Growing up, Ron Pierce was taught the importance of voting and voted in every election that he could up until 1986 when was arrested. Ron believes that voting is a way to further democracy and help one’s community. He is a Democracy and Justice Fellow for the New Jersey Institute of Social Justice. He is working on getting voting rights restored for individuals on parole.
“That was the atmosphere that now existed that didn’t exist before, which, when you put hope somewhere, it shows you what hope can do; it can transform.”
Annotations
Transcript
Interview conducted by John Keller
New Brunswick, New Jersey
April 17, 2019
Transcription by Chelsea Woods-Turner
Annotations by Joann Gellibert
00:00:00
This is John Keller with coLAB Arts. It is April 17, 2019. It is about 11:15 in the morning, and we're doing a LifeCourse Oral History with–
Ron Pierce.
Great. Um, Ron, where were you born?
I was born in Margaret Hague hospital in Jersey City. At the time that was the hospital that the whole area, everybody was born in so, even though my family was from Bayonne, I was born in Jersey City, and raised in Bayonne.
[Editor's Note: Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital was in Jersey City from 1931 to 1979.]
What was your, um, at the time you were born, what was your family structure?
Uh, I had an older brother, who was twenty– twenty-one months older than me, twenty-two months, somewhere around there. Um, my mother was, had just turned 17, and my fathe– I dunno how old he was, I still dunno how old he was. I know he died some years back and he was 69 then, but I don't remember when he died, so I don't know how old he was. But he's a couple of years older than my mother. [pause] We– my mother had a ninth– my mother had a tenth grade education, my father had a ninth grade education. Um– um, I'm not sure what else–
Were your parents married at the time?
Yes, they got married when my mother got pregnant with my older brother. And I think she was just turned 14 when they got married.
How did they meet? How did they know each other?
I don't know. [laughs]
Were they both from Jersey City, or Bayonne?
Uh, no, well my mother was from Bayonne, my father was from Hoboken. Um– my father, my father's father, uh, I don't know how to put that. He– he worked– [pauses, laughs], he worked as an Irishman. [laughs] Um, I don't know how to put it. He was an Irish mobster, is the only real word to put it, so. But I never met him. He passed I think when my father was about 13, then his mother died when he was 16 or 17, so I guess that's how they– he got to Bayonne. I'm not sure how they, they don't really talk about it that much, or didn't, you know. And, um, but, so my father and my mother met, and in 1956 they had a baby boy named Raymond, then in 1958 they had a baby boy named Ronald, and in 1962 they had a baby boy named Robert, and in 1967 they had a baby boy named Rodney, and in 1968 they finally got my mother a girl, named Robin. [laughs]
And, um, what was, uh, when you were kind of a little kid, what was the extended family like? Was it really just you and your– your immediate family? Or did you have aunts and uncles and grandparents around?
Oh, um, no, I had– I had family around, um, my– my uncles and aunts were around because, you know, we lived there, we lived in the projects, first of all, so we didn't live, you know, high on a hog, but my– my–my mother comes from an alcoholic mother, and so her brother came and stayed with us, you know, to get away, to get outta the house a lot of times. My father's, like I told you, my father's mother and father were both passed, so my aunt Sherry was, lived with us for– until she got married, but she lived with us more like a sister to me, because you know, she was exactly ten years younger than my father. Born on the same day but ten years difference. So she, you know, my father helped, you know. So yeah, there was family always around, but, uh, it wasn't, uh, it wasn't the June Cleavers, you know. [laughs] You know?
Uh, my father and my mother both, and I think my mother just took direction from my father mostly, but my father believed in– in bein’ strong on punishment, you might call it. Today, you might call it child, uh, child abuse. But back then it was more, like, acceptable to– to hit your child, and they went to a little further the extreme. Um, my father also was very– even though we had no money– my father was really community-oriented, you know, so for instance, he– he along with a lot of the parents– Maidenform had torn down the ballfield there that everybody played in, right, so my father knew we were coming up to be baseball age, so he got together with other parents and they wanted to design something so that the kids in Bayonne all could play little league baseball at no cost.
Mhm.
You know? So they all got together, and my cousin was going to school to be an engineer, so he used his skills to map out a field. They got Bayonne to donate a piece of property for a dollar a year. Um, and they all worked together and they built the little league stadium. And, um, of course they had to build a structure for the stadium, for the league, so they put a thing in where to choose kids, you know, tryouts and ya choose kids and ya get these points for, uh, umpiring and they– they knew, had one guy that was an umpire, one of the parents was an umpire, so he went to a little more schoolin' and they paid for him to finish school and so he could teach, and he taught everybody how to be an umpire. So all the managers and coaches had umpire skills now, so now they didn't have to pay the umpire, they just hadda give ‘em points toward their selecting kids. They– they used a points system, much like, uh, um– well it's like giving a contract, but anyway. So that was what he did, but still, the way his punishment structure was, I was afraid of him.
I wasn't– even though I respect a lot he done, and still today can see a lot of great he was trying to do, he made his children afraid of him because of his violent temper, which my mother told me as early as about a month and a half ago, he was bipolar. But back then, nobody knew what bipolar was, so. But, uh, so, he, uh, he made me afraid of him. And the reason I get so deep into talking about the little league is because that had such an impact on my life personally, is that in that structure he met a guy and that guy, seeing how my father was with his kids and seeing how we were afraid to tell him because we were afraid of things that could happen to us, uh, took advantage of that.
And because he was able to utilize that, he was able to molest me from the age of 7 to 11. Now at the age, you know, I won't go into details on that, but at the age of 11 I decided that I wasn't gonna become so tough, nobody's gonna both, nobody’s gonna hurt me ever again. And I [pause] and I started make decisions, like I started going to P.A.L. to become a boxer. I played football, but I didn't run, like my brother was a quarterback. I didn't play that. But I said, well, anybody could run through a hole. These tough guys, they're the ones beating the guys up on a line, so even though at 11 years old I was maybe sixty-five pounds and I had to put weights in my pocket to play football because the Pop Warner league required you be seventy pounds to play [laughs], I nevertheless put rocks in my pants to weigh out, to be over seventy, and then I'd take them out to play, but I played the offensive line, and I played that line spot all the way through high school. High school– even though I was, I had an act for learning, and I could do my older brother's homework for him, which he was two years ahead of me in school, but I was always able to always do his homework for him, and even though I did like school, but the problem was, you know, tough guys didn't go to college. So when I went to high school, I took vocational, I took welding, because, you know, the vocational school was all about the leather-clad, you know, that blue-collar line, and even though I really would have preferred to– the seven-year-old kid would have preferred to go to college and become a lawyer, the eleven-year-old was determined, he wasn't gonna be vulnerable to anything, so he took vocational.
And I went through high school in [clears throat] vocational, even though I never had to study for a test, I never had to take an exam because all my grades were constant 100s. So then when I was playing football, I'm still like a little skinny, scrawny kid but I was such a pulling guard that I did have scholarship offers, but I would have had to go through, uh, they would have had to have tutors for me to go through, but I didn't want that. So when I graduated, I joined the Marine Corps, because tough guys didn't go to college, they went to the military.
And this was the basis of all my choices. Of all my choices was to be a tough guy. Um, so, I joined the Marine Corps, but the problem with the Marine Corps is it’s structured around authority figures, that you have to follow orders. Now, the authority figures who abused me, I did not and had a real issue with authority figures. So, I, uh– President Carter– the war in Vietnam ended, and we got out of Vietnam, and so President Carter had an “opt-out,” early-out so that he could downsize the military And I was offered that, so I took it. So, even though I had my honorable discharge, I didn't complete my term because, when they said that, I said, "Yeah, I don't have to listen to you no more? No doubt." [laughs] So, um, when I got outta the Marine Corps, I said well, what am I gonna do? You know, I started workin’ doin’ a little construction work. I got a motorcycle, and then I joined a motorcycle club because tough guys, [laughs] and nobody's gonna mess with a person in a motorcycle club. And because– now, by this time I was not this scrawny. Even though in the Marine Corps we had to run a lot and do a lot of PT, so I maintained being like 165 lbs, and, um, just over six-foot, so that's really a slim build, you might say. But at that time, when I joined the motorcycle club, there was some guys lifting weights, ‘cause they were bulky, and I was thinkin’, “Well, that looks mean,” you know, so I started lifting a little weights and put a little meat on my shoulders. I got up to about 215 [lbs], but still I had a thirty-two waist, so [laughs] you could see I had a structure that I don't have anymore [laughs].
So as a– movin’ up the ranks in the motorcycle club, I became their enforcer, because that was the toughest person in the club. He enforces all the rules, he enforces that people on the outside, you know, understand, "Don't mess with the club." Basically he is the tough guy of the club. But, that didn't seem like enough, because, again, I don't like authority figures, so anybody above me was like, "I'm not listening to you. I'm who I am, and that's that." So I ended up becoming their vice-president, with eyes of course on the presidency, and then an incident happened, and I won't go into detail about that because it ended up costing a man his life. I got in a fight and my military training took over; before I could stop myself, the man was dead. And I ended up going to prison. During that time, I still maintained my tough-guy attitude because okay, I'm in prison, so what? You know, that's where tough guys have to spend some of their time, you know?
So, I had thirty to life, and I went in there and still, you know, full-fledged biker, and with the structure in there, I followed the biker structure within the prison walls, and then one day I got in a fight in the mess hall over something that’s really not necessary to fight over, but I did, and I went to the hold, which I'd been to the hold back and forth a hundred times, its was nothing– well it was something, but in my head at the time, it was nothing.
The hold is a form of isolated confinement. Um, but I got thirty days in the hold and nine months as ad seg, which I ended up doing almost ten months, but. So, because of the connections I had within Trenton State Prison, they moved me outta Trenton State Prison ad seg hold to a separated unit that was called Rahway ad seg at the time, and we called it the “Red Top.” And they put me in a cell between two guys, and one guy had– I'm still doing my hold time at this time– one guy had broken– he was so broken, and his mind was so gone, he used to fight with himself every night. I mean, every night, he used to fight with himself thinkin’ he was fighting with his girlfriend. And he'd throw himself against the walls. "Hey! Take your hand!" And he'd be yellin’ and jumpin’ and screamin’, you know, and beating himself up. You could hear himself getting beat up, and I guess he was thinking he was beating her up, but he was beating himself up.
[Editor’s note: “ad seg” is an abbreviation of “administration segregation,” which refers to solitary confinement in prison]
And on the other side, another guy had lost his mind to think that this cell needed to be painted. That's the only thing I could figure, because he took his own feces and he painted the whole cell. Now, people wasn't paying attention to him, and he was able to manage to be able to do this, I guess, for days, maybe even weeks, I don't know. But he managed to defecate enough that he was able to paint his whole cell with his feces. And finally one morning they went to go put food in his food port, and the smell came out so horrendous out of his food port, that they looked in, they couldn't see the walls, so. They have a way of turning the lights on whether you like it or not [laughs]. So they hit his lights and they seen his walls were brown, you know, like, “How'd he get his walls brown?” They're supposed to be, like, off-white. So they extracted him outta the thing and they found out he painted his cell with his own feces, and he was covered in his own. So they put him in the shower, um, and they forced him to take a shower, um, and they had somebody go in and clean up the cell, and I am so glad I am not the one that ever had to do that, but as a result of that, they had to put him on constant monitoring, which means they had to keep his light on 24/7.
00:19:33.3
And doing that, they– My light was connected to his, so my light was on 24/7. Now, as you could see, when I close my eyes, only one eye closes. I cannot close the other one; I was born breach. Maybe I shoulda mentioned that at the early part of my birth [laughs], you know, but, I was born breach so– which, maybe that's why my mother hated me, I dunno. Nah, she loved me, I'm only kidding! [laughs] But I was born breach so I damaged nerves in the face, so my eyelid doesn't close. The eye works fine, it’s just the lid doesn't close, and it's caused me issues over time getting stuff in it, but– anyway, getting off the topic [laughs].
But anyway, so I had to try to go to sleep with the light on with my eye open, so I tried to cover my head with my pillow to sleep, so I'd hold the pillow over my head and I'd, you know, I'd try to fall asleep, and when I'd eventually fall asleep of course, I let go of the pillow, you know, my head would move and the pillow would fall off my head, the light would come in my eye and wake me up. So, really, I went four days, I'd say about eight or nine days where I only got like little snippets of sleep. Now in the hold, you're only allowed one shower every three days, and you gotta catch the guy– this is why this guy was able to get away with being able to do this for such a long time– but ya have to catch the guard where he's running, I mean, literally– he's not runnin’ where he's running, but he's walkin’ at such a pace that you can call it speed-walkin’ I guess, but he's walking past each cell going, "Shower, yard, doctor," and he's moving along, so if you're not right at that door when he gets to your door, saying "Shower!" you miss your shower. So, and he does that in ad seg as well as the hold, so I hadn't had a shower in about a week because I missed one of my calls. Then I got moved to what was called the ad seg cells, which is one the next floor.
So, when I moved upstairs, they put me in a corner cell. Now this was mid-February and it was freezing cold out– and these walls have no insulation between the outside and the inside, just the bricks, so that corner was really cold, and that cell was freezin’ cold, and I put on everything I had, you know, and tried to sleep, covered me, but I couldn't. So another two days I really didn't get any sleep. I had missed the guy go by ‘cause I had dozed, and I had missed the guy go by, so I hadn't showered in like a week in a half now, even though now I can get a shower like every other day, I missed his move, and at that time, a guy walked by, was walking around, and he was a social worker. And he was looking around, asking if anybody needed assistance, and then he looked in my cell and he seen it was me, and it was a guy I went to high school with.
He said, "Hey, how you doin’, Ron!” You know, “How you doin’, blah, blah, blah!" And I– you get edgy in ad seg naturally, the isolation causes it– but when you top off everything else, I hadn't slept, you know, so I was like, "Get away from my cell, get!" And I went off on him, you know, and I scared him because I had grown up believing the way I feared my father was my respect for my father, so I believed fear equated respect. So, that's how I lived my life, like all these people fear me, they respect me. So, I scared him off, and that really– I hope one day to find this guy and tell him I'm sorry for that. But I scared him off, and even after I scared him off, I was like, "Why'd you do that? That guy didn't do anything to you." You know, like? "What's wrong? What kinda moron are you? You can't even stay outta jail in jail, and somebody comes, asks if you need anything, and you’re barkin’ at him like you wanna kill him. What's wrong?”
So, the next night was still freezing cold, I got a little bit of sleep but not much, and when I woke up in the morning to brush my teeth, I looked in the mirror and I seen a person looking back at me I didn't like, I wouldna been friends with him if I met him on the street. I would not have had the time of day for him And that's what I'm sayin’. That's where I said, “Look, how did you get here? How did you get to this point?” You know. “How can you be this person? This is not the person you wanted to be. This is not you. This is not who your father raised you to be. This–” And it just went on, and so I had to figure out how did I get to that point? And I did some reading, I did some of this, and it came to start realizing that I had to backtrack my life like, okay.
And I realized that back when I was 11 years old and I made that first choice, that started me on a path to making choices that led me down a different path than my design I wanted to go, and it just, the more times you make the same kinda choices based on the same thing, the narrower the choices become rather than expanding. You become more narrow choices and then the choices become habits, and they become easy to make the choices. So I had to change the way I made choices. I had to start just not lettin’ habit make choices. Like, “Yeah, this is the way it was supposed to be.” And I had to start changin’ who I was and why I made the choices I made. And so, it was a long slow process. I don't pretend that the choices were made, uh, easily, especially in the beginning, or that I made all the right choices, because I went back to the hold, I went to the gang unit, [laughs] you know, so, the choices weren't all right, but it started becoming more apparent, the choices I had to make. [clears throat]
And they started becoming easier after I started focusing on well, “No, no, don't make that choice, that's not the choice you want, that's the choice you would have made, that that guy in the mirror would have made.” And so, I started reading a lot more, I started studying, you know, psychology a little bit. Anything I could get my hands on, and that's not the easiest thing to do in prison, but anything I could get my hands on. Now, I didn't wanna end up like those two that were on either side of me, so I said, "How do I prevent that?" Well, you prevent that by setting up a routine so that ad seg only affects you as minimal as possible. It's gonna affect you, there's no way around it, but you can minimize the damage if you create a routine. And my routine was to get up at 5:30 in the morning every morning, you know, I went to bed at 10:00, got up at 5:30 every morning, because I had to be up by the door so I could say "shower" or "yard" or if I needed to go to the doctor, so I was at the door every morning.
I would watch the morning news– I think it was Channel 5 or Channel 11, one of the morning newses– till nine o'clock in the morning And in the meantime the food port would open and they'd stick your food in, what they call breakfast, you'd eat it and drink your coffee. But I would stay, I would watch the news till nine o'clock in the morning. Now, I'd take the TV and I'd take it off the table and I'd stick it underneath, so that I'd have a table to write and read, and so everything I had to do to advance myself, my mind, and keep it active. And on days that there was yard, I would go out to the yard and get some air and some exercise, because you have to or you just lose it. The only problem is, when you go out to the yard– at that time, I dunno if it's still this way, it can be– but when you go out to the yard, they go in your cell and they tear it up a little bit. They throw your papers around, they toss your mattress, you know, they acting like they’re searching, but all they’re doing it saying you shouldna went to the yard, but I didn't care. I went to the yard anyway. You know, it just was more cathartic that way. And so, I started looking at how can I start doing things? So, when I got out of there, I took the test– well, I started working in the law library
I took a paralegal course, and I started working in the law library helping people go through court line. And I started noticing that, the deterioration of people in this loop– go to the hold, right, go to ad seg, back to the hold, ad seg, go to the hold, mess up in the hold, go to the dry cell– and it would loop and loop, and they would just get worse and worse mentally. So, George Jacks and Lloyd Johnson were working on trying to get the case, some kinda acknowledgement that mentally-ill people get seen by the psych rather than just keep going through this loop. And so I did some research with them, and we eventually filed a lawsuit against the Department of Corrections on behalf of certain individuals. It became a class-action suit which took it out of our hands, because now they give it to a lawyer– law firm, which turned into CF vs. Terhune, and became a consent decree that people can't be put in ad seg unless they’re seen by a psych first.
Now there's even further laws, but I think I got way off track [laughs]. But anyway, so as I was doing that, I also met a guy named Tone Henshaw. And Tone Henshaw was a young kid who got locked up outta Camden, who hadn't finished school. And somebody that was very big into helping young kids that they don’t have to be the pattern– now, I know his name but I can't think of it off my head– Oh! Mr. Perkins, that was his name. But he was– he helped Tone see he needed to go to high school, which set a fire in him, and he went to high school and he started taking college credits, and then the Pell grants dried up. So he spent twenty years, maybe even longer, trying to get education back in the prison systems. And I had– had helped him in the law library learning the structure of the law library and how to maneuver in it. So when the New Jersey STEP Program come in – that's the reason that part has to be discussed – when the New Jersey STEP Program came in, they came to him along with some others that were fighting for this, and they asked him, you know, "Who would be good candidates to be the first cohort?" And he gave ‘em my name. So he–
Could you just maybe explain or describe the NJ-STEP Program a little bit?
Sure. The NJ-STEP Program, which is what I was gonna– is – I wanna say, I know what the title actually means – New Jersey Scholastic Transformative Education Program.
[Editor’s note: The NJ-STEP program is the New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons program]
So what it is, it started out as a consortium of the colleges of New Jersey and universities of New Jersey getting together and creating a curriculum that was, uh, matriculating toward a degree. And so that program came in and started selecting people to try to have this experiment, so to speak, of how you– if you educate the people in prison, that they're less likely to recidivate. That's what was their initial start of it, and there's a lot of different organizations like Devere Institute [unclear] and all of those that help design this program.
But they came in and, I dunno how much more of it you want me to discuss on it, but they came in and they offered us college. This was in 2012. Our first classes were gonna start in the spring of 2013. But this is designed to get your degree. It wasn't like the former Pell program. It was just a college came into the prison and brought classes in. And eventually you took these classes that you needed, and eventually ten to twelve years down the road you can get a degree, an associate's. This was toward a matriculating degree, in other words they were gonna purposely start with a certain group of people, they were gonna bring college classes in, they were gonna bring them toward the degree, it wasn't just gonna be this and that. So, I started– oh, wait a minute, I totally missed a whole piece!
[John laughs]
But when I came out of ad seg, and I went back in the hold a couple times, I eventually got transferred to Rahway. And while I was in Rahway, a program came in called the Hyacinth Foundation.
[Editor’s note: Learn more about the Hyacinth Foundation here]
And the Hyacinth Foundation is an organization that tries to help people that have communicable diseases, or tries to prevent communicable diseases from getting worse. So, they were looking for, they were giving classes, but they was also looking for peer mentors. And so, because I lost my brother Raymond to HIV because of his drug addiction, he got a dirty needle and he caught AIDs before they had any pills for these like– he died in '90– the early 90s, mid 90s, '93, '94, somewhere around there. But, uh, because of that, I really wanted to help get rid of this scourge.
So I applied for that, went through the process, went through the thing, and I became a mentor. And what I found by doing that, right, was the feeling that you get to help– helping others is so rewarding that it’s almost like, "How can you not?" I didn't realize that, you know, that I would gain more than I could ever think I was giving, by being a mentor and helpin’ people get through issues and understanding issues. So at that time, now I got people coming to me in the yard that really never woulda spoken to me before. Really coming to me in the yard, "Gee, uh, can we walk the track a little bit and talk?" "Yeah, yeah," you know, and discussing their issues and opening up. And to me that was cathartic, because it showed me that, yes, I was finally on a track that I was meant to be on. That I was moving in the direction I– that one day had decided I needed to start moving toward. And that's why that is important because, you know, it made me understand– uh, I forgot who the guy was, but there was this one department head that told me, "Look, I see you have leadership skills. Why do you keep using it for all this bad stuff when you could be leading somethin’ and doing good?" And I'm like,"Get away from me.” [laughs]
00:38:22.1
I wasn't ready to hear it then. But I heard it afterwards, you know? So, people that think they're not being heard, that's why I wanted to speak on that, ‘cause you do get heard. It’s just some people – it gets compartmentalized until they're ready to understand what it is you were trying to tell them. So, getting back to– now I've lost track, uh, getting back to the college, right?
Yeah, one of the things around that I was kind of interested: What were your thoughts or feelings when you got referred to the program? When your name was put in as part of the NJ-STEP class, what did you think about that?
Uh, I was elated, I was surprised because here I was, you know, I didn't know that he would do that, you know? Um, I had a cellie that was part of that cohort, he didn't do that [laughs]. So I was, uh, I went to him, he worked in the law library at the time, I was runnin’ the recreation department. I went over, "Hey I appreciate ya." He said, "Oh you did this, you did that, the least I could do. And this is all about trying to get coll– you know, to get universities throughout the system, and so we have to be choosy and select who we know are gonna do well." And I’s like, you know, "Well, I didn't know you knew me that well, but thank you." [laughs]
But yeah, so I was– I was– ‘elated’ is the best word I could use for it, you know, and scared [laughs], you know. Now– now I been telling everybody for so long and myself, "You didn't even have to study in school, you're smart, you could do whatever you want." But, you know sometime you don't believe what you say, so now I had to prove it. So yeah, I was a little leery, a little nervous. I mean, I wasn't young [laughs]. 2013, I was what? 55? No– yeah, 55. So. But, uh, but, uh, I studied hard and I– soon as I was told that I would become part of this, you know, I started reading twice– I mean I was reading a lot of stuff anyway– but I was reading twice as much stuff, and trying to find out okay, well, what kinda classes so I could know. I started working on my language skills, and then the classes started and, uh, I did pretty well. I maintained mostly A's throughout the course and I, and, um, I helped tutor and redevelop the community and what I noticed was the opportunity of the STEP Program.
Not only, well first of all there was a hundred seats. Lemme give you a little, how important this program came to the college. There was a hundred seats available for this first cohort. Right? So they sent word out to everybody, because they only had a few people that they selected and the rest they were just gonna get outta general population. So they sent out a thing saying anybody wants to, uh, apply, you know, submit your name and you have to have a high school diploma, GED, but that's the only real criteria. And so, but there's only 100 seats available. 1100 people applied. Not everybody even had a GED, but they were like, “Oh lemme get in the program! I'm close to getting it!" You know? So, it changed the atmosphere. And that's how hungry people were for something that was gonna be enriching to ‘em. Because the programs that they had– like the behavior modification, anger management– are all written on a fourth-grade level. So it's not a challenge at all. So this was like a challenge, this was like, yeah yeah, yeah, finally somethin’ that's gonna enrich us. You know? Somethin’ that's gonna help.
So, the 100, it turned out to be 150. I dunno where they found money for fifty more people, maybe they just stuck extra seats in, I dunno, but it ended up being the first cohort, instead of a 100, was a 150.
00:43:37
And that was completely because the– the feedback was so much. So, we, uh, it started becoming more of a community-based thing, like, you know we'd talk about, we'd talk about education constantly. But, the atmosphere of the prison changed because now, instead of saying, "’Ey! You wanna go here, do this, do that," and that was like go to the yard, or go here just, you know, it became, "Ey, uh, I'm tryna get my GED but I'm having a problem with math, can you help me?" You know? "Can we go to the library? Get passes to the library? And can you help me do this?" Uh, you know, that's the atmosphere. When you went to the mess hall, people would ask you, "Hey you're in the STEP program right? Hey, I'm having a problem with my English, you know, I passed the rest of the GED but the English part, the language part, I'm having a problem, can you show me what I'm doing wrong?" You know? That was the atmosphere that now existed that didn't exist before, which, when you put hope somewhere it shows you what hope can do; it can transform.
Um, so, I went through the college program, and I got my, um, associate's degree in 2015, and then I– they– well, first it was originally just for associate's degree, but in their design, they were bringin’ in a bachelor's degree in hopes of further. And so just as I was graduating, they had– the next semester they were gonna start the bachelor's program, so I graduated with top honors, so of course, you know, those of us that graduated went to the bachelor program. And I took three classes, but I had to withdraw from one because I was also at that time going up for parole, so I had to prepare myself for the parole hearings. You know, not even believing I was ever gonna get out, but I had to prepare myself anyway. So I was in two classes rather than three.
And one of the classes was a Shoulder Maulin book called Politics and Vision, and if you ever read that book you'll realize that that's a graduate course, it's not even [laughs], and it was taught by Chris Hedges.
[Editor’s note: Politics and Vision is written by Sheldon Wolin]
Um, so, and the other one was equally as challenging, but enriching at the same time. But, uh, going back to it, so I'm going to these classes, and I'm trying to work on parole, and so the two-member panel refers me to the full board, which is required when people have sentences of life. So I go to the full board, and I'm talking with them, and I'm able to exchange in large part because I gained the skills from the college program to be able to articulate a little better. And there was questions about this and that, I don't wanna get too deep into it, but I mean I don't care about getting too deep into it, I wrote about it, so [laughs], but, uh, so, they told me, “Okay we're gonna make a choice, you gotta,” you know, they take you outta the room, and they talk about you behind your back [laughs] so to speak, but that's part of the process.
So you're sitting in the room, and you're nervous and, like, what are they saying, and in past years, there was two forms, one said “Notice of Release.” It was a short green piece of paper, ‘bout 8x11, and the other was a longer piece, and that was reasons that we're denying you and giving you a future eligibility. So, when you walk in– well, this room it's not big enough for how far you have to walk to where you sit– but you could see the table that you're sitting in front of. So I walk in, I look toward the table, and I see a long green piece of paper, and my knees are buckling like, "Oh, God, how long are they gonna hit me for? What kinda, you know, what's this gonna be?"
So I'm walking over there, and you gotta walk around the whole board. So I go and I get in front of the, in between the chair and the table so I can sit down, and I look down at the paper to see if I could find how– what my future eligibility time will be, and on the top it says, “Notice of Release.” They changed the form [laughs]. So I sat down, but I don't know how, I think my knees just buckled [laughs], and they say, "At this time we're gonna, um, release you on to parole,” but when they start to telling me all the conditions and all that I still don't know what they said because my mind just went like a thousand different places. So, you know, and that by itself, I was, man, stunned. [laughs] So, um, then you go out and I guess they know that you're shocked beyond belief because they send somebody out to reiterate what they said [laughs], and as I'm walking out I'm thanking everybody, especially the two-member panel that referred me to the full board, and, uh, they're saying, “Good luck, good luck,” and I said, “You're not gonna regret this!” And I hope and pray now they can see that they don't! Um, but, so–
What year was this? When did this?
Uh, it was, hmm– I can't remember the exact date, I should. But it was like early March of 2016.
00:50:45
Mhm.
Um, and my release date they said they'll send me because they gotta do all the calculations, but my release date ended up being May 19, even though I had to go to a Halfway Back Program, which is another horror story, but that's besides the point.
[Editor’s note: find more about the NJ Halfway Back Program here.]
You know, I didn't care. Um, so I go to outside and they explain everything that– that is the conditions of my release, which I'm like, “Yeah, sure, fine! [laughs] Whatever you say! Where you want me to sign?” So then they take me back and they put me in the death chamber, I mean in the van. It's the same van that the guy in Maryland got killed in, and you're handcuffed, and your hands are shackled to your waist and your feet are shackled, so, you know, it's a death chamber. But so, they take– they take me back because the hearing, by the way, the hearing is all done in the visiting hall of Trenton State Prison. Um, I was at Rahway state prison so they have to drive me back to Rahway and, you know, I'm in euphoria there, I'm just like, “I gotta call Karen! I gotta call my mother! But I gotta call Karen first! I can't tell ‘em, when I get in the prison I can't tell anybody until I call Karen cause I want her to be first to know!”
Who's Karen?
Karen is my wife. She was my fianceé at the time. It's a girl that I first met when we were 16 years old and we have a mutual cousin, and at Linda Ann's birthday party we met. And we went out a couple of times, but she lived in Jackson, I lived in Bayonne, we were 16, you know [laughs], distance kinda made it hard for us to stay, but we always maintained in our heads each other, but then ten years prior to that, she went to a Halloween party with the same relatives, she met up with my mother and asked about me, she sent me a Christmas card and that's that. [laughs]
Okay!
But, um, so, I'm thinkin’ I can't tell anybody, you know, so when you come in they gotta re-strip search you and make sure you didn't bring anything from Trenton State Prison. What you could bring from there, I don't know [laughs] but, so they gotta strip search me, and it's all– it's all about– I dunno what the hell it's about [laughs]. But so they stick you in the cage for another twenty minutes ‘til they have a guard available to strip search you, and you're in this cage and people are walking by, and, you know, you'd have to see the structure of Rahway State Prison to understand what I'm tryna say, but you're in this cage in the middle of a– of a rotunda and there's bars all around, like around this room, right? So you're sittin’ there, but now they take the cuffs and stuff off you, so you're just sittin’ there and waitin’ to get strip search, and people come by say, "Hey! How'd the hearing go? How'd the hearing go?" I said, "I gotta date, but you can't say nothing ‘cause I gotta tell Karen first!" [laughs, John laughs] I just came out, I didn't wanna do it but so I call her, I tell her, I call my mother. Well, she called my mother ‘cause I only had my one phone call and I had to get ready for class that day. In Politics and Vision I was supposed to be giving a speech, uh, of breaking down the, um, the chapter that was dealing with Machiavelli.
Hm!
Um, so when I went up there, and I'm trying to speak on Machiavelli, but my head's not there, so I tell ‘em, “Look, much as I wanna tell ya about Machiavelli, I went to the parole board today and I got a date, and nothing else is in my head at this time, so Machiavelli will have to wait till next week.” [both laugh] And Chris understood, he laughed his ass off, he said, "Congratulations, I'm glad for you!" But it also hit me that now I'm gonna leave these guys behind. This cohort had become an important factor in my life. And I'm leaving them behind so, so in my head that's designed me to– I'm gonna make sure everything I do out here is gonna pay forward the blessings I got to get to that point, ‘cause in part the program was very much influential in my ability to get parole, um, I believe, you know? And it transformed me as much as, you know, as possible. You know?
00:55:59
So, when I came out, when I went to the Halfway Back Program, uh, Chris Agans, who was the Director of Transitions at the time– um, Margaret Akins was still director of NJ-STEP. Um, Chris Agans came to– seen me with, uh, Kamara? So, and they were working on putting all the paperwork together for me to go to Rutgers-Newark when I finally get to Newark, ‘cause right now I'm in Bo Robinson in Trenton, which is, I'm supposed to be in transition back to the streets.
[Editor’s note: Ron refers to the Albert M. “Bo” Robinson Assessment and Treatment Center]
So this here place really was useless because they had all the windows closed and sealed and painted gray, you know, so there was no, you couldn't see outside, you weren't around to leave the place, so for ninety days I'm stuck doing jail time, but all I keep telling these guys is, look, I was locked up for thirty years, more than thirty years. I know I had to do jail time. What you need to do is start transitioning me, so I understand what's in the street, so I know how to use a computer, because I know that there's an internet out there but I don't have a clue what that means. I know that they have cell phones, because that's what you hear about on TV, but I don't know how to use any of that. But they don't care. There was a closed facility and they wasn't gonna help anybody.
So, I went from there, I did nienty days there. I had to do 180 days minimum in the Halfway Back Program. So I went from there to Logan Hall. Now Logan Hall is more of a transition because after you do like a thirty-day program– I only had to do two weeks because I did that ninety days– but they allow you to start, like, working or, in my case, going to school.
[Editor’s note: Logan Hall is another assessment facility located in Newark, NJ]
Um, so while I was waiting for the two weeks, I had to register. So they brought me there under guard, and they let me go into the NJ-STEP program where I seen a bunch of other people that I, that I knew. Went home, you know, that I knew. I was like, “How ya doing?” But then I met Regina Diamond-Rodriguez. And she said, “Okay, you have to register for classes.” She called up the person that was supposed to register me. That person that was having some kind of class, so she had to walk me over to a different building. And so she walked me over to a different building, and it was two squirrels scramblin' around, aright? Scramblin’ around and then they ran up the tree. But while they were scramblin’ around, I told her, I said, “Look! Two squirrels fightin’!” And she said, “They're not fighting, they're playing!” And in my head I was like, “Wow.” That that is really a profound statement because it showed that I was– my prison mentality was that everything is a confrontation.
00:59:31
Mm!
Whereas her being home– she was formerly incarcerated. But her being home had transformed into a different mentality, to seeing things differently. And I knew that, okay, now I gotta start my transition to start seeing things differently because everything's not a confrontation, and if you keep thinking everything's gonna be a confrontation, you're gonna end up in a confrontation, you're going back to prison, which is part of the the the process of rehabil– of transitioning home. Well, coming out. So, we go in and we're we're settin’ up on a computer for me to get my classes and, like I say, I don't know anything about a computer, and she sees that, and she sees that I'm really not comfortable because, I just, I– I'm looking around and I'm making sure where the exits are, I'm making sure there's no danger, it's just the mentality you develop in prison, you know? It's quick, the first time you go in a room, like, looking for everything, every exit, any dangers, any potential dangerous people, it's just, it becomes instinctual because you just do so much time, and I did a lot of it.
So, so she sees this, and even though she had other things she needed to do, she decided that it was best for her to stay there with me because she had done time, so she understood everything that i was going through. She didn't go through as much time as I did, but she did significant enough so that she understands. And, uh, so she stayed with me. That was very, very helpful to me, even though the other person was able to help me nav– show me how to navigate, her being there was, was just important, and she knew that. So I always try to make people understand that she was an instrumental part in helping me transition home. And, phew, over the course of the time that I was in the Halfway Back Program coming daily to school, she was– she was a major factor.
Um, so, so I get my classes, now I'm ready to come to school. The first day of school I get money outta my account. The day before they give me two twenties and a ten, and so they tell me I can take a bus to school, and here's the route. Now I know the route because they explained it to me, and they tell me, “You know don't go off the route, you know, you can walk this way if you need to while you wait, but you can't go in and can't get any change or nothin’, you know, and we watch and people get in trouble and they get sent outta here, so don't go off the beaten path, don't go into any stores.” And I got two twenties and a ten. The bus is exact change.
Mmm!
It's a $1.65. How do I make two twenties and a ten into a dollar sixty-five? So I start walkin’ and I'm hopin’ that I can find a like vendor on the street, ‘cause they don't tell me I can't deal with a vendor on the street. I’m walkin’, I’m walkin’, I'm getting blisters on my feet, you know, 'cause I haven't walked that much in a while. And my boots are new, so they're chafin’, I have still got state socks. So I'm walking and I'm gettin’ blisters on my feet, but I didn't care. It was like, “I'm walking in the freedom,” you know? And so I walked all the way to school, which– 'bout a mile and a half, maybe two miles, and I get there and, you know, now I'm walking and I gotta walk everywhere around campus to go to my classes, but I didn't care. I was like, phew, look.
But I say all that because they coulda gave me different money. They coulda said, “Okay, we know you need bus fare so we're gonna give you five dollars in change, we're gonna give you this, and we're gonna give you that–” No, they gave me two twenties and a ten. You know? Um, and so I get through the first day, and I get– and I start gettin’ more and more out of it, and finally November 14th comes out, comes, and that's the day my six months is up. Um, and so I walk outta there and I'm actually scared to go through that last fence.
Mmm.
I mean, there was another instance when– oh! Yeah, lemme just back up just one second, ‘cause even though it’s just the mental– I'll let you know the mentality. Now, thirty years in prison they always– the guards always open the door for you, escort you in, you know, bring you, help you up ‘cause you're handcuffed and shackled so, you know, when I'm leavin Bo Robinson to go to Logan Hall, parole officer's takin’ me. So, I got my bags in my hand, no handcuffs, no shackles and I'm like hmm– um, yeah, okay. So he says, “Yeah I'd stick that stuff in the trunk,” So I put it in the trunk, and there was another guy had some stuff, I guess there was two of us in there, so I guess, but he put his stuff in there, so after the trunk gets closed, I'm standin’ by the door, and the parole officer said, “What are you doin’? Get in the car man, we gotta go!” And I'm like, oh damn, yeah, I gotta open the door! [laughs] That's the, you know? But anyway I'm comin’ out, Karen’s on the other side, and I'm actually scared to go through ‘cause I'm sayin’, somebody's gonna come out and stop me. Somebody's– I'm gonna get an escape charge. But no, you're bein’ released, you know? But that's how you start feelin’, like, hesitant to go through things. Uh, but, so Karen and, uh, Chris were on the other side, and– then I start my freedom, I was like, that's my first day, comin’ out of real prison to where I get freedom. And so I– so I give Karen a hug and I'm gettin’ ready to shake Chris' hand, you know, because men don't hug in prison [laughs].
And who's Chris?
Chris Hedges?
It was Chris Hedges, right right.
So Chris’ like, "Nah, dude! Give me a hug!" [John laughs.] He says, "I'm a hugger." And he hugged me and I'm like– [pauses] And at first it felt [makes uncomfortable noise], but then you're like, okay, this– So, gettin’ back– so, we go to the parole board, I go to the parole office, ‘cause that's when you get outta there, when you get out the first thing you have to do is report to parole. And they say, “Alright, pee in the cup.” Okay, no big deal. So I pee and they say, "We think you're positive for methamphetamines. You're a biker, right, that's the drug of your choice!" And I'm like, "No, I don't do drugs." Even in my crazier days, I really wasn't into drugs ‘cause my brother was a drug addict and I seen what that did, you know? I didn't want anything that made me a weakness, and that to me was a weakness, so not, I'm not into that. I never was into it, you know? If you said I tested positive for a beer, you know, it had to be thirty years ago, but yeah! [laughs]
So I couldn't fathom how, I said, “No, has to be wrong.” “But if you tell us, we'll stick ya in a program.” I said, “Dude. I don't know what you found in that thing, but it's wrong.” I said, “Send it to a lab, whatever you gotta do.” He said, “Alright we're gonna send it to a lab, but we're gonna violate you when it comes back.” I said, “Well, look, I didn't do anything so–” They sent it to the lab, it came back that it was a false-positive. I don't know why, maybe my medication for my heart troubles. But anyway, so that was like the shocker of the day, like, my heart was in my throat like wow, here I am, I’m not even home two hours! And they're tryna stick me back in prison. So I tell Karen all that ‘cause you can't have anybody come up, you gotta see the parole board, uh, see the parole officer by yourself. So, we, I tell Karen and she's like, "What do they?" And she's worse than me!
[John laughs]
So we go, and my family, uh, gathered at my brother's house and we're going to a steakhouse, you know, for a lunch after, and that was great. Um, movin’ on to– so, after we get, Karen and I get home, I'm living there for ‘bout two weeks. And we get a notice in the mail that, uh, “Hey, you didn't fill out a form being approved to live here, blah, blah, blah.” Well Karen owns this place, you know? It's, uh, a manufactured home, what can be described as a double-wide, but it's a manufactured home, and it's sitting on a corporate– the corporate is UMH property of a trailer park. So they're saying, “No, no, you gotta get approved, it’s in your lease.” So she already told them that I came, I was comin home outta prison, and so they knew. So they said, “No, you gotta fill out this, you gotta, you know, us to do a background check.” I filled it out. So, day before Christmas, they send us a notice, “You have to vacate immediately, uh, you have a criminal record.” [pounds table for emphasis] And I'm like, “You knew this.” I mean, okay, I'm not good enough white trash to live in a trailer park? What is this?
01:11:09
So, obviously, I can't. I'm paroled to that house. I can't pick up and leave, there are conditions of parole. You know? So I called my parole officer, and he says, “Well, have you appealed it?” And I said no, and he says, “Well, you could appeal that.” So we start goin’ through the process and the NJ STEP Mountainview Community Program– now Mountainview Community is a separate organization that was started by Dr. Roden, who is retiring this year, and I think his last class, uh, his official retirement is in December of this year. But he started the Mountainview program by going to the prison Mountainview and teaching a class voluntarily, you know, on his own, and helpin’ people from that Mountainview program get into Rutgers when they came home. So that program actually predates NJ-STEP. But, uh, and that's where Chris Agans, he was part of the Mountainview program.
So anyway, they– they are now under the umbrella, so that's, the outside part of the NJ-STEP program is the Mountainview Community. So I go to Chris and I say, you know, this is what's happening. So he makes a few calls and he says, “Go upstairs to–” and I'm in Rutgers Law School in Newark. So he says, “Go upstairs and you're gonna see the head of Rutgers Law School. They have lawyers that are gonna help you.” So now I got a lawyer, so now we're fightin’ this case, but they're trying to evict Karen because I'm living there. And tellin’ her, “Look, if you fight us in court, we're gonna take your house because we're gonna charge you for our legal fees.” This is how UMH does business. And so now we have a lawyer at a law firm and they're going back and forth, back and forth, right? But they're also tellin’ me, “Look, there's no real law that's in your favor. You know, you're a white guy so we can't even use that it's discrimination because, let's face it, people are allowed to discriminate legally against people that were incarcerated. People with criminal convictions, you're allowed to discriminate, it's just a legal discrimination. And you have no other barriers– you're a white guy, you're not even gay, you're heterosexual so you have nothing else we can fight on, but we're gonna keep pushing and we'll take ‘em to court, and they don't wanna spend the money.”
And I tell ‘em, “Well they don't plan to spend the money, they plan to charge her and take her house, and then resell the house, and that's how they'll get their money.” And so the long story short– I know that's a little funny now since it's already a long story– so, I discuss it with Karen and she doesn't want to hear it, but the best case scenario is, I move out, they stop proceedings, and we make a deal that they cover their legal costs, we cover ours, nobody wins, nobody loses, but she gets to keep her house and– you know, I tell her, “Look, what we'll do is we'll sell it and we'll buy our own stuff where someplace I can live.” But now, because I'm doing that, I have to have a place to live ‘cause people on parole cannot live on the street. I mean, they do help you get into a shelter or whatever, but the likelihood that somebody's gonna succeed on parole without havin’ a place to live, without havin’ the stability, is very slim. And the less stability you get, the more likely you are to recidivate.
01:15:39
Which is great, which is why the NJ-STEP program wanted to absorb the Mountainview Community because it’s a wraparound program, it gives you support, and it helps you get transitional through college. It does a lot– it does a lot of different things that are really beneficial. So luckily they have, uh, worked out with affordable housing authority, I think it's called? Out of Highland Park's Reformed Church. And so they have a house and they had a room. So they said, “Well $350 a month is the rent,” which is really, really cheap, you know? So, I say okay, I'll take it. That's, you know– so I move, we make that decision on March 15 of the next year, of 2017. I move out, I'll be outta there by the end, but you stop all proceedings against her. And even though she's still to today wants to fight it [laughs]. Yeah. She said, “I don't care! It's not right! They shouldn't be doin’ this to you! If you do something then they can take my house, but they should allow me to have who I want to have in my house! I own this thing! I paid $115,000!” You know? This, I hear this all the time [both chuckle].
But, uh, so I move out and I move into the room. Now, it's a nice room, you know, but there's only the door and when that door closes, it starts feelin’ like a cell. And so it's hard to stay there, there's no living room where I can hang out in the kitchen a little bit. So I'm living there and I'm doing okay, you know? But then downstairs opens, so I tell Karen, look, we can rent downstairs, and this is a whole apartment, it's not just a room. And it's still affordable, I still could maintain it, but, uh, she still hadn't sold the house and so she has to maintain rent up there, so we ended up having two places– her house and my house.
So I stayed there for a little while, the rent is a little higher, but then I stayed there for a little while. And then my aunt died in Secaucus, and my cousin told me, said, “Look, before my mother passed, she told me that your school and your job is in Newark, you know? You're all the way down in Highland Park. Move up to Secaucus and you could stay in my mother's house. The only thing is, you know, take care of the cats.” [laughs] So, I didn’t know– I decide, well, I’ll move up there, even though it's further away from Karen, and I move up there because it's closer to school and work and I coulda took the cats and brought ‘em down there but– so then I end up with three cats, you know, and, well, actually four because Karen, too, so now I became– even though I'm a dog person I got all these cats [both laugh]– but they're great. So, I move up there and slowly but surely I start takin’ over some of the responsibilities as I'm startin’ to earn more money. So I take over the– first she was payin’ even the cable bill, you know, and the phone bill and all that. So I took that over and I took the gas and electric over, so I start– I don't wanna be a burden on anybody. I really appreciate hand-ups, but I don't want really handouts. So I'm there and then I'm going the office and going to school and I'm workin’ in the school, you know, and I, uh, Regina asked me, she said, “Look, I have a friend in the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, Andrea.”
01:20:21
“And she wants to interview a couple people because she's working on juvenile justice.” I said, “Well, I didn't do time in the juvenile system.” She said, “No, but she wants to interview about the justice system in general, and so I told her I would ask around. Would you be willing to talk to her?” I said, “Yeah!” So I– I'll do anything for Regina anyway, but yeah, yeah, got no problem tryin’ to– And so, we schedule a meeting in a Starbucks, you know, I don't drink Starbucks coffee, I think it's pretentious [laughs], but I had to for the meeting [Jon laughs, Ron laughs].
So we scheduled a meeting at Starbucks on Broad Street in Newark, and we're talkin’ back and forth, I mean first, you know. And so I get the idea, like, okay, I understand what this is. She explains to me that this is an advocacy group, um, that it's an advocacy think tank and explains what that all is, and what they're lookin’ to hope to get by talkin’ wit me on understanding. So after that's over, I said, “Well, I know, like, the next year, I'm gonna have to do an internship as part of my college curriculum.” So I said, “Do youse– you have internships?” She said, “Yeah, just send me your resume,” you know, I said, “Well, I don't use a resume, I got a curricula,” and [she] said, “Yeah, send me that and, uh, and a face-sheet” – ugh, face-sheet, yeah now I'm going back to prison [laughs]– um, “a cover letter and an example of your writing.” So [clears throat], I don't do that right away because they were interviewing people for summer internships, and I wasn't ready for that. And I didn't get it in in time anyway.
So I called her in July and said, “Remember you know, is that still good? Because I have to have an internship for the fall.” And she's like, “Yeah, just send it to me and then I'll let you know what we think.” I said, okay, so I finally get everything sent to her. I get a call back like, week or two later, can you come in for an interview? So I go for an interview. She and Scott Novakowski, who is the, the, um, associate counsel that was working on voting rights restoration, [pauses to drink liquid] and one other person were in this meeting so, we're talking with this and they're asking me questions, I asked them a couple questions. So bottom line was [clears throat], said, “We'll get back to you,” you know. So I leave and I get a call back a couple of days later, “Can you start in September?” So I start the internship which is– and I start working on the juvenile justice part first 'cause that's what Andrea's workin’ on, right? But I'm also workin’ on with Scott, on voting rights for people in prison, on parole and probation, because he needs to understand different things for his report.
So I help him a little bit with the research on a report, and I help him understand, you know, the way prison actually works versus what the movies tell you it works like [laughs], and so I start working more for him than Andrea because I don't really, I know about the juvenile justice system and I know all the studies but I don't have the lived experience, because I never was in the juvenile facility. So, the internship, he comes out with a report and I'm thrilled to death because he puts my name in as one of the researchers, and that made me, yeah, that made me feel really good. So, the internship ends, um, for that semester and they say, “Well, do you wanna take, do you want to do another internship in the spring?” I'm like– mmm, yeah, definitely, but it's not gonna count toward credits, but it's somethin’ that– I got intrigued at how they worked, and how they take ideas from the people that are impacted and then they do research and they formulate, um, policy and work with the legislators to form, uh, bills to become laws.
01:26:07
So, I didn't know that that's what they did when I first started with them, so seein’ that and seein’ how all that transformed, I'm like yeah, I wanna see that even more. So I start workin’ my internship in the winter– I mean, in the spring– and then I introduced the bill for prisoner– for separatin’ their criminal justice system from the franchise. And I start workin’ there and it's just becomin’ more and more, I'm gettin’ snowballed, like this is what, this is what the seven-year-old kid wanted to do! You know? I'm gettin’ where I really was focused at. Of course, now I'm nearin’ 60 but I'm gettin’ there, you know?
But then the internship ends in May, you know? So, I tell 'em, look, when you have, when you do speaking engagements, please don't call on me to speak, I still am gonna stay involved in this, I'm not stoppin’. I'm not gonna stop focusin’ on helpin’ people in prison, on parole– I'm not gonna stop this. This criminal justice system has to be transformed, and voting rights to me is the tip of the spear because it protects all other rights. So I'm, like, hundred percent in, but I also have the reality of you know, I graduated, I gotta get a job [laughs], I gotta eat, you know? So I tell 'em this, I said, “Look, I'm all in, with you on this and that, but I gotta eat so I'm also gonna be lookin’ for work,” and so, uh, Philip [Webb] tells me– Philip's the COO of the Institute– he tells me, “Look, we're looking at possibilities of havin’ a fellowship, but I can't tell you anymore because nothin's in cement.”
And, um, Ryan tells me the same thing, you know, “We'll get you there.” And he keeps tellin’ me that he wants me to go to law school, which I really would like to do but I can't afford to rack up that kind of, uh, debt because I'm still lookin' at Karen and I bein' able to buy a house. And I'm 60 years old. But, uh, so, I get a call in– no, I called Scott [clears throat] and I said, “Uh, you know, what's happenin’ with this? Is there anything going on?” He said, yeah, he says, uh, “We gonna call you and let you know that there's a fellowship comin’ out and hopefully in August, but, you know, if, you know how– and I know you do know how nonprofits work: the fun, the idea is there, like, yeah we're gonna give you the money, but then it takes the process of actually gettin' it, formulatin’ it to get it, so soon as the money's there, we'll interview for it, but if you want the job, I'm pretty sure you can get it,” you know? So he set me up with Philip after the process goes on, and, uh, Philip says, “Look, here's the thing: we have a fellowship,” you know? And he gives me all the details of it, said, "And it's yours if you want it. If you don't want it, then we're gonna post it out for somebody else, but it's yours if you want it." And I'm like, "Yeah–” [laughs] "Of course I wanted this from here!" And he gives me all the details and I start workin’ at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, fighting for the right for people in prison on parole and probation to have the right to vote.
I also have worked with, um, NJ CAKE on, uh, solitary confinements. I also in the meantime have written two chapters of an encyclopedia called, uh, American Prisons– American Prisons and Jails: An Encyclopedia of Controversies and Trends.
[Editor’s note: Published by ABC-CLIO in December 2018]
Um, I wrote seven articles for Truthdig magazine– um,op-eds. And I'm right now in the middle of writin’ a report on, uh, voting rights as, with– using the voices of those that are silenced, and the research that supports what they're sayin'. And that's about to now. [laughs] I'm sure you've got some questions
[Editor’s note: See]
I have– I have a few. Um, so, I was just thinking, um, there's a couple little threads here, so we'll kinda go back with them, but maybe the most recent thing: I was just wondering if you wanted to speak a little bit more on NJ CAKE first. Just kinda like what their work is or why you got involved with them or why that was important to you.
OK. NJ CAKE, I got involved with them, I found out about them through Elizabeth Wheel-Greenberg. Uh, what I didn't know was that other people that I knew that were part of that, like Justice. Justice Roundtree from the gang unit and from isolated confinement himself. But, uh, but they're fighting to get legislation for ending isolated confinement in New Jersey, and they have a bill that, while it doesn't go completely wiping it out, it goes a long way toward making it less than what it is now. And that also where kids that minds are still forming are not degraded by it, 'cause part of the bill doesn't allow ya, anybody under 21 I think it is and over 65 be put in ad seg. Also the mentally, uh, handicapped individuals can't be put in ad seg, which really degrogates their minds.
01:33:27
Um, so when I found out what they were about, havin' done more than four years of solitary confinement myself, and as I told ya earlier bout the people on either side of me, they really– and the CF vs Terhune– they really shouldna been there. They really shoulda been in Trenton Psychiatric Hospital gettin’ help, rather than bein' put in a place that just was further degrading them and makin' it so that maybe they could never come back fully mentally. Um, so, when I heard about what they were doin'– again, that's another avenue of reformin' this system that really is not working to the benefit of society. I'm not gonna say it's not workin' the way it's designed, but it's not workin' to the benefit of society. Um, and when I– so when I was given that opportunity, I was like, phew, yeah, I have– now, one of the things when you work for an organization, of course you have to clear it through the organization, but when I told the Institute about it, they said, “Yeah, we're good with that. We're not advocatin' it 'cause we have a small staff so, you know, but we're in favor of, that has to happen, but you know we just don't have the staff to be, but yeah, yeah if you could help that, yeah go for it.” So, so I was able to start the process of tryin' to be a voice that let you understand what that system does to people.
Um, through that I met Amos, who is an amazing individual in his own right. I also did some footage for him, I don't know what he's gonna do with it but whatever he does with it, that's fine. I was able to do a piece on WNYC, and that was a trip and a half! [laughs] You know, it was like, it just, I dunno, I– it amazes me that I'm able to start actually payin' forward the blessings that I've been given. And sometimes I wonder, had I not seen that nasty human being in that mirror, right, would any of these opportunities have come? Would I even be on the street? Or would I have done somethin’ even more stupid in prison that made sure that I never came home? You know? So, for as nasty as that and ugly as that mirror was and the form that it was, I'm glad I got an opportunity to look in it that day, you know? And NJ CAKE– and that was in isolation, but isolation doesn't help people. You know?
Now maybe it broke down somethin' in me that needed to be broke down, but it's not a benefit. It doesn't benefit– some other way could've happened that would've made me see. I didn't need to be treated so inhumanely to be, uh, to be brought to a point where I would say, "I don't like you, who are you?" You know? And while that point comes at a time I'm in that unit, right, all the other stuff that goes on in them units are not helpful. It was– I don't know how to explain it. That point of my life needed to happen, but it didn't need to happen there.
01:37:56
Mmm. You had, uh, talked about you had that kind of powerful moment looking in the mirror, but then also talking about, you know, what had happened to you as a kid, kinda of setting you on a certain path.
Mhm.
Was that– was kind of reconciling what had happened to you and kind of seeing the path you had been set on– at what point did you process that or deal with that, or was that a part of making a decision to begin living in different way, or?
Uh, was what part of it?
So, you had the experience as a kid and you mentioned that, kind of like, then made you want to, you know, "I'm not gonna let anyone take advantage of me." When was the first time you had expressed that? When was the first time you had a realization that you at 11 years old set yourself on a path that you needed to change?
Uh, ‘bout maybe four months after that, I told ya I had the epiphany like [unvocalized expression].
Yeah.
But I didn't understand that that's where it started. I had to actually start thinking about well, you know, first I had to think about, “Well, how’d ya get in ad seg? What made you get in that fight, because that fight didn't have to happen.”
Yeah.
You know? That fight was just a rage snapping. The– the death at my hands happened at the explosion of my rage. But I didn't understand that. All I understood was, you know, this person disrespected me, he needed to pay. As for– not, not Wayne. I'm talkin about in the mess hall, right? Um, so I had to understand what do ya mean he disrespected you? How did he disrespect you? And then I had to understand, it wasn't him disrespecting me, right? It was him not accepting my absolute rule over whatever he might wanna think, you know. And that he didn't fear me enough to bow to my wishes, so therefore he needed to be taught that that wasn't acceptable. And so I had to come to each one of them realizations. So it took a process of trying of thinkin' back, and those writing things I'm telling you– well, part of it was writing a brief that actually overturned my conviction, but that's a whole different story that really is meaningless, because then they opted out of a part of my conviction and threw out the “knowing-and-purposeful” and said, "Well, we also gotcha on robbery and felony murder, so we'll merge them together and just resentence you!" You know?
So, anyway, that's neither here nor there, but a large part of it, especially when I first would take the thing down, the first twenty minutes would be writing' down things that I would remember, you know, like what are your thoughts today? Where did this come from? How did this get here? And part of the, my journals– if you wanna call 'em that, 'cause there's volumes like that thick– part of my journals are all about that, and half of those journals I lost ‘cause I sent them to somebody that I'm no longer in contact with. But half of those journals are gone, but those journals help me be able to reflect. And before I would put the TV out, and maybe I should've added this, but before I would put the TV out, after I would spend like tweny minutes on that, then I would read and then I would do my legal work and then at the end of the day, I would read back on the journals and I would reflect in the journals what I did that day, where my thoughts are and what would I like for my mind to think about?
01:42:28
So, I kept journals, I'm just gonna call 'em journals. I just kept them notes, that's the way I referred to them back then. But it helped me to understand and to get back to where I was. And, like I said, I had to go through that process, then I had to go through, “Where'd this come from? Yes, this guy did this, but how's that relate to you?” You know? And like I say, I don't really wanna get in to the thing that this man did that had set me off because I don't want to, I don't want to say anything negative to hurt the family of somebody I, you know, of somebody I can never repay, that I can't undo what I did to that family. So, you know, I try– I try to leave that aspect gone. I know all of it, but I just prefer it not be, you know, public.
But, so, but I had to get– okay, so that was another explosion. So where'd that explosion come from? What are you really mad about? ‘Cause that, yes you mighta been upset, you mighta wanted to stop this immediate issue, but you didn't have to explode the way you did. So where did that come from? So that I had to [think] back, you know, like, okay, you loved the Marine Corps– I did, I actually did, I just couldn't take authority figures. So I had to understand, “Well, okay, what problem is it you have with authority figures? I mean, if your mother tells you something to do, you do it, you know, you don't have a problem with it. Your father tells you somethin’ to do, you do it, you don't have a problem with it. What authority figures are you rebelling against?” You know? So that's where that journey took me back, you know.
Like, okay, your coaches would tell you you have to do this, but they were helpin’ you become a tough guy, so you listened to them. So that wasn't the authority figures you were– and the journey just kept leading back, leading back until you're never gonna hurt again. Don't get me wrong, I never forgot what happened. I still have nightmares about it some days. But it's the journey back that teaches you how to get forward. I don't know if that makes sense, but it makes sense to me. [Laughs]. You know? They say if you forget your past you're destined to repeat it, right? But if you don't reflect on your past then you're not utilizing it and you're gonna repeat it anyway.
So I still, even now, what I do is at least once a month, I go off alone and reflect on the month, and the last week between December and January, I reflect on what gains and what I did this year that I wanted to get done, what I didn't, and not that I make promises to myself like New Years resolutions or anything, but I try to set up like, okay, so where can we go from here to next year? You know? And I'm always trying to just improve to get back what I lost in that, and I can't get back the innocence, but in the innocence-time. And what can I do to honor Wayne. And so that while I can't change what I did, right, is there something I can do that is more beneficial? And it's hard to explain, because I don't understand what I'm tryna do for him, because there's nothin' I can do for him. But I'm tryin' to live a life that maybe, maybe given that moment not happening, he would have been able to do for himself. He would have been able to make his own changes, to make his own choices that would've set him on his own path that I took from him.
You had mentioned, um, your kind of philosophy of voting rights, that voting rights are kind of like the starting right and everything else–
Mhm.
Kind of falls from that. And I'm curious, did you always have that philosophy even as a kid growing up or when did you kind of reconnect with that, that meaning of that?
Well, my father was adamant about, I mean adamant– he always told us, even growin' up, "Yo, you have to have a sense of what the community wants, and the only way to get it is through the voting process, so you talk to the community, and you have discussions, and I don't care what they say about ‘never talk politics,’ you should always talk politics!" That was my father, you know. And even as a young man, when we first was able to vote, right, and my family, like I said, I had relatives that stayed with us. Well, a lot of them had their addresses as ours. So that's where they voted from. So everybody would come to the house and they would go to the polling booths together. They'd walk as a family. They'd go and they'd vote and they'd come back and they'd have coffee and donuts. And so that was a thing that I understood from growin' up, how the vital importance of electoral process.
01:49:00
When I became 18, I registered to vote, my first voting we went and we walked– well not my first one, the second one we had coffee and donuts. But the first time, we got the donuts, sat 'em on the table. We went as a family, we went and voted. When we came back there was no donuts, and the dog was throwing up [laughs, John laughs]. So, my first experience of voting was watching my dog get sick, too. But that was the thing, we always did that as a family we went and voted, and we came back. Now, we'd have heated discussions in my family, I mean I told you. They would have heated discussions on voting, and they would talk to the neighbors and they would do this– but one thing my father was adamant about. After the election, you didn't talk about, you didn't even ask anybody, "Who'd you vote for?" Because that was none of your business, that's why they got the curtain that you close before you make the vote. You could vote for anybody you want, but you and I are gonna have a discussion before the vote on politics, so that was something I grew up with.
And then, when I went to prison, I lost the vote, it bothered me, and it still bothers me. But I didn't understand some aspects of it, like how it connects you to society, or how to connects you to community because it always had me. But when I was goin' back to New Jersey STEP, I had a political science class, part of New Jersey STEP’s courses, and in this class I started seein' that when you start connecting the, you start, the change happens, there's– and how can I explain this– when we started talkin' about political science, they were utilizing slavery into reconstruction, reconstruction where the African Americans started actually gettin' some political power, and then you had the Jim Crow laws, and you have prisoner leasing, right, and how that went to civil rights and then civil rights went to get tough-on-crime laws and mass incarceration, and then they show a process of how all of that relates to removin’ the vote, to the point that African Americans in particular, and people of color more generally, have been systematically removed from the vote, and that is by design, but what it showed was because African Americans have been for generations and generations, that it became a process where they don't– a lot don't believe in– that their vote matters, so they get disconnected from it, and how that disconnects them from community and society– but as we start talking about it and people who were majority African American start seein' what that does and they start reconnectin’ to the process of talking politics, right?
01:53:03
Well, you don't talk politics or religion. But they start talkin politics and they start understanding, then it's, like, okay, it stops bein' about me. It starts bein' about my community, how my community helps me, but it also how my community's process, my voting helps my community get the education, because you vote for your school board, who picks the curriculum that your child is gonna go to school to learn, and they're not gonna learn anything that deals with African Americans if African Americans can't vote, ‘cause the whites are gonna vote for the history books that talk about the whites. And if you look at the curriculum today, there's like passing glances of slavery, there's passing glances of the civil rights movement. You know, you learn about it here and there, you learn about one individual like Dr. King, who's a great man, don't get me wrong, and I could give you a whole story about his letters from the Birmingham Jail.
But you start learning that there's a lot more to it and it starts connecting like, okay, how can I help my community, how can I help my child, rather than me, you know? Now you give up the short-term "me" gratification for the longer-term community, and basically community grows into society. But you give the long-term benefits more credence than the short-term "me." And that's a transformation that benefits society, because when you take ownership of society, you really can't just do anything so much against it, because it's part of you now. So that transformation is an important factor to gettin', to lowerin’ recidivism rate. To gettin' people to understand their selves are not just the only part, and it gets to humanize the community a bit. And it also, when I say it's the tip of the spear and it's the protector of all other rights, what politician listens to somebody that can't help them get elected, you know? When did legal, uh, slavery end? When did Jim Crow not matter, right? When people started sayin' they'd had enough and were gettin' beat down to go and vote. Then, it started breakin' that down.
So, everything changes, and even when you start talkin’ about the formation of this country, what was one of the main reasons for, uh, for America to break away from England? Taxation without representation. No representative government. And everything, every time the provisional governments were allowed, any time that they said they wanted to do somethin’ that the Crown decided they didn't like or that the king's guard didn't like, it was done away with, so they had no voice. Had no voice, then they had to write a Declaration of Independence sayin, “Well, you won't give us a voice, so we're taking our voice and going and creating our own country, so where we'll have a voice.” And that's why it's the tip of the spear.
Well said. Not to– not to discuss too many details of the circumstances around your conviction, but just in terms of understanding a timeline. So you got out of the military– how old were you when you got out of the military?
20?
And then, uh, at what age were you when you were originally originally arrested for–
27.
27. And then how long was it between the arrest and your trial?
My arrest and my trial, hmm. Let's see. My trial started in April and ended in October. So, April– so, a year, a year and a month?
Year and month? And then–
Before the trial, I mean.
Yeah.
And that's the whole process of the trial, but my trial, my sentencing was in October. So that was 20 months.
Okay. And then what was your original sentence?
Thirty to life.
And then how much of that time did you serve? How much total time did you serve?
Thirty years, eight months, and fourteen days.
Okay.
Don't disrespect the fourteen days. Although somebody swears it's only thirteen days because I got out in the morning of that day, but I don't care, I did a piece of that day, that day counts [laughs].
You talked a bit about, which I think has come up quite a bit in some of the other stories, is the importance of that network or that support system when you get out. And you talked a bit about how important Karen was to you, but then also you mention a little bit about your mom, and I was just curious if you wanted to talk at all about what your relationship was like with your mom kind of throughout that whole process.
Oh, well, throughout the reentry process? I mean, my mom has been there for me my whole life.
Yeah.
I mean, when I first went to prison, they were still allowing food packages. She drove from Bayonne to Trenton every month just to bring me a food package, and she would wake up early to cook to put in that food package, so she was there the whole time. I called her once a week while I was locked up. Um, she by that time though, she was livin in a senior citizens home, and she was just there like so happy that I was home, like, and that made me feel really good, but the support I got from family overall, I could give you, for instance like, my brother Rodney– the day I made parole and I called Karen and he knew, he went out and bought me a truck [laughs] so that when I got my license I'd have a vehicle to drive.
02:00:18
He didn't wait, he knew I wasn't comin' home for months, but he didn't wait. He went out and bought a truck, parked it on his property and said, “This is your truck.” And so, and my mother, when she knew I was gonna be goin' to the Halfway Back Program, so I would need clothes, she went out and bought me jeans, t-shirts, jacket, and Karen did the same thing, so now I got too many clothes [laughs]. But that kinda support just helps you to gain stability. Stability is a vital component of reentry, you know. But that support is just part of the support I had. My family support is strong and it’s still to today is strong. You know, I had a cousin who, when she found out– this is the cousin that, one of the cousins that Karen and I met, that’s the mutual cousin– when she found out that I was home but I was goin’ to school, but I didn't have a computer, she went out and bought me a big laptop, you know? Said, “I know your eyes are getting old so I got this big 17" one rather than a little one [both laugh].” But, you know, that's how my family is, we joke around with each other in that way. But she bought a laptop and had it filled with, you know, uh, all the different bells and whistles.
So that support I had from, like, family, but you also have the Mountainview community, which you can't say enough about, because that's a community where everybody knows what you're going through. Like, my mother, much as she can, is my heart and she does all this stuff, my mother doesn't– can't understand what I was goin’ through. Even Karen has told me, when I was goin’ through some things, would say, “Get over it already, you're not there no more!” Well yeah, it's easy to say, but havin’ the Mountainview community I could tell them that, yes, this is what I did, this is how when I was goin’ through that, this is what, and this is the process you're gonna feel, and this is how you're gonna, you know, I mean you're gonna act how you're gonna act, but this is how I did it and this is how I got– and I had so many of that, that I was able to get an understanding of what I was goin' through.
And as much as my family, and my family has been supportive, when I– when Karen– when that housing thing was happening, right, my brother was the first one to say, “Hey look, you can come live here, I got upstairs rooms I got available, you can come live here.” And part of that problem was he's a gun nut [laughs], so parole wasn't gonna allow that, but his answer to me when I told him that, he said, “Well, look, I keep 'em in a safe, they're locked up, you don't have the number, and my handgun by my chair is in a safe, and the only thing that can open it is my fingerprint. But if all that's a problem, I'll move 'em to my son's house and I won't have any guns in here. You have a place.” [pause]
That's the kind of support I got. That's the kind of support that will make sure that you're not goin' back. Although I knew I wasn't goin' back, I didn't care about nothin', I wasn't goin' back. But that's the kind of support that makes you say, “I have to do right. I have to do this, I have to do that, you know?” And it also gives you the freedom to say, “Okay, you know, I'm goin' to school, I need to get this so that I can move forward, you know?” It gives you freedom in the free world, which when you first come into the free world, you feel anything but free. You know, because you got a lot of barriers.
There are a lot of barriers in housing and jobs. I had a job– at first, there was a volunteer with a stipend for an organization that I won't disparage, but their job was to help people comin' outta prison reenter society, right? So, I went to get– because they give you some money toward your schooling and they give you a stipend, I said, “Yeah, I like that, that helps me do what I wanna do.” So I put in for the job. And they said, “No, you have a violent criminal, uh, a violent criminal conviction, so our national policy is, even though you'd be perfect for the job, our national policy is we don't hire people with violent convictions.” Well you're tryin’ to help people comin’ outta prison, who do you think is gonna help them? Somebody that don't have a clue?
But, so they wouldn't even give me a volunteer job, you know? So I had a problem. But luckily again through Mountainview Community and their support structure – it's not just a system, it's a whole structure, right? The support structure had somebody in place that, uh, was able to offer me a job on campus in, uh, in a reservations thing, so I was puttin' up chairs and tables and workin', uh, the AV system and stuff like that, but it was a job. It started out as minimum wage, then I got a raise to $11, and then I got to be building manager, so it transformed.
But it was because Bashir Hawkins, who was the first member to go to Rutgers-Newark outta the Mountainview community, had built this network where he can say, “I wantcha to hire this guy.” Said, “Yeah, send him,” and I got hired. You know so, and by me bein' doin' what I did throughout that time, I was able to get a couple of people hired since then, and now there's a few people workin' that same job and movin' up the ranks through the Mountainview community. So, as each person pays it forward and does a good job while they're there, right, it opens doors rather– so everything now– remember earlier I was sayin' my choices were narrowing my focus? Everything now expands everything. So that's the difference in my life from then til now, is my choices expand my options, and expand options for others rather than narrow options to, to a focus of just “me, gimme mine” ideology. [pause] I don't know if that answered your question.
02:08:29
It did. Um, I guess kinda one of my questions I ask towards the end is really, we've covered most of the specific things. Was there anything that you were perhaps expecting me to ask you that I haven't asked, or is there a question that if you were conducting the interview, you would ask you?
Hm! What would I ask me, ‘cause pretty much you asked, pretty much you asked, pretty much everything. And I try to be as complete as I can in the beginning, so that I cover most– what would I ask you if I was you– oh, what would I ask me if I was you!
[John laughs]
[long pause while Ron thinks]
What's next? I don't know.
Well, that's a good one. What's next?
Hopefully we get the legislature to listen. I mean, we talked to the Executive Counsel for the Majority Leader’s Office yester– Monday? Yeah, Monday. And they wasn't really all that thrilled, but their issue wasn't policy-based, it was, uh, individualized animosity toward an individual person that is doin' time, so trying to argue against the micro-personal-vendetta issue versus the macro-better-for-society-issue–
Was their concern of families, victims' families coming back?
Yeah, um, it had to do with, uh, Megan's Law.
Mmm.
Um, and the person that, uh, that created that whole situation and how could I tell their– Megan's father that I'm allowin' this person to vote? But it's not about him, or any other human being. It's about the human right to vote. It's about the fundamental right to– to give a person a voice in self-determination. It's about connectin’ this to society, it's about connectin' this to the community, it's about more than any individual. It's about more than me, you know? It's about more than that person that has that issue. You know.
02:11:52
It's also, whaddya tell since connectin’ this is already, there's hundreds of– not hundreds, there's a bunch of studies, I don't wanna over– [laughs] but there's a bunch of studies that show that connecting this, right, which is what voting does, connecting this lowers recidivism, it lowers anti-social behavior and actually creates pro-social behavior. Right? So it lowers recidivism rate. So, instead of talkin’ to the one person that can never get his daughter back about why this other one person gets a right to vote, try talkin’ to the countless amount of people that will be victimized because you don't wanna lower the recidivism rate through connecting everybody back to society. And that would be the answer that I wish I coulda gave him but I didn't think of it at the time [laughs]. I gave him some of that, but not the way I just said it.
That's a good answer. Do you have anything else, any other thoughts or anything we didn't cover, or?
I think that's pretty much– I hope that's pretty much.
Great, I'm gonna stop the recorder now.
02:13:20