hah, that’s not what we, that’s not what it was designed to do.” But if you never go in there, you don’t know. And this is why they didn’t know, why you still in here. Why—like, you don’t understand what a mandatory minimum is? And you vote for and pass laws for mandatory minimums? You got 4, uh, new laws on the books, on the docket to be heard with mandatory minimum sentencing components in it. So you, I think you wanna rethink that part because it’s like, I must do this no matter what, it’s the law. And no judge is gonna ignore what the law is, he’s there to enforce, or to impose sentence according to the law. Not enforce laws, but to enforce according to the law, and well, w—w—what we found that day we were human beings for the first time in a long time.
1:30:46.3
The administrators served our family food, served us food. That has never happened. Uh, the…the Major, Major Jones served our family food, made sure everybody was comfortable, went and got chairs, set up more tables. Like, this is the stuff of runners and porters, but they became human beings that day, when the 53 men graduated at East Jersey State University. And it changed how I began to see, but it changed me in a way to where this was about health. This is public health here. This is not public safety. This is not social control. This is on a whole nother level. So, and then when they started like, “what the hell is this dude?” Like, and then you began saying, “what structural violence is occurring that prevents public health?” So education, as a, as a, as a instrument of public health is a new phenomenon, nobody is talking about it. So when I talk to uh…principals that used to come in and volunteer in New Jersey State Prison, and I’m out here now. And they sit down and they was like, “yo, I just wanna talk to you, I’m having this problem getting books” and this and that. I said, “Yeah,” I said, “All the money is going to public safety.” And she goes, “yeah, but that don’t make no sense, why would they make a cut in education” and this and that. I said, “Because,” I said, “It’s two things that they fund that’s guaranteed to be funded every year.” I said, “they trying to fuck with the other one but they can’t.” And she was like, “what?” “Health.”
(Pause)
And she was like “yeah!” I said, “you see when they start talking about cutting Medicare, Medicaid, what happens? Oh Hell naw!” I said, “but they cut education every year. And it, all those numbers correlates, just watch em, straight to public safety.” And then she goes—I said, “but your argument,” I said, “I want you to do something. Next school board meeting say that when they d—when they don’t have the funding for the books, it’s a direct threat to the public health in your community and watch what happens.” And she’s like “explain more.” I said, “First, the point is, is that the defunding is a, is a, is a, is a process in structural violence. That your kids are not worthy of investment. And it becomes violence towards them. So they don’t have the material in which to learn, because they don’t value them as learners, so that’s violent.”
1:33.35.3
It doesn’t have to be somebody physically beating you to be violent. It’s structural violence. And then they taking that money and putting it into the policing that is—which is direct violence in the community, and structural violence at the same time, and cultural violence. And then I said, “But when you say, ah-uh. This is a public health crisis, the defunding of our books, and taking away from us, who’s gonna argue? You’re not gonna hear a word.” And she’s like, “can you come to my school for a meeting?” (Laughter) And I was like, “no I can’t.” And she’s like, “Why?” I said, “because I need you to come to their academy.” And I said, “I need you to go back into the prisons, and listen to those guys, they’re gonna tell you the same thing I’m saying. I just have the words to say what I wanted to say all along.” And which I responded negatively, and violently and aggressively. So now that I know what’s going on, and I like—I’m not saying I know everything, but the things that I know, in that I can frame my argument and I can be heard without being shut down, no one will ever shut me down on a panel for saying that, “yeah, um…(exhale) the police in my community are a threat to my public health. Cause no one ever made the argument, what are they gonna say?” All they’re gonna say is, “explain. Can you elaborate more and tell me why?” And then when I go into my spiel, they gonna be like, “what the hell?” Because you’ve militarized them. They became forces of occupation, as opposed to citizens with a shared and mutual respect. And it’s in that space, that they become unhealthy to me. Because of what I’ve already been through, I’ve been around unhealthy officers, not all of them, but most of ‘em. And you just translate that trauma, and it just re-traumatized an already traumatized person. So I know when you raise your voice where this is going. The average citizen doesn’t know. Because you raise your voice because you felt as though you weren’t heard and you—you’re authority is being thwarted. And it’s in those spaces that you become a threat to my health, and to the health of the public.
1:36:13.4
Because no is telling you like, “yo, this is not about de-escalation training, it’s about being aware of like, why am I making this person afraid of me because they’re not complying with something I’m doing? Maybe there’s something in my training that’s not working right.”
(Phone rings)
I’ll get him, a friend of mine, a pass, and then another one got denied parole, and he wants to know bad. I’ll get him.
But it’s in, articulating those things. So, and it’s like, I wouldn’t be able to do it without NJSTEP. So when Michael Simmons, Dr. Michael Simmons from Rutgers, I think, Newark? Yea, Rutgers Newark, came in. And he said, you know, “I want you to look at violence as a contagion, as a disease. And, if you know you’re sick from it, as if it was a cold, or a flu, would you infect your baby with it? And if you wouldn’t, if your answer is no, then you must develop a vaccine or a way to not transfer that disease. That comes with solutions. So, and he says, “when you look at violence as a public health threat and a crisis, your lens change on how see yourself.” I didn’t know it was a public health crisis. I didn’t know the way I thought and the way I behave was a threat to health of my community. I thought it was just isolated. But the second you do something, Galtung’s Triangle [Transcribers Note: Galtung’s Triangle is a theory based on the principal that peace must be a widely accepted social goal, and that peace is characterized by the absence of violence. The Triangle includes cultural and structural violence which cause direct violence, which then reinforces cultural and structural violence], like, it becomes behavioral, that’s all they police is behavior, but they don’t do it with the structural and the cultural violence. They don’t even talk about that, they just police the behavior about it, but what led to it, it didn’t happen in a vacuum. So that’s why, you not funding that book years down the line leads to that behavioral choice. It is an individual choice, but what seeds layed that made that choice even an option, and that’s where the structural violence comes into that, and then when we go around and we start talking, they just sitting there like, “oh my god.” I said, “But don’t think that I’m something special.” I said, “Without NJSTEP I wouldn’t a even a thought about this.” And getting those courses and taking those courses for no credits, to get me to this point to where we were able to build an institution inside an institution to create scholars to help scholars and the community as a means of public without realizing that that’s what our actual overarching intent was to do. So as they began to morph into a mushroom as opposed to a nuclear destruction, but a recreation after the nuclear fallout that say we can rebuild, and we can rebuild better. So, uh, Dr. Nell Quest uh, “when you fail, next time fail better.” And I was like, “the hell does that mean?” Like, and she’s like, “If you looking at it through the lens you’re looking at it, this sounds bad, cause in order to fail you have to be doing something right. In this instance that we’re talking, so do it better next time.” Which means you—that means you journey, then roam a little bit, and this and that, and now we’re to the point where, where we’re about to bring the Masters Program in there. To where our brothers and our sisters can get their Masters Degrees and they can actually teach for NJSTEP inside. For those that can’t get out, you have opportunity to now, to be a professor. And to be a paid professor. Cause we got that 5 percent that’ll never come home, but if you’re in NJSTEP you can live out the rest of your days in the service of others.
1:40:36.1
And if there’s anything that NJSTEP wanted to do in the beginning, in the formation stage was, we measured everything by who was in service of others, as an indicator of who wasn’t coming back. And all the founding members, have never been back. Not one of them. Not for a violation or anything because they were truly in service of others. You’ve got Louis DeLorbe, um, uh…Jason Jimmenez, Carlos Colon is out. Myself. Russell Owens, he, he ain’t—he hasn’t gotten out yet, but you gotta a lotta guys in the beginning, that, the ones that came home never have a issue again. And that’s where I want me teaching Russell Owens, he was like, “how do you know?” I was like, “yo, you wasting your time right now.” I’m not saying that he can’t do anything, I’m saying right now is not the time to receive him. He was like, “why?” I said, “because he’s not willing to receive. He’s not in service of others. He wants, wants, wants. He wants to take, he’s a taker.” And then when, as you go, I said, “I’m—I’m trying to show you something. Deny him.” Deny him in love, and then he’ll begin to understand when things open up and a lotta the guys when we were in the NJSTEP during our tutoring services and stuff like that. They would go, “why is he like that?” You know what I mean? They be like, “you’ll see.” And then a guy come like, “Tonne, nah. Tonne, No.” But you ain’t even hear me out. “No.” And they be like, “yo, what’s up with your man?” It was like, “what’d he say?” He was like, “No.” He said, “then that’s what it is, ain’t nothing gonna change his mind.” And, but I would never give them the inroad. And it were only when they did something for someone else, I be like, “Come here.” So, a guy would be like “yo, I can’t find, um the such and such book,” and this and that and we’ll be in the STEP library, inside East Jersey. And he be like, “yo, it’s over here” and this and that. Then I’ll be like, “yo,” I said, “Um, last week you asked me for such and such and such and such.” He was like, “yea, but you said no,” I was like, “alright, um, well I’m gonna take care of it tomorrow.” And he was like, like “where did that come from?” And it was—I’m only waiting for a moment of service. You’re not gonna be a taker. I’m going to show you what’s in your service of others that gives you opportunities for you to grow. And the more opportunities you get from yourself. But if you’re selfish, and everybody gives you something, then all you’re gonna do is depending on someone to give you something. I’m showing you that it’s—once you open that door of service, a plethora of, of opportunities are gonna open up. And then, I never told ‘em and they would always come back and say, “yo, man I thought you hated me.” I was like, “what made you think that?” He said, “because you told me no to everything.” I said, “Yea, because you’re not used to handling a no. You’re used to everyone capitulating to you and everyone a your wins is satisfying, and it was how you navigated that no that determined whether you would ever get a yes from me.”
1:43:47.2
And he was like, “yea, but dude told me it was like, like he’ll eventually get there but right now he ain’t gonna get there.” He was like, “well what made you do that?” I said, “Don’t worry about it,” I said, “when you do what you did again, you’ll understand. And if you never get it, you’ll understand why I’ll tell you yea for certain things and no for certain things.” And then, they come in and they’ll be like, “Tonne, um, I’m gonna, um, sweep the office” and this and that. I’ll be like “alright” so everything go, he gets what he wants. And then he’ll be like, and then he’ll—when it finally clicks and they have that a-ha moment, “ohhh.” And then they go, I said, “you came with your hand out, with nothing in your other hand. So no matter what I did for you, you wasn’t gonna respect it until you did something for someone else first.” And he—they be like, “I get it.” And it’s those—it’s in those moment, those critical moments, they’ll be like, “yo, this is how my grandmother was with me.” It’s like, “uh-ah,” you know? They can’t be stingy, you can’t be selfish, you know what I mean? She’ll watch how I treat my brother or my sisters or things like that, and then you’ll be like, “I want some uh, can I have some ice tea?” “Uh-ah. No.” Be like—but then once you catch on, ok. When we sat down, this is how we were taught. My sisters eat first. And before we ate, my—my brothers and my grandfather, after they ate we cleaned the dishes, then we served ourselves, and then we cleaned the kitchen. They did all the cooking, set the table. They ate first, we washed the dishes, we ate, we washed the dishes and cleaned everything after that and everybody went upstairs, got their, their, their, their, their, their bath and went to bed. Never understood it. And then, as years went on, that one seed is, it’s in service of others that you get all things.
1:46:06.4
And I think that’s the way, in, in the beginning, we were in service of our community. Peer on peer service to where it’s that’s where we always wanted it to be. To where we knew needed outside help, but at the end the core of NJSTEP is peer on peer help and service. Like our tutor program in East Jersey, like, we had, um, for math, we had a bunch of students their first test from uh, PTI—Princeton Teaching uh, Initia—uh, Prison Teacher Initiative from Princeton University. At the time, um, I forgot the um, Jill Knapp and the rest of ‘em were running—I think Jill Stockwell runs it now. Um…they were at a loss as to why so many guys were failing, and it was the way they were teaching. So we were like, “Listen, um, give us the names of the guys on the 1st test that need help. We can further prevent you from telling us who’s failing or whatever the case—But who would, who could use some extra help?” So they gave us the name of like, it was like 20—no it was 30 something guys in here, we had about 24 names, 23 names on a list. Put ‘em all on the tutoring list, put our tutoring team together. It was like, “listen.” So they began to self de—declare, “Man, I did terrible on that test. I didn’t know what the hell—what would they ask was the same and this and that. And I couldn’t translate from the test.” And some people just don’t test well, so we began to teach ‘em like, “listen, we’re gonna show you how to get your—first, get your skills together and then how do prepare for a test and then how to take the test.” 4 weeks go by, they take the second test, everybody pass. They go through again, um, the 3rd test comes around, they—not only they did pass, everybody did in the B range. And this is just 2 tests from failing. Now, the professors are there, they teach in pods. So they’re saying, “they’re not cheating, so what the hell is happening?” So, what we would do, we would sit in the classroom while they were teaching and lecturing and we would serve as translators to what they were doing. And, when we’d come to tutoring, they’d be like, “Tonne,” be like, “we got you. Don’t worry about it.” And they were, we would—we would ask was, “allow them to confuse you and when you come to tutoring, we’ll un-confused you.”
(Laughter)
1:49:01.8
And that was the motto, so after the 3rd exam when everybody did the B, Jill came in, had a meeting. Jill Knapp, Dr. Knapp sat down and she said, (whispers) “Antonne,” she talks in a whisper, (whispers) “What uh, what uh, what are you guys doing?” “They’re not cheating, everybody’s doing excellent, everyone is passing, what changed?” I said “You’re confusing them.” She said, “What—what are we doing that’s confusing?” “What you’re saying verbally is not consistent with what’s in the book that you’re gave—giving them and it doesn’t translate well, and the homework—“ So what we found was they were using different materials from different books, and it was confusing, and they picked up on it—intuitively they picked up on it, and didn’t know. Like, this makes no sense or when I go to this book, yea, cause the homework is not from that book it’s from this book. But if I gave you this book from which the homework comes, it would—it’s a, it’s a, it’s a seamless thread. They said, “well, how do y’all know?” Because, we looked at—they had a page where this book wasn’t from this, this is to prevent cheating, so the, the materials are not from the same thing, but it actually served as a negative for them. And, so—well, we never told Princeton this, that we figured this out. So they came in and they sat down and said, “We need yo—you guys to teach us how to teach mathematics in prison.” So we put the team together, and we began to teach mathematics and writing to, to the professors to how to teach us inside. But that was the initial aim: peer on peer to begin with and it just organically went back to its roots.
And once it went there, um, I’m gonna get to, when we were at the workshop, um, the pedagogy of teaching in prison at New Brunswick, um, campus, I forget the name of the hotel. But we were doing the workshops with Dr. Amy Schlosburg um, Jill Stockwell, um, um I can’t remember the other—she organized it, Chris Hedges, um Regina um, Rodriguez-Diamond, Diamond Rodriguez. Um, and we were presenting with, for the first time, we were pre—presenting to new professors about our pedagogy with professors that we already learned from. And it was in that space when I came home, I was like—in my mind, like, they finally getting it, but they still hadn’t gotten it. That just organically got that way. So Nia Tuckson and all the rest of ‘em and they’re going through what doing through, and she showed a life program video from the literacy program that I learned how to teach adult literacy from. And she had one of our, our scholars inside and he had told her to go look it up, and she looked it up and this and that and she began to talk about it. And we’re talking, so—and one of the professors that’s were—we were making the presentation to, to come on board for NJSTEP, to teach in our consortium. They were—they asked as question, and Chris couldn’t answer it and I raised my hand, and said, “can I answer it?” And he was like, “Antonne, answer it.” And I answered it and, and I began to tell him like, the whole purpose of this was that video. It was about working with you to create a peer on peer environment to where it’s self sustaining and it’s using the natural resources that are already in the institutions.
And, at the end something extraordinary happened that I never thought would happen, and Chris said, you know, “I never saw that video.” And I was like “what do you mean?” He said, “I never knew any of this history.”
1:53:29.5
Here it is, I’m mad at you, and you don’t even know—I—you don’t even know why I’m mad at you. He says, “now I understand all the resentment.” Because we felt as though certain things were happening that were blocking the peer on peer component that was essential to our program and our community. And it was nothing that he was doing or anybody else was doing, you can’t blame people for that which they don’t know. You know what I mean? So here it is: I might be mad at you and you don’t, and you don’t even know why I’m mad at you, but I’m mad at you—all you know is why I’m mad and then when somebody says after you walk out the room, “um, what’s, what was wrong with him?” “I don’t know.” But in my mind you know why I’m mad at you. (Laughter) And, and that happens and that’s where that misinformation and miscommunication come and here it is. I’m just fortunate that it took 9 months for us to get this and not 5 years. So when he began to go back inside and he began to talk to the guys, now he’s understanding, “ok, I get it. What they’re saying is, I’m not asking you to do it for me, I’m asking you to do it with me.” You’re a part of it a peer on peer community that was created in the 80s, this started in 1985. So, when we look at this and here it is we’re 2019. This is where the belt—bu—bus was built, we put the engines together, who did all a these things and if you don’t have that history you could really upset the balance of the mission, unintentionally. And that’s how we got to the point where, um, advocacy, uh, educating people, we knew that the social outcomes of creating scholars would transform not just the prison on the carceral space, and the culture of prisons, but our communities. And when we sit out, when we come out here on these panels, and even in this room and they’re sitting there like, “where the hell you been at? And why have you been away, like, so long?” And in their mind, um, when we talk, like in, in the radio station, they come in and we begin to talk, and all a this about is like, “how do we save these kids? How do we keep these kids from going into these spaces?” and things like that. And we be like, “yo, like, we got like, my phone, like” I said, “there’s plenty a times I’m talking to the hardest nut, he may be gang related, but his big homey is on the tier that I was in. On a—and one of them called, and be like ‘yo, go get dude. Tell dude to get on the phone.” He’s heard the myth, the legend, he’s never met the man. He may be 15. But big homey Duke, a da da da da da, all he hearing it were like—like folklore. Oral history. And then he gets on the phone with the big homey. He meets me for the first time and saying “wait a minute, who the hell is this?” I’m like, “I’m nobody, I’m just a conduit.” But the point is, I’m saying to you that your big homey and we like this, we know where our degrees of departure are, but he’s gonna tell you something like, “yo, you with Tonne? You good. Stay with him, I don’t care what nobody else say. If I find out, you know what it is.” And then he was—they be like, “yo Ms. Such and such, can you take me back up to the radio station to see Tonne?” You know what I mean? But what he really wants to do, he wants to talk to Duke. So, it’s in that transformation to where he allows me to reach Duke. Duke thinks he’s allowing me to reach him. No, dude, I’m trying to reach you. But it can’t happen unless you’re in service of somebody else. So it was in his service that now I can reach him. Which I initially said, that’s what it’s all about.
1:57:49.9
And I tell, like, when the parole asks me, like parole agents and stuff like that. He was like, “how do you know if somebody not gonna be in prison?” I said, “Oh,” I say, “if I was sitting on the parole board, all I would look on and see what they did for somebody else while they were in prison. And that’s the biggest indicator, you can’t fake that.” You either have it or you don’t. And I’m not saying, those that don’t have it should be locked up forever, I’m just saying that it’s one of my biggest things and I’ve met some great people based on that. But uh, NJSTEP was born out of peer on peer assistance to each other. Each one, teach one. Help each other, create a community, create an environment to where learning can take place, growing in a safe—you don’t have to worry about anything, and we didn’t know anything about transformative stuff back then. But, it has truly transformed not just my life, but as you see, this campus is a reflection of that transformation. And as we keep going, like if they say, like, “why you always going over here man?” Transformation takes you any and every where. I was just in New York yesterday at um, Credible Messengers [Transcriber’s Note: To quote their website, “Credible Messengers are mentors whose life experiences make them particularly competent in connecting with people involved in the criminal and juvenile justice systems; they are from similar backgrounds and able to equip young people with the tools to change their lives while providing them with a living example of hope and transformation”]
like, and here it is, it’s just add on. People that we’re in service of. I will always gravitate towards stuff like that, the work that you guys are doing. To tell a—help tell our stories. But I would love, here’s my challenge to you, I would love to arrange interviews with you on the phone or to get into the prison through the chaplain part—department, to talk to some men to get you some more information directly from the belly of the beast.
And that’s an easy—that’s an easy yes on our part.
1:59:50.0
Ok, and like I say, I’m, I’m—right now, I’m currently, personally, I’m inside 4 prisons um: New Jersey State Prison, Northern State Prison, East Jersey, and South Woods. So those are the main prisons, but, the, uh, the real need is inside that women’s prison. That’s where you gonna get some real, uh, good history. So like I say, I don’t know their perspective, but I know, like, when I came home I was offended by a lotta the stuff people were saying like, “well, you know the Mountainview Community.” I’m like, “what? That, it’s—we started like—we partnered like, that’s not, you know—“and when guys don’t say NJSTEP, I get—I was getting offended. (Laughter) And I was like, then I had to really check myself, I’m like “we’re saying the same thing, but…” I’m—the way I looked at it was, I’ve never been to a youth facility. Mountainview is a youth facility. But Don Roden, great man, like, who I met that I’d admire 100% like, if my stamp of approval. If he was walking through Camden right now, it would be hands off, that’s the Don. Because of how people in the prison system will make sure that he has safe passage through—he could walk through here like he walked on water. And, but, it was his contribution the movement, and that’s where I had him confused in my psyche. That when he came on, he infused it, and put another stamp of approval on it as opposed to nah, it’s not that. So like, for me I put NJSTEP NVC slash NVC. But the people that had NVC, all they had was NVC. And then they became into NJSTEP afterward. So it was a role reversal. Mine’s was NJSTEP/NVC, it’s just how you came into the movement. And the, and the, and the, and the, and pointing that out was that difference was like, “Nah, Tonne, it wasn’t about what happened first, it was about what experience they had first.” And then I was able to reconcile like, ok, their’s came NVC then NJSTEP and they’re alright. And the—I’m ok with that. But at the same time, you know, we’ve—we met beautiful people.
I mean, you talking about um, when I came home, I knew…things were gonna change for the better.
2:02:41.9
I—I came home, I’ve never had a birthday party. So, I came home and they gave me my birthday party, but they also gave me a birthday party/coming home party at the same time we were in Adelphia’s in um, Deptford. And…my professor’s came, Dr. Nell Quest, Dr. Toby Sanders, Margret Atkins, like…And seeing them, in a social setting, like, it confirmed for me, like, all a this stuff that I had like, put all the work that I put in and the stuff like that. It was—the processing it, and I’m like, “why?” Like, Louis DeLorbe like, I learned under him how to set up programs, how to run programs, how to become a director. And I was a kid, you’re talking 19, 20 years old. And I’m always learning from this guy, and he was there when I came home. And I’m like, here it is, he ain’t write me a letter since he been home and this and that, but that day he was there. So it was like, a lotta the academics were my family and the friends that never forgot me during my 30 years incarceration, came to see me, made sure I was ok, wrote me a letter when they could, send me some pictures, let me know they was thinking about me. My kids, all in the same space at the same time. My nieces, my—my grown nieces that were able to attend, were all there. My sisters and brother, people on my mothers side, my aunts that I hadn’t see in (exhale)—and we’re all in this one space and I just had to sit back and look at that and like…All a this was because a education. And that was perfect for me.
02:04:48.9
That’s a, that’s a pretty good uh, uh, a wrap-around story in terms of both kind of your own personal journey and then the, the creation and journey of NJSTEP. Do you have any kind of parting thoughts? Or, are there any things that you thought I was gonna ask but I haven’t asked yet.
Uh, I’m just—listen, man, I’m just thankful for the opportunity to share because I find that, it’s in sharing that we heal. And, being silent and being shut out for so long um, this is why Ron said what he said, “Have you talked to Tonne?” Like, like yo, like—because even when, when I talk to him sometime, you know, Ron is…to watch his transformation. Like, Ron was grown when I was a kid. But again, Ron saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. And…it was like, I never knew when, when the—when Ron would allow himself to be vulnerable around me. I knew he trusted me. So, and it got to the point when…I didn’t know how important it was that day I asked him when I was compiling my list of names, and I said, “yo, you wanna go to school?” I didn’t know what that meant to him until we had a conversation and we were doing a project in a group presentation and he turned and looked at me and was like, “man, that decision to walk up to me that day at that gate truly transformed my life.” And I wasn’t trying to do that, it was just I trusted him, I cared about him, and this and that. But again, you don’t—we underestimate the power of education and this is why that defunding of it is definitely a public health threat. It is a public health threat because it actually—look at him now, like, look at this guy. Like, I don’t know if you know his story: a ranking member of Pagan’s Motorcycle Club [Transcriber’s Note: An outlaw motorcycle gang formed in PG County, Maryland] to where he is now. I don’t know what to show, I don’t know—that is like, the, the ultimate transformation to whereas like, he walked away from that. And look where is now, and the work that he’s doing.
2:07:33.6
And then when I look at him, I’m like—and to me, like, he’d be like, “I am so proud a you.” But he doesn’t realize that I am so proud a him. And it’s—I think it’s in that, that, that, that realm of service to where like, I can celebrate him, but I can, I can only celebrate him in him being satisfied in celebrating me. Like they can’t—there’s no one way to celebrate. Like, we’re not gonna celebrate my accomplishments and not celebrate—let’s celebrate ‘em together. And then to look at him with the Institute of Social um, Justice and watch that and but i—all the work he’s doing with 1844 no more. Like, he’ll call me, he be like, “Tonne, I need you this and that, I know it’s short notice,” it don’t matter anything, I’ll get up and I’ll—I’ll figure it out, I’ll be there tomorrow. And, it’s just like, I think, what you didn’t ask was, about those relationships that were born out of NJSTEP that translates into the community. How we keep that community going on the outside and how was—it leads to like, listen, here’s the uh, a job. Go apply, don’t worry about it, already put the word in. And where you build those social connections and building a social network. But it’s all based on education that coulda been done from the beginning. And this is what I used to tell the officers in the beginning, either way you gonna pay for this. You gonna pay for it on the front end or the back end. Either way you gonna pay for it. So why not pay for it on the front end? They’re only paying what they shoulda paid to keep us outta here to being with. So, you’ll pay what…30 million to keep me locked up? But only give me $7000 to get an education? A year. Like, how does that funding work? So then when you say, “nah, let’s put this 30 million here per and put this social safety net, and then if they mess up,” you know what I mean? But, the structural violence is in defunding in this investment, and where we’re investing in each other and I think that, that relationship is, our relationships are investments on a much deeper level than even we know. Which is even a more deeper story to whereas that’s how NJSTEP came about without us realizing it. Like, it—it was an investment in each other to say, we’re gonna take control of the narrative and control the social outcomes of our incarceration. And what we’ve experienced during incarceration to where it doesn’t harm anybody else. And if anything that education has done, we got guy—he did some crazy stuff, and he was back in the halfway house. And they said, “you know Tonne home, I’mma tell him where you at.” And the guy says—his name is Noodles, that’s his nickname, and he’s like, “don’t tell him! Don’t tell him! You know he gonna—he’ll come right up here.” And the academic counselor, and when, when she and I talked, she was like “I underestimated how important you guys are to each other.” And…they don’t—none of us wants to see each other hurt, harmed or fail. Because we’re all invested in it together, and we feel as though one fails we all fail. And I don’t know where that comes from or how that translate, but that would probably be like, that only question you didn’t ask about was our relationships and how our, our organic relationships translate into the community to keep the community going in a—keep the relationships going in the community that we built in the carceral environment.
Anything else?
I’m good.
2:11:42.4
End Transcript