January 11, 2022 • 29 mins
Record Industry promoter and manager Bill Underwood was given a life sentence for some old charges under the newly minted draconian laws of the war on drugs. His daughter Ebony Underwood eventually made it her life's work to gather the voices of other survivors of parental incarceration to affect change.
To learn more and get involved, visit:
https://www.wegotusnow.org/donate
https://www.ebonyunderwood.info/
https://www.change.org/p/president-trump-30-years-is-too-long-free-our-father-william-underwood
https://underwoodlegacyfund.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9a07wKuq4A
https://lavaforgood.com/righteous-convictions
Righteous Convictions with Jason Flom is a production of Lava For Good Podcasts in association with Signal Co No1.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flamm. This is the
podcast where I speak with people who see the wrong
in the world and are driven to make it right. Today,
I'm speaking with the survivor of parental incarceration, who, instead
of allowing herself to be defeated by that brutal situation,
turned her experience into her life's mission of helping people
(00:21):
like her. Our organization is about ensuring that we're taking
care of this community, these children that were never taking
care of that us as a society as a whole
didn't need to consider. You know, we think about you know,
being tough on crime or you know, making our community
safer as people like to say, but at the same time,
you're causing harm in the process, Like what are you
(00:41):
doing to support these children? Her organization, We Got Us Now,
seems to elevate the voices of the children of incarcerated
parents to their rightful place and the important decisions being
made about our carceral system. Evany Underwood right now on
Righteous Convictions. Welcome back to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam.
(01:15):
And the woman that I'm going to introduce you to
now is a force of nature. Wait till you hear
the story. First of all, Ebony Underwood, I'm so glad
you're here. Hi, Jason, thank you so much for having
me today. We're gonna talk about you, and we're gonna
talk about your amazing father who has informed your life's work. Well,
(01:36):
what's crazy is that you came from the music business,
just like I did, and you end up being this
change maker in the world of criminal legal reform. And
when I say that, Ebony is the founder and CEO
of We Got Us Now, which is the first of
its kind organization that is built by, led by and
all about children and young adults impacted by parental and
(01:59):
car serration. It's hard to believe this organization didn't exist
before you founded it everany I mean, you have suffered
through over thirty years of missing your father as he
sat in prison with a mandatory life without parole sentence.
First of all, this was an old charge, right this
He wasn't involved in anything illegal at the time he
(02:20):
was arrested, Is that right, that's true. So he was
arrested back in under the so called War on drugs.
The Sensing Commission had brought down these new laws, these
new drug laws. My father was never convicted specifically of
any violent charges, but the conspiracy held violence within it.
(02:41):
Because he did not cooperate, and because this was the
first round of convictions made under the so called War
on drugs, they completely threw him under the bus. Life
without parole, life without parole plus three twenty years sentences right, which,
of course, to me is so ridiculous, Like, I mean, really,
exactly what are you guys even doing. So let's go
back to how this all started. Growing up before this
(03:05):
tragedy befailure family, what was your life like? Wow? So
my dad was like this music promoter, publisher and manager,
and so as a young person in my life was exciting.
We were always meeting different like singers and rappers and
and like always go into like record industry parties, and
(03:25):
so it was very very exciting all the time, especially
when it came to my my father. He was a
very busy person and so he always definitely made time
for us. I remember being a young person and like
Bobby Brown, like on my birthday coming to seeing Happy
birthday to me, so many great great memories. Like my
father to me was like equivalent to I would say,
(03:47):
like a puff for you know, like a Russell Simmons
like he was just I mean, anytime we were with him,
he was always with somebody that was somebody so very
very exciting. Yeah, I mean he was working with Michael
Jackson and earth Winded Fire. He was a star of
his own right. This is such a powerful example your
dad's story, because he was a guy who was contributing
(04:09):
to society. Maybe he had done some things wrong in
the past, but he was paying taxes, employing people. He
was making important contributions to pop culture, right, and who
knows who else he might have discovered. Right, We as
a society are deprived when we lock up people with
the potential that's vanquished by putting generations of mostly black
(04:31):
and brown people in prison. Is something that I think
we don't spend enough time talking about. So, so your
dad gets charged with this crime for something that had
happened many years ago, and that he was involved in
some aspect of but not the worst aspects of it
by any means, Right, But that didn't matter because that
sentencing was one size fits all. So he gets yanked
(04:52):
out of your life. You were a child when your
father was arrested, Yes, and completely denivastate. Did now you
have to grow up with your dad in prison, were
able to visit him regularly. So my father was in
eight different federal correctional facilities across the country. So if
your parents in a local jails, a different experience and
(05:13):
having a parent in federal prison where you may or
may not be able to visit. Thankfully, we were able
to visit. I remember so clearly. The very first visit.
He was in Manhattan Detention Center that's in all the
way downtown in New York City, by the courts. And
any time my sister and I because my father has
four children, my mom and him have two daughters, me
(05:34):
and my sister. I have an older brother and a
younger brother. Any time we went to go see my dad,
my mom would always get us like really dressed up because,
like I said, you know, he was always around all
these celebrities, so you never know who you would see,
so she always made us get dressed up. So this
time was no different. We were going to see my dad,
so we got dressed up, not realizing that we're going
to a prison. I mean, we knew we were going
(05:55):
to prison, but again it didn't really it didn't really
formulate in our minds that this is really what's happening,
because we had never actually seen him in there, get there,
waited for hours, go through metal detectors, and my father
always was really sharply dressed. He always wore suits, very
much a business man. The image that I saw when
(06:16):
we finally were able to see him, we were in
this little cramped room. He comes out in this orange
jump stuit, shackled at his hands and at his feet,
and my sister, I think she was just my younger sister.
She was just devastated by this image and she just
busted out crying because we had never seen him like this.
(06:37):
And by the time he consoled her and try to
get her together, and it's like, you know, it caused
me being watching her cry and just like just you know,
just like observing, like now what is our lives? I mean,
it's so vivid in my mind. I'll never forget this image.
By the time we actually got ourselves together he had
to go. They were like, okay, it's time to go.
(06:57):
We'll like what we what he has to go, And
in that moment, I understood the value of time. It
didn't really hit me until I become an adult and
was able to reflect on it much more. But gosh,
we lost so much time with our dad. The picture
your painting would seem more appropriate for a serial killer, right,
not somebody who was involved in drugs to some degree,
(07:22):
But it's a reality across the country. Yeah, for thirty years,
that was our lives, you know. From MDC Manhattan Detention Center,
he went to Tara Hold, Indiana. From Tara Holde, Indiana,
he went to Atlanta, Georgia, to Pennsylvania, then to West Virginia.
He's been an upstate New York in Raybrook, which is
like I'm based in New York. So we were so
excited that they were going to house him in New York.
(07:44):
But can I just tell you it was like six
hours away from New York City where we lived, and
that was one way, so it took twelve hours just
to travel. And visiting is from eight am to three pm.
That never changes. So we had to leave at like
three am in the morning in order to have a
proper visit, just to get there on time. But it's
(08:06):
like situations like that, like just to the every day
struggles that we have to endure on the collateral consequences
of what it means to have a parent incarcerated. Nobody
really talks about that. People just have no idea of
what the children who are the innocent bystandards of this experience. Mind,
you have to experience for me to even actually say something.
It took me twenty six years to actually even publicly
(08:30):
share that my father was incarcerated. Like, the only reason
why I actually said it was because my brother had
been advocating in d C. And then he started to
talk to me about what was happening on the ground
and what the Obama administration had decided to do in
the last term, where they were like, oh, we're going
to end mass incarceration and we're going to perform this
(08:51):
legal system. And I was like, oh my god, people care.
I couldn't believe it. I was like this, the president
is actually talking about this. And so that kind of
prepared held me to say I wanted to do something
about it. You know, I had worked in the entertainment business.
I worked in marketing promotions for several record labels and
different management companies and got into like video production, and
(09:13):
I love creating content, and so I felt like, how
could I get my father's face and our our family
before the president. I didn't know anybody. I was like
literally on a mission. I said, Okay, I don't have
the money to produce documentary, but what I will do
is create this website called imprison dot net. I created
a petition on change dot org and constantly updated it,
(09:35):
so much so that the change dot org executives reached
out to me and asked me if I can help
them and share with their audience how to utilize change
dot org because they loved the way that I used
the marketing and promotion of change dot org. I did
create a documentary short call Hope for Father's Day. I
had been invited to the White House during Obama's administration
(09:55):
because they were doing tons of clemencies, if you remember,
and they invited myself, they're invited many other daughters and
sons and family members that had gone and that's how
I met a lot of people as well from across
the country. And while we were there, there was a
special dinner that was hosted by Google, and Google executives
took me to the side because they had saw my
(10:16):
Hope for Father's Day documentary and they said, we want
to work with you. We really love what you're doing
around this and would you be interested in working with
us to produce this digital campaign? And so I've done
since two thousand sixteen three iterations of this Google initiated
digital campaign called love Letters, and it's basically like an
ode to my personal story, my hope for Father's Day
(10:38):
to demonstrate the unbreakable bond between in incarcerated parent and
their child. Righteous Convictions with Jason Flom is super excited
and honored to have their support of a great organization
(11:01):
like Galaxy Gives. Galaxy Gives leads the filmthropic efforts of
the Novograds family. They invest in organizations, campaigns, and leaders
who are directly impacted by and working to dismantle the
current punitive justice system. Galaxy Gives also builds power for
the community's most harmed by mass incarceration and forges transformative
solutions for responding to that harm. They envision a society
(11:23):
where the structural barriers created by racism, poverty, and inequality
are no more, where instead all people have the dignity, freedom,
and rights needed to thrive. I took all the skills
that I understood from watching even my dad as a
promoter and marketeer in the music business, and then as
(11:45):
an adult myself working for different labels and do a
marketing promotion and applied all that stuff to this work
and to my family story, just in an effort to
try to raise as much attention as possible. And in
the process I found out that there was a name
for what I had been living. I found out that
there's this thing called Children of Incarcerated Parents and that
(12:05):
they were actually organizations that work to support children of
incarcerated parents. And I was like, what who are they?
You know, my marketing promotions mind is like, well, I
want to lift them up. So I made it my
business to find out all the organizations that were doing
the work and was able to really do a deep
dive into this work. As I began to do that,
(12:26):
I traveled all across the country, you know, identifying organizations
that actually do the work, and I realized that most
of the organizations were state based or they were local organizations,
and there was nothing that was really in support of,
you know, children that have parents like me that were
in federal prison. And so I was just like, what
are we doing, Like, we're only addressing a part of
(12:47):
this issue. We're not addressing this issue in its entirety.
As I began to speak publicly, I saw how many
daughters and sons just felt compelled to come up to
me anytime I spoke publicly and say thank you so
much for sharing, and this is my story too. I've
never had the courage to share in this capacity and
it just is like wow, like we need a community,
and so that propelled me to start. We got us.
(13:10):
Now we're a national organization. We have Actionists, so they're
directly impacted daughters and sons that we train and develop
into leading subject matter experts. And they're from all across
the country. So there's ten of them that are part
of our first cohort, our inaugural cohort of Actionist. And
then we have a junior Actionist community as well. And
then yeah, we've been in existence to two thousand seventeen
and now it's like my life work. So the organization's
(13:32):
mission is to engage, elevate, educate, and empower the historically
invisible population through the use of digital narratives, safe and
inclusive spaces, and advocacy led campaigns. What they're doing, what
you're doing, Ebony, is ensuring that these individuals voices are
at the forefront of strategic initiatives, practices, and policies that
help to keep families connected, create fair sentencing, and end
(13:56):
the social policy disaster known as mass and car serration.
And one of the models of the organization is and
I think this is beautiful. We are the collective authors
of our personal narratives. We work to eliminate the trauma, stigma,
and shame of rasul in carceration. We amplify the carcerol
mechanisms that continue to harm children and in carcerated parents.
We seek justice and accountability for our marginalized population. Our
(14:20):
organization is about ensuring that we're taking care of this community,
these children that were never taken care of that us
as a society as a whole didn't need to consider.
You know, we think about, you know, being tough on
crime or you know, making our community safer as people
like to say, but at the same time, you're causing
harm in the process, Like, what are you doing to
support these children that are left behind? Not left behind
(14:44):
in the fear that you think, oh my god, if
we don't help them. Because this has been a narrative
that we've been working to reframe and actually shift because
it's been very harmful to the population of children of
incarcerated parents, is that they're destined to become incarcerated, and
that's not true. As a matter of fact. What they
do need is to have sustainable, consistent support systems that
(15:08):
will help them to continue to do well in school.
We need teachers, prosecutors, judges that are more informed, we
need attorneys that are more informed about what these children need.
And we need to look at the families as a whole.
When you're about to incarcerat someone, you need to look
at the families as a whole and see if there
is an alternative to incarceration rather than just throwing somebody
(15:29):
away and destroying a family for generations, because that's absolutely
what happens. What you're doing, in a very real way
is breaking that chain and interrupting that cycle of misery,
and that is as powerful as anything can be. I'm
proud to share that in We Got Us Now as
instrumental and passing four pieces of legislation, and we like
(15:51):
to say that we do this work at the local level,
at the state level, and at the federal level, because
prior to We Got Us Now, this work, this issue
of children of incarceerty of parents who has always looked
at as like this monolithic issue, as if it's one
thing and we can just throw it in a box,
and it's not. It's very different experience depending on what
what type of facility your parent is in. So for US,
legislation needs to affect all those levels. So locally it
(16:14):
was the Washington d c. Public Schools it's called the
Helping Children's Impacted by Parents Incarceration Amendment Act. Then at
the state level in Louisiana, we work with our partners
there um Daughters Beyond Incarceration, and that Louisiana state law
created the Council on the Children of Incarcerated Parents and
Caregivers under the Governor's Office. Then in New York State,
(16:35):
what we were able to do is get that state
law that directs the New York State Department of Corrections
and Community Supervision the place incarcerated parents and the facility
that is in closest proximity to their minor children. And
then at the federal level, we were able to get
family based alternative sentencing pilot programs implemented by several states
for parents who have been convicted of ni violent offenses.
(16:56):
We were able to get three point five million in
appropriation and support of these types of programming. But we've
done a lot of different advocacy efforts. The work that
we do is mainly to just create as much awareness
and advocacy around this issue. We're actually working on a
global research and data hub right now because we don't
want this to be a fleeting moment. We want our
(17:17):
organization to live beyond me and us in our community,
and so that when people do look back to this time,
that they all know that we existed and that we
have had the success that we have had and have
been able to build out this community. They can refer
to our data and our research and all of our
videos and content that we've been able to create around
(17:37):
this issue. And we have tons of content. We also
have merch t shirts, we have hoodies, we have a podcast.
We are doing tons of things, and we're gonna be
doing so much more. Listening to you, it's just so energizing,
you know, I mean, do you sleep at all? I
(17:57):
have been on A thousand and for the last seven years.
My brother have an older brother, so my brother had
been like trying to figure out ways in which to
(18:19):
help my dad, because you know, these laws would come
down that would seem to have applied to my dad,
and so you know, we'd all get excited. My my
dad be like, oh, this is looking good you guys,
and lo and behold the law would come down and
they were not made retroactive, so it does not apply
to old cases. So the law would completely apply right
(18:42):
to my dad's case, but he couldn't utilize it because
it wasn't retroactive. Having worked on a number of these
legislative changes, right, I worked closely with Senator Durban on
the rollback of the crack cocaine sentencing laws back in
two thousand and ten. I've been a big advocate for
clemency's from presidents and governors, and I remained so to
(19:02):
this day. I went so far. I was trying everything
to get a meeting with President Obama because I was
gonna just beg him to grant clemency to everybody who
had been sentenced under the old laws that weren't made retroactive.
Ten thousand people that were serving time and under these
antiquated laws that we had now acknowledged as a country
were wrong. But it's like, how do you like to
(19:23):
be the last guy or woman sentenced under those old laws.
And then you meet a guy who just came in
after you did. You know, someone comes in and they've
got four years and they're convicted of exactly the same
crime that you've got, but you've got twenty five, right,
And that's literal right. It's saying that we did this
as a country. You've got. If we're acknowledging something's wrong,
then it was also wrong before the board, right across
(19:45):
the board. It's madness, and your family had to live
with this particularly almost uniquely American form of madness. And
I actually ended up going to the White House with
my daughter. I got in myself indvited to the White
House Christmas party just so I could get like few
seconds of his attention, and I begged him in a
few seconds, I had to grant as many clemencies as possible.
(20:08):
I was really sad because, like I had been waiting,
I just knew that Obama was gonna let my dad out.
I just knew that Obama was gonna let my dad out.
And so I had just been waiting and he had
just announced a new set of commutations, and my father
wasn't on the list, and then my father calls me
and tells me, don't worry, baby, it's okay. You know, um,
I heard that Senator Booker's coming here. So Corey book
(20:29):
of course he's the New Jersey senator and my father
was housed in New Jersey, and he's just like, you know,
so they're gonna lock down the prison. So I'll call
you the day after. And I was like, all right,
all right, I'll talk to you, but I was kind
of filling down because of what happened. Long story short.
Later that evening, I realized that I had met somebody
from Senator Booker's team, and it was at eleven o'clock
at night. I remember this, and I said, you know what,
(20:50):
I'm gonna email him like, what do I have to lose?
I have nothing to lose. I'm gonna ask them if
at the very least they could just say hello to
my dad. That would make his day, don't you know.
At nine am, I get an email from his team
saying that they got my message and that they will
try their best to see if they can say do something.
No promises. By six pm that day, my father calls
(21:15):
me and says, Ebony, what did you do. Let's say
what what happened? Long behold. Senator Booker is a man
of his word and has been a man of his
word from the onset of me meeting him. He actually
went to go visit my dad as per my request.
He had a fantastic time meeting him. He then thereafter
(21:36):
met me and my siblings. He advocated for my dad
during the Obama administration. That did not work. I mean,
when you talk about trying to get close to administration,
I completely understand that did not work. And so you know,
I just kept trudging, trudging along, and he has been
a r friend and an ally your dad. He was
of course the inspiration for Booker and maass a Second
Look Act that was passed on ap one, which allows
(21:59):
This law allows a person who committed a crime before
the age of who has served a minimum fifteen years
in prison to apply to the DC Superior Court to
have their sentence reviewed. And I know people who have
gotten out because of that. So they owe ampatitude to
you and your dad. So go ahead, just brag all
you want about your dad. My father throughout his whole
(22:19):
time while he was incarcerated. You know, he used to mentor,
as we said, like top R and being pop stars
as a manager and a promoter and just a music executive.
And that didn't stop for him when he was in prison.
He absolutely was inspiring and mentoring young men and explaining them,
you know what, if you have a date to be released,
you're winning. And so don't give up, don't give up
(22:42):
on your family, don't give up on yourself, keep striving
anything as possible. And that's why the second look is
so important, because those good deeds just show how we
need to go back and actually consider individuals and see
where they are. We need people to be able to
get a second look. And so thankfully Judge Stein, the
great Judge Stein understood and recognized this exemplary record. My
(23:07):
father had zero fractions and understood that my father was
this incredible mentor to many many young men, and that
he contributed to a culture of responsibility in his prison
community while also still raising and supporting his children and
his grandchildren. My dad came home this year. That has
been monumental. I never give up on my dad. You know,
(23:30):
in the process, you know, you can get caught up
in all of this stuff. And thankfully, you know, my
spirit stayed focused and and steadfast on why I got
into this work, and thankfully my father received a compassion
and released. Yeah, that was phenomenal. I'm still floating. I
still can't believe it. It's like, it's crazy. It's crazy
(23:51):
to think about it. It's crazy. Yeah, I hear your
voice breaking a little bit when you say it is crazy.
It's amazing, And I'm so happy for you dad and
your family, and now that he's home. It really did
hit me like a ton of bricks. It like all
kind of like fell. I've been trying to get to
a space of wellness. I absolutely can't give up. Absolutely
(24:11):
am passionate about this work. I have so many other
daughters and sons that I've met, young people that are
continuing to go through this, during this pandemic. It's heartbreaking,
it's it's it's sad, but I know that I can
only be good for them if I definitely take the
time to be good to myself. So, Ebony, I have
(24:32):
a great idea and with your with your permission, what
I'm gonna do is I'm going to clone you and
then we're just gonna create a little army of Ebony's
out there. But that's what that's what we got us
now is all I need is investment. So right now
we actually have a fundraiser that we're aiming to raise
a hundred thousand dollars. Pymen to that, and we will
(24:54):
link in the bio and try to draw off as
much support as we possibly can. So um Ebony, we
always close the show with two questions, and the first
one is the magic one question. If you had a
magic one, by the way, and if I had one,
I'd give it to you. I trust you with that
magic one. But if you had a magic wand and
could wave it and get one wish granted, what would
(25:16):
it pay? I would reunify all these families that have
been affected by mass incarceration. Yeah, I would reunify these
families definitely. That's beautiful. Okay. Now, before we go to
our closing, I would like to invite our audience to
tune in next week when we speak with entrepreneur and
(25:37):
philanthropist Chris Redletz, whose organization The Last Mile is doing
some truly incredible work investing in and developing the untopped
human talent of our prisons. So don't miss it. And
now the closing of Our show is called Words of Wisdom,
and this is of course where I first of all
thank you for joining us, Thank you audience for listening,
of course, and then I'm gonna turn my microphone off
(25:59):
like I always do at the end, leave my headphones on,
kick back in my chair, and just listen in for
anything else you feel is left to be said. So,
there are two point two million people that have been
incarcerated in the United States. We all know, and if
you don't know, the US has been the great mass incarcerator,
where five percent of the world's population, yet we incarceerate
(26:24):
of the world's prison population. And of that two point
two million of those people their parents that are incarcerated.
In the United States, two point seven million children under
the age of eighteen at this point in time currently
have a parent that's incarcerated. That number two point seven million.
(26:44):
That population is greater than the states of Maine in
New Hampshire combined. But that's not even the epidemic. The
epidemic is that over ten million children, at some point
in their lives have been impacted by parental incarceration in America.
And so what I'd like to offense, say and share
is that children of incarcerated parents are green, stricken, angry,
(27:05):
and said due to not being able to see their parents,
hug their parents, or receive special gifts from their parents
behind bars during the holiday season. And I want them
to know and for those who know children if incarcerated parents,
what you all should know that guess what, It's healthy
for them to feel all of those feelings. It's healthy
(27:25):
for them to express them. They don't need to hold
them in. We all need to be mindful of triggers.
They need to be able to release. What we like
to recommend that we got us now is writing art,
music or just speak into a trusted friend. But our
whole aim is really in the investment of family reunification
(27:45):
and we aim to dismantle the continuous harm children and
young adults with parents behind bars face by advocating for
ways to keep our families connected and to create fair
sentencing and to end mass incarceration because it has been
a destructive war on our society as a whole, and
we need to make our society whole. Thank you for
(28:15):
listening to Righteous Convictions with Jason plom I'd like to
thank our production team, Connor Hall, Jeff Claverne and Kevin
Wardis with research by Laila Robinson. The music in this
production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good.
You can also follow me on TikTok and Instagram at
(28:37):
it's Jason Flom. Righteous Convictions with Jason Blom is a
production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal
Company Number One
Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flamm. This is the
podcast where I speak with people who see the wrong
in the world and are driven to make it right. Today,
I'm speaking with the survivor of parental incarceration, who, instead
of allowing herself to be defeated by that brutal situation,
turned her experience into her life's mission of helping people
(00:21):
like her. Our organization is about ensuring that we're taking
care of this community, these children that were never taking
care of that us as a society as a whole
didn't need to consider. You know, we think about you know,
being tough on crime or you know, making our community
safer as people like to say, but at the same time,
you're causing harm in the process, Like what are you
(00:41):
doing to support these children? Her organization, We Got Us Now,
seems to elevate the voices of the children of incarcerated
parents to their rightful place and the important decisions being
made about our carceral system. Evany Underwood right now on
Righteous Convictions. Welcome back to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam.
(01:15):
And the woman that I'm going to introduce you to
now is a force of nature. Wait till you hear
the story. First of all, Ebony Underwood, I'm so glad
you're here. Hi, Jason, thank you so much for having
me today. We're gonna talk about you, and we're gonna
talk about your amazing father who has informed your life's work. Well,
(01:36):
what's crazy is that you came from the music business,
just like I did, and you end up being this
change maker in the world of criminal legal reform. And
when I say that, Ebony is the founder and CEO
of We Got Us Now, which is the first of
its kind organization that is built by, led by and
all about children and young adults impacted by parental and
(01:59):
car serration. It's hard to believe this organization didn't exist
before you founded it everany I mean, you have suffered
through over thirty years of missing your father as he
sat in prison with a mandatory life without parole sentence.
First of all, this was an old charge, right this
He wasn't involved in anything illegal at the time he
(02:20):
was arrested, Is that right, that's true. So he was
arrested back in under the so called War on drugs.
The Sensing Commission had brought down these new laws, these
new drug laws. My father was never convicted specifically of
any violent charges, but the conspiracy held violence within it.
(02:41):
Because he did not cooperate, and because this was the
first round of convictions made under the so called War
on drugs, they completely threw him under the bus. Life
without parole, life without parole plus three twenty years sentences right, which,
of course, to me is so ridiculous, Like, I mean, really,
exactly what are you guys even doing. So let's go
back to how this all started. Growing up before this
(03:05):
tragedy befailure family, what was your life like? Wow? So
my dad was like this music promoter, publisher and manager,
and so as a young person in my life was exciting.
We were always meeting different like singers and rappers and
and like always go into like record industry parties, and
(03:25):
so it was very very exciting all the time, especially
when it came to my my father. He was a
very busy person and so he always definitely made time
for us. I remember being a young person and like
Bobby Brown, like on my birthday coming to seeing Happy
birthday to me, so many great great memories. Like my
father to me was like equivalent to I would say,
(03:47):
like a puff for you know, like a Russell Simmons
like he was just I mean, anytime we were with him,
he was always with somebody that was somebody so very
very exciting. Yeah, I mean he was working with Michael
Jackson and earth Winded Fire. He was a star of
his own right. This is such a powerful example your
dad's story, because he was a guy who was contributing
(04:09):
to society. Maybe he had done some things wrong in
the past, but he was paying taxes, employing people. He
was making important contributions to pop culture, right, and who
knows who else he might have discovered. Right, We as
a society are deprived when we lock up people with
the potential that's vanquished by putting generations of mostly black
(04:31):
and brown people in prison. Is something that I think
we don't spend enough time talking about. So, so your
dad gets charged with this crime for something that had
happened many years ago, and that he was involved in
some aspect of but not the worst aspects of it
by any means, Right, But that didn't matter because that
sentencing was one size fits all. So he gets yanked
(04:52):
out of your life. You were a child when your
father was arrested, Yes, and completely denivastate. Did now you
have to grow up with your dad in prison, were
able to visit him regularly. So my father was in
eight different federal correctional facilities across the country. So if
your parents in a local jails, a different experience and
(05:13):
having a parent in federal prison where you may or
may not be able to visit. Thankfully, we were able
to visit. I remember so clearly. The very first visit.
He was in Manhattan Detention Center that's in all the
way downtown in New York City, by the courts. And
any time my sister and I because my father has
four children, my mom and him have two daughters, me
(05:34):
and my sister. I have an older brother and a
younger brother. Any time we went to go see my dad,
my mom would always get us like really dressed up because,
like I said, you know, he was always around all
these celebrities, so you never know who you would see,
so she always made us get dressed up. So this
time was no different. We were going to see my dad,
so we got dressed up, not realizing that we're going
to a prison. I mean, we knew we were going
(05:55):
to prison, but again it didn't really it didn't really
formulate in our minds that this is really what's happening,
because we had never actually seen him in there, get there,
waited for hours, go through metal detectors, and my father
always was really sharply dressed. He always wore suits, very
much a business man. The image that I saw when
(06:16):
we finally were able to see him, we were in
this little cramped room. He comes out in this orange
jump stuit, shackled at his hands and at his feet,
and my sister, I think she was just my younger sister.
She was just devastated by this image and she just
busted out crying because we had never seen him like this.
(06:37):
And by the time he consoled her and try to
get her together, and it's like, you know, it caused
me being watching her cry and just like just you know,
just like observing, like now what is our lives? I mean,
it's so vivid in my mind. I'll never forget this image.
By the time we actually got ourselves together he had
to go. They were like, okay, it's time to go.
(06:57):
We'll like what we what he has to go, And
in that moment, I understood the value of time. It
didn't really hit me until I become an adult and
was able to reflect on it much more. But gosh,
we lost so much time with our dad. The picture
your painting would seem more appropriate for a serial killer, right,
not somebody who was involved in drugs to some degree,
(07:22):
But it's a reality across the country. Yeah, for thirty years,
that was our lives, you know. From MDC Manhattan Detention Center,
he went to Tara Hold, Indiana. From Tara Holde, Indiana,
he went to Atlanta, Georgia, to Pennsylvania, then to West Virginia.
He's been an upstate New York in Raybrook, which is
like I'm based in New York. So we were so
excited that they were going to house him in New York.
(07:44):
But can I just tell you it was like six
hours away from New York City where we lived, and
that was one way, so it took twelve hours just
to travel. And visiting is from eight am to three pm.
That never changes. So we had to leave at like
three am in the morning in order to have a
proper visit, just to get there on time. But it's
(08:06):
like situations like that, like just to the every day
struggles that we have to endure on the collateral consequences
of what it means to have a parent incarcerated. Nobody
really talks about that. People just have no idea of
what the children who are the innocent bystandards of this experience. Mind,
you have to experience for me to even actually say something.
It took me twenty six years to actually even publicly
(08:30):
share that my father was incarcerated. Like, the only reason
why I actually said it was because my brother had
been advocating in d C. And then he started to
talk to me about what was happening on the ground
and what the Obama administration had decided to do in
the last term, where they were like, oh, we're going
to end mass incarceration and we're going to perform this
(08:51):
legal system. And I was like, oh my god, people care.
I couldn't believe it. I was like this, the president
is actually talking about this. And so that kind of
prepared held me to say I wanted to do something
about it. You know, I had worked in the entertainment business.
I worked in marketing promotions for several record labels and
different management companies and got into like video production, and
(09:13):
I love creating content, and so I felt like, how
could I get my father's face and our our family
before the president. I didn't know anybody. I was like
literally on a mission. I said, Okay, I don't have
the money to produce documentary, but what I will do
is create this website called imprison dot net. I created
a petition on change dot org and constantly updated it,
(09:35):
so much so that the change dot org executives reached
out to me and asked me if I can help
them and share with their audience how to utilize change
dot org because they loved the way that I used
the marketing and promotion of change dot org. I did
create a documentary short call Hope for Father's Day. I
had been invited to the White House during Obama's administration
(09:55):
because they were doing tons of clemencies, if you remember,
and they invited myself, they're invited many other daughters and
sons and family members that had gone and that's how
I met a lot of people as well from across
the country. And while we were there, there was a
special dinner that was hosted by Google, and Google executives
took me to the side because they had saw my
(10:16):
Hope for Father's Day documentary and they said, we want
to work with you. We really love what you're doing
around this and would you be interested in working with
us to produce this digital campaign? And so I've done
since two thousand sixteen three iterations of this Google initiated
digital campaign called love Letters, and it's basically like an
ode to my personal story, my hope for Father's Day
(10:38):
to demonstrate the unbreakable bond between in incarcerated parent and
their child. Righteous Convictions with Jason Flom is super excited
and honored to have their support of a great organization
(11:01):
like Galaxy Gives. Galaxy Gives leads the filmthropic efforts of
the Novograds family. They invest in organizations, campaigns, and leaders
who are directly impacted by and working to dismantle the
current punitive justice system. Galaxy Gives also builds power for
the community's most harmed by mass incarceration and forges transformative
solutions for responding to that harm. They envision a society
(11:23):
where the structural barriers created by racism, poverty, and inequality
are no more, where instead all people have the dignity, freedom,
and rights needed to thrive. I took all the skills
that I understood from watching even my dad as a
promoter and marketeer in the music business, and then as
(11:45):
an adult myself working for different labels and do a
marketing promotion and applied all that stuff to this work
and to my family story, just in an effort to
try to raise as much attention as possible. And in
the process I found out that there was a name
for what I had been living. I found out that
there's this thing called Children of Incarcerated Parents and that
(12:05):
they were actually organizations that work to support children of
incarcerated parents. And I was like, what who are they?
You know, my marketing promotions mind is like, well, I
want to lift them up. So I made it my
business to find out all the organizations that were doing
the work and was able to really do a deep
dive into this work. As I began to do that,
(12:26):
I traveled all across the country, you know, identifying organizations
that actually do the work, and I realized that most
of the organizations were state based or they were local organizations,
and there was nothing that was really in support of,
you know, children that have parents like me that were
in federal prison. And so I was just like, what
are we doing, Like, we're only addressing a part of
(12:47):
this issue. We're not addressing this issue in its entirety.
As I began to speak publicly, I saw how many
daughters and sons just felt compelled to come up to
me anytime I spoke publicly and say thank you so
much for sharing, and this is my story too. I've
never had the courage to share in this capacity and
it just is like wow, like we need a community,
and so that propelled me to start. We got us.
(13:10):
Now we're a national organization. We have Actionists, so they're
directly impacted daughters and sons that we train and develop
into leading subject matter experts. And they're from all across
the country. So there's ten of them that are part
of our first cohort, our inaugural cohort of Actionist. And
then we have a junior Actionist community as well. And
then yeah, we've been in existence to two thousand seventeen
and now it's like my life work. So the organization's
(13:32):
mission is to engage, elevate, educate, and empower the historically
invisible population through the use of digital narratives, safe and
inclusive spaces, and advocacy led campaigns. What they're doing, what
you're doing, Ebony, is ensuring that these individuals voices are
at the forefront of strategic initiatives, practices, and policies that
help to keep families connected, create fair sentencing, and end
(13:56):
the social policy disaster known as mass and car serration.
And one of the models of the organization is and
I think this is beautiful. We are the collective authors
of our personal narratives. We work to eliminate the trauma, stigma,
and shame of rasul in carceration. We amplify the carcerol
mechanisms that continue to harm children and in carcerated parents.
We seek justice and accountability for our marginalized population. Our
(14:20):
organization is about ensuring that we're taking care of this community,
these children that were never taken care of that us
as a society as a whole didn't need to consider.
You know, we think about, you know, being tough on
crime or you know, making our community safer as people
like to say, but at the same time, you're causing
harm in the process, Like, what are you doing to
support these children that are left behind? Not left behind
(14:44):
in the fear that you think, oh my god, if
we don't help them. Because this has been a narrative
that we've been working to reframe and actually shift because
it's been very harmful to the population of children of
incarcerated parents, is that they're destined to become incarcerated, and
that's not true. As a matter of fact. What they
do need is to have sustainable, consistent support systems that
(15:08):
will help them to continue to do well in school.
We need teachers, prosecutors, judges that are more informed, we
need attorneys that are more informed about what these children need.
And we need to look at the families as a whole.
When you're about to incarcerat someone, you need to look
at the families as a whole and see if there
is an alternative to incarceration rather than just throwing somebody
(15:29):
away and destroying a family for generations, because that's absolutely
what happens. What you're doing, in a very real way
is breaking that chain and interrupting that cycle of misery,
and that is as powerful as anything can be. I'm
proud to share that in We Got Us Now as
instrumental and passing four pieces of legislation, and we like
(15:51):
to say that we do this work at the local level,
at the state level, and at the federal level, because
prior to We Got Us Now, this work, this issue
of children of incarceerty of parents who has always looked
at as like this monolithic issue, as if it's one
thing and we can just throw it in a box,
and it's not. It's very different experience depending on what
what type of facility your parent is in. So for US,
legislation needs to affect all those levels. So locally it
(16:14):
was the Washington d c. Public Schools it's called the
Helping Children's Impacted by Parents Incarceration Amendment Act. Then at
the state level in Louisiana, we work with our partners
there um Daughters Beyond Incarceration, and that Louisiana state law
created the Council on the Children of Incarcerated Parents and
Caregivers under the Governor's Office. Then in New York State,
(16:35):
what we were able to do is get that state
law that directs the New York State Department of Corrections
and Community Supervision the place incarcerated parents and the facility
that is in closest proximity to their minor children. And
then at the federal level, we were able to get
family based alternative sentencing pilot programs implemented by several states
for parents who have been convicted of ni violent offenses.
(16:56):
We were able to get three point five million in
appropriation and support of these types of programming. But we've
done a lot of different advocacy efforts. The work that
we do is mainly to just create as much awareness
and advocacy around this issue. We're actually working on a
global research and data hub right now because we don't
want this to be a fleeting moment. We want our
(17:17):
organization to live beyond me and us in our community,
and so that when people do look back to this time,
that they all know that we existed and that we
have had the success that we have had and have
been able to build out this community. They can refer
to our data and our research and all of our
videos and content that we've been able to create around
(17:37):
this issue. And we have tons of content. We also
have merch t shirts, we have hoodies, we have a podcast.
We are doing tons of things, and we're gonna be
doing so much more. Listening to you, it's just so energizing,
you know, I mean, do you sleep at all? I
(17:57):
have been on A thousand and for the last seven years.
My brother have an older brother, so my brother had
been like trying to figure out ways in which to
(18:19):
help my dad, because you know, these laws would come
down that would seem to have applied to my dad,
and so you know, we'd all get excited. My my
dad be like, oh, this is looking good you guys,
and lo and behold the law would come down and
they were not made retroactive, so it does not apply
to old cases. So the law would completely apply right
(18:42):
to my dad's case, but he couldn't utilize it because
it wasn't retroactive. Having worked on a number of these
legislative changes, right, I worked closely with Senator Durban on
the rollback of the crack cocaine sentencing laws back in
two thousand and ten. I've been a big advocate for
clemency's from presidents and governors, and I remained so to
(19:02):
this day. I went so far. I was trying everything
to get a meeting with President Obama because I was
gonna just beg him to grant clemency to everybody who
had been sentenced under the old laws that weren't made retroactive.
Ten thousand people that were serving time and under these
antiquated laws that we had now acknowledged as a country
were wrong. But it's like, how do you like to
(19:23):
be the last guy or woman sentenced under those old laws.
And then you meet a guy who just came in
after you did. You know, someone comes in and they've
got four years and they're convicted of exactly the same
crime that you've got, but you've got twenty five, right,
And that's literal right. It's saying that we did this
as a country. You've got. If we're acknowledging something's wrong,
then it was also wrong before the board, right across
(19:45):
the board. It's madness, and your family had to live
with this particularly almost uniquely American form of madness. And
I actually ended up going to the White House with
my daughter. I got in myself indvited to the White
House Christmas party just so I could get like few
seconds of his attention, and I begged him in a
few seconds, I had to grant as many clemencies as possible.
(20:08):
I was really sad because, like I had been waiting,
I just knew that Obama was gonna let my dad out.
I just knew that Obama was gonna let my dad out.
And so I had just been waiting and he had
just announced a new set of commutations, and my father
wasn't on the list, and then my father calls me
and tells me, don't worry, baby, it's okay. You know, um,
I heard that Senator Booker's coming here. So Corey book
(20:29):
of course he's the New Jersey senator and my father
was housed in New Jersey, and he's just like, you know,
so they're gonna lock down the prison. So I'll call
you the day after. And I was like, all right,
all right, I'll talk to you, but I was kind
of filling down because of what happened. Long story short.
Later that evening, I realized that I had met somebody
from Senator Booker's team, and it was at eleven o'clock
at night. I remember this, and I said, you know what,
(20:50):
I'm gonna email him like, what do I have to lose?
I have nothing to lose. I'm gonna ask them if
at the very least they could just say hello to
my dad. That would make his day, don't you know.
At nine am, I get an email from his team
saying that they got my message and that they will
try their best to see if they can say do something.
No promises. By six pm that day, my father calls
(21:15):
me and says, Ebony, what did you do. Let's say
what what happened? Long behold. Senator Booker is a man
of his word and has been a man of his
word from the onset of me meeting him. He actually
went to go visit my dad as per my request.
He had a fantastic time meeting him. He then thereafter
(21:36):
met me and my siblings. He advocated for my dad
during the Obama administration. That did not work. I mean,
when you talk about trying to get close to administration,
I completely understand that did not work. And so you know,
I just kept trudging, trudging along, and he has been
a r friend and an ally your dad. He was
of course the inspiration for Booker and maass a Second
Look Act that was passed on ap one, which allows
(21:59):
This law allows a person who committed a crime before
the age of who has served a minimum fifteen years
in prison to apply to the DC Superior Court to
have their sentence reviewed. And I know people who have
gotten out because of that. So they owe ampatitude to
you and your dad. So go ahead, just brag all
you want about your dad. My father throughout his whole
(22:19):
time while he was incarcerated. You know, he used to mentor,
as we said, like top R and being pop stars
as a manager and a promoter and just a music executive.
And that didn't stop for him when he was in prison.
He absolutely was inspiring and mentoring young men and explaining them,
you know what, if you have a date to be released,
you're winning. And so don't give up, don't give up
(22:42):
on your family, don't give up on yourself, keep striving
anything as possible. And that's why the second look is
so important, because those good deeds just show how we
need to go back and actually consider individuals and see
where they are. We need people to be able to
get a second look. And so thankfully Judge Stein, the
great Judge Stein understood and recognized this exemplary record. My
(23:07):
father had zero fractions and understood that my father was
this incredible mentor to many many young men, and that
he contributed to a culture of responsibility in his prison
community while also still raising and supporting his children and
his grandchildren. My dad came home this year. That has
been monumental. I never give up on my dad. You know,
(23:30):
in the process, you know, you can get caught up
in all of this stuff. And thankfully, you know, my
spirit stayed focused and and steadfast on why I got
into this work, and thankfully my father received a compassion
and released. Yeah, that was phenomenal. I'm still floating. I
still can't believe it. It's like, it's crazy. It's crazy
(23:51):
to think about it. It's crazy. Yeah, I hear your
voice breaking a little bit when you say it is crazy.
It's amazing, And I'm so happy for you dad and
your family, and now that he's home. It really did
hit me like a ton of bricks. It like all
kind of like fell. I've been trying to get to
a space of wellness. I absolutely can't give up. Absolutely
(24:11):
am passionate about this work. I have so many other
daughters and sons that I've met, young people that are
continuing to go through this, during this pandemic. It's heartbreaking,
it's it's it's sad, but I know that I can
only be good for them if I definitely take the
time to be good to myself. So, Ebony, I have
(24:32):
a great idea and with your with your permission, what
I'm gonna do is I'm going to clone you and
then we're just gonna create a little army of Ebony's
out there. But that's what that's what we got us
now is all I need is investment. So right now
we actually have a fundraiser that we're aiming to raise
a hundred thousand dollars. Pymen to that, and we will
(24:54):
link in the bio and try to draw off as
much support as we possibly can. So um Ebony, we
always close the show with two questions, and the first
one is the magic one question. If you had a
magic one, by the way, and if I had one,
I'd give it to you. I trust you with that
magic one. But if you had a magic wand and
could wave it and get one wish granted, what would
(25:16):
it pay? I would reunify all these families that have
been affected by mass incarceration. Yeah, I would reunify these
families definitely. That's beautiful. Okay. Now, before we go to
our closing, I would like to invite our audience to
tune in next week when we speak with entrepreneur and
(25:37):
philanthropist Chris Redletz, whose organization The Last Mile is doing
some truly incredible work investing in and developing the untopped
human talent of our prisons. So don't miss it. And
now the closing of Our show is called Words of Wisdom,
and this is of course where I first of all
thank you for joining us, Thank you audience for listening,
of course, and then I'm gonna turn my microphone off
(25:59):
like I always do at the end, leave my headphones on,
kick back in my chair, and just listen in for
anything else you feel is left to be said. So,
there are two point two million people that have been
incarcerated in the United States. We all know, and if
you don't know, the US has been the great mass incarcerator,
where five percent of the world's population, yet we incarceerate
(26:24):
of the world's prison population. And of that two point
two million of those people their parents that are incarcerated.
In the United States, two point seven million children under
the age of eighteen at this point in time currently
have a parent that's incarcerated. That number two point seven million.
(26:44):
That population is greater than the states of Maine in
New Hampshire combined. But that's not even the epidemic. The
epidemic is that over ten million children, at some point
in their lives have been impacted by parental incarceration in America.
And so what I'd like to offense, say and share
is that children of incarcerated parents are green, stricken, angry,
(27:05):
and said due to not being able to see their parents,
hug their parents, or receive special gifts from their parents
behind bars during the holiday season. And I want them
to know and for those who know children if incarcerated parents,
what you all should know that guess what, It's healthy
for them to feel all of those feelings. It's healthy
(27:25):
for them to express them. They don't need to hold
them in. We all need to be mindful of triggers.
They need to be able to release. What we like
to recommend that we got us now is writing art,
music or just speak into a trusted friend. But our
whole aim is really in the investment of family reunification
(27:45):
and we aim to dismantle the continuous harm children and
young adults with parents behind bars face by advocating for
ways to keep our families connected and to create fair
sentencing and to end mass incarceration because it has been
a destructive war on our society as a whole, and
we need to make our society whole. Thank you for
(28:15):
listening to Righteous Convictions with Jason plom I'd like to
thank our production team, Connor Hall, Jeff Claverne and Kevin
Wardis with research by Laila Robinson. The music in this
production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good.
You can also follow me on TikTok and Instagram at
(28:37):
it's Jason Flom. Righteous Convictions with Jason Blom is a
production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal
Company Number One
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!