0:00:00.790,0:00:03.395
Twenty-three years ago,

0:00:03.395,0:00:06.150
at the age of 19,

0:00:06.150,0:00:09.451
I shot and killed a man.

0:00:09.451,0:00:11.594
I was a young drug dealer

0:00:11.594,0:00:13.963
with a quick temper

0:00:13.963,0:00:18.018
and a semi-automatic pistol.

0:00:18.018,0:00:20.789
But that wasn't the end of my story.

0:00:20.789,0:00:24.930
In fact, it was beginning,

0:00:24.930,0:00:27.105
and the 23 years since

0:00:27.105,0:00:30.827
is a story of acknowledgment,

0:00:30.827,0:00:34.310
apology and atonement.

0:00:34.310,0:00:35.733
But it didn't happen in the way

0:00:35.733,0:00:39.027
that you might imagine or think.

0:00:39.027,0:00:40.485
These things occurred in my life

0:00:40.485,0:00:42.628
in a way that was surprising,

0:00:42.628,0:00:44.263
especially to me.

0:00:44.263,0:00:47.404
See, like many of you,

0:00:47.404,0:00:49.978
growing up, I was an honor roll student,

0:00:49.978,0:00:51.321
a scholarship student,

0:00:51.321,0:00:53.925
with dreams of becoming a doctor.

0:00:53.925,0:00:56.556
But things went dramatically wrong

0:00:56.556,0:00:58.730
when my parents separated

0:00:58.730,0:01:02.567
and eventually divorced.

0:01:02.567,0:01:05.417
The actual events are pretty straightforward.

0:01:05.417,0:01:07.865
At the age of 17,

0:01:07.865,0:01:09.510
I got shot three times

0:01:09.510,0:01:14.135
standing on the corner of my block in Detroit.

0:01:14.135,0:01:16.830
My friend rushed me to the hospital.

0:01:16.830,0:01:20.054
Doctors pulled the bullets out,

0:01:20.054,0:01:21.845
patched me up,

0:01:21.845,0:01:26.216
and sent me back to the same [br]neighborhood where I got shot.

0:01:26.216,0:01:28.971
Throughout this ordeal,

0:01:28.971,0:01:31.031
no one hugged me,

0:01:31.031,0:01:33.401
no one counseled me,

0:01:33.401,0:01:36.341
no one told me I would be okay.

0:01:36.341,0:01:39.265
No one told me that I would live in fear,

0:01:39.265,0:01:41.878
that I would become paranoid,

0:01:41.878,0:01:44.871
or that I would react hyper-violently

0:01:44.871,0:01:47.249
to being shot.

0:01:47.249,0:01:50.070
No one told me that one day,

0:01:50.070,0:01:54.127
I would become the person behind the trigger.

0:01:54.127,0:01:56.801
Fourteen months later,

0:01:56.801,0:01:59.411
at 2 a.m.,

0:01:59.411,0:02:01.047
I fired the shots

0:02:01.047,0:02:04.900
that caused a man's death.

0:02:04.900,0:02:06.810
When I entered prison,

0:02:06.810,0:02:12.317
I was bitter, I was angry, I was hurt.

0:02:12.317,0:02:15.287
I didn't want to take responsibility.

0:02:15.287,0:02:17.339
I blamed everybody from my parents

0:02:17.339,0:02:20.312
to the system.

0:02:20.312,0:02:22.524
I rationalized my decision to shoot

0:02:22.524,0:02:24.963
because in the hood where I come from,

0:02:24.963,0:02:26.589
it's better to be the shooter

0:02:26.589,0:02:29.901
than the person getting shot.

0:02:29.901,0:02:33.223
As I sat in my cold cell,

0:02:33.223,0:02:34.870
I felt helpless,

0:02:34.870,0:02:38.257
unloved and abandoned.

0:02:38.257,0:02:42.135
I felt like nobody cared,

0:02:42.135,0:02:44.154
and I reacted

0:02:44.154,0:02:47.165
with hostility to my confinement.

0:02:47.165,0:02:48.303
And I found myself getting

0:02:48.303,0:02:50.618
deeper and deeper into trouble.

0:02:50.618,0:02:53.398
I ran black market stores,

0:02:53.398,0:02:56.117
I loan sharked,

0:02:56.117,0:02:58.183
and I sold drugs that were illegally smuggled

0:02:58.183,0:03:00.044
into the prison.

0:03:00.044,0:03:01.614
I had in fact become

0:03:01.614,0:03:04.295
what the warden of the Michigan Reformatory called

0:03:04.295,0:03:07.132
"the worst of the worst."

0:03:07.132,0:03:09.457
And because of my activity,

0:03:09.457,0:03:12.149
I landed in solitary confinement

0:03:12.149,0:03:14.578
for seven and a half years

0:03:14.578,0:03:17.790
out of my incarceration.

0:03:17.790,0:03:19.459
Now as I see it, solitary confinement

0:03:19.459,0:03:21.399
is one of the most inhumane and barbaric places

0:03:21.399,0:03:24.298
you can find yourself,

0:03:24.298,0:03:27.189
but find myself I did.

0:03:27.189,0:03:30.700
One day, I was pacing my cell,

0:03:30.700,0:03:35.217
when an officer came and delivered mail.

0:03:35.217,0:03:36.954
I looked at a couple of letters

0:03:36.954,0:03:38.868
before I looked at the letter

0:03:38.868,0:03:41.930
that had my son's squiggly handwriting on it.

0:03:41.930,0:03:43.367
And anytime I would get a letter from my son,

0:03:43.367,0:03:45.272
it was like a ray of light

0:03:45.272,0:03:48.029
in the darkest place you can imagine.

0:03:48.029,0:03:51.844
And on this particular day, I opened this letter,

0:03:51.844,0:03:54.950
and in capital letters, he wrote,

0:03:54.950,0:03:58.205
"My mama told me why you was in prison:

0:03:58.205,0:04:00.899
murder."

0:04:00.899,0:04:02.818
He said, "Dad, don't kill.

0:04:02.818,0:04:08.265
Jesus watches what you do. Pray to Him."

0:04:08.265,0:04:10.100
Now, I wasn't religious at that time,

0:04:10.100,0:04:11.807
nor am I religious now,

0:04:11.807,0:04:14.291
but it was something so profound

0:04:14.291,0:04:17.053
about my son's words.

0:04:17.063,0:04:18.685
They made me examine things about my life

0:04:18.685,0:04:20.621
that I hadn't considered.

0:04:20.621,0:04:22.557
It was the first time in my life

0:04:22.557,0:04:24.529
that I had actually thought about the fact

0:04:24.529,0:04:28.195
that my son would see me as a murderer.

0:04:28.195,0:04:30.249
I sat back on my bunk

0:04:30.249,0:04:32.268
and I reflected on something I had read

0:04:32.268,0:04:34.865
in [Plato],

0:04:34.865,0:04:36.840
where Socrates stated in "Apology"

0:04:36.840,0:04:41.111
that the unexamined life isn't worth living.

0:04:41.111,0:04:46.943
At that point is when the transformation began.

0:04:46.943,0:04:49.863
But it didn't come easy.

0:04:51.920,0:04:53.764
One of the things I realized,

0:04:53.764,0:04:55.921
which was part of the transformation,

0:04:55.921,0:04:59.663
was that there were four key things.

0:04:59.663,0:05:01.970
The first thing was,

0:05:01.970,0:05:04.283
I had great mentors.

0:05:04.283,0:05:06.159
Now, I know some of you all are probably thinking,

0:05:06.159,0:05:09.328
how did you find a great mentor in prison?

0:05:09.328,0:05:12.193
But in my case,

0:05:12.193,0:05:13.423
some of my mentors

0:05:13.423,0:05:15.300
who are serving life sentences

0:05:15.300,0:05:18.009
were some of the best people[br]to ever come into my life,

0:05:18.009,0:05:21.273
because they forced me to look at my life honestly,

0:05:21.273,0:05:23.098
and they forced me to challenge myself

0:05:23.098,0:05:25.613
about my decision making.

0:05:25.613,0:05:29.867
The second thing was literature.

0:05:29.867,0:05:31.610
Prior to going to prison,

0:05:31.610,0:05:33.607
I didn't know that there were so many brilliant

0:05:33.607,0:05:36.888
black poets, authors and philosophers,

0:05:36.888,0:05:39.907
and then I had the great fortune

0:05:39.907,0:05:44.074
of encountering Malcolm X's autobiography,

0:05:44.074,0:05:48.621
and it shattered every[br]stereotype I had about myself.

0:05:48.621,0:05:51.062
The third thing was family.

0:05:51.062,0:05:55.738
For 19 years, my father stood by my side

0:05:55.738,0:05:58.167
with an unshakable faith,

0:05:58.167,0:05:59.831
because he believed that I had what it took

0:05:59.831,0:06:02.125
to turn my life around.

0:06:02.125,0:06:05.018
I also met an amazing woman

0:06:05.018,0:06:08.452
who is now the mother of[br]my two-year-old son Sekou,

0:06:08.452,0:06:10.680
and she taught me how to love myself

0:06:10.680,0:06:14.958
in a healthy way.

0:06:14.958,0:06:17.654
The final thing was writing.

0:06:17.654,0:06:19.068
When I got that letter from my son,

0:06:19.068,0:06:21.278
I began to write a journal

0:06:21.278,0:06:24.079
about things I had experienced in my childhood

0:06:24.079,0:06:26.872
and in prison,

0:06:26.872,0:06:30.138
and what it did is it opened up my mind to the idea

0:06:30.138,0:06:33.106
of atonement.

0:06:33.106,0:06:35.188
Earlier in my incarceration, I had received

0:06:35.188,0:06:38.995
a letter from one of the relatives of my victim,

0:06:38.995,0:06:41.840
and in that letter,

0:06:41.840,0:06:43.685
she told me she forgave me,

0:06:43.685,0:06:45.634
because she realized I was a young child

0:06:45.634,0:06:46.971
who had been abused

0:06:46.971,0:06:48.763
and had been through some hardships

0:06:48.763,0:06:51.501
and just made a series of poor decisions.

0:06:51.501,0:06:53.972
It was the first time in my life

0:06:53.972,0:07:01.701
that I ever felt open to forgiving myself.

0:07:01.701,0:07:02.945
One of the things that happened

0:07:02.945,0:07:05.268
after that experience is that

0:07:05.268,0:07:07.156
I thought about the other men who were incarcerated

0:07:07.156,0:07:08.968
alongside of me,

0:07:08.968,0:07:11.890
and how much I wanted to share this with them.

0:07:11.890,0:07:13.644
And so I started talking to them about

0:07:13.644,0:07:15.571
some of their experiences,

0:07:15.571,0:07:17.053
and I was devastated to realize

0:07:17.053,0:07:20.431
that most of them came from[br]the same abusive environments,

0:07:20.431,0:07:23.970
And most of them wanted help[br]and they wanted to turn it around,

0:07:23.970,0:07:25.710
but unfortunately the system

0:07:25.710,0:07:28.928
that currently holds 2.5 million people in prison

0:07:28.928,0:07:31.128
is designed to warehouse

0:07:31.128,0:07:35.420
as opposed to rehabilitate or transform.

0:07:35.420,0:07:37.311
So I made it up in my mind

0:07:37.311,0:07:39.065
that if I was ever released from prison

0:07:39.065,0:07:41.522
that I would do everything in my power

0:07:41.522,0:07:45.223
to help change that.

0:07:45.223,0:07:47.989
In 2010, I walked out of prison

0:07:47.989,0:07:51.067
for the first time after two decades.

0:07:51.067,0:07:52.655
Now imagine, if you will,

0:07:52.655,0:07:55.237
Fred Flintstone walking into an episode

0:07:55.237,0:07:57.620
of "The Jetsons."

0:07:57.620,0:08:00.555
That was pretty much what my life was like.

0:08:00.555,0:08:03.870
For the first time, I was exposed to the Internet,

0:08:03.870,0:08:05.606
social media,

0:08:05.606,0:08:09.743
cars that talk like KITT from "Knight Rider."

0:08:09.743,0:08:11.527
But the thing that fascinated me the most

0:08:11.527,0:08:13.310
was phone technology.

0:08:13.310,0:08:14.582
See, when I went to prison,

0:08:14.582,0:08:16.357
our car phones were this big

0:08:16.357,0:08:18.958
and required two people to carry them.

0:08:18.958,0:08:21.046
So imagine what it was like when I first grabbed

0:08:21.046,0:08:23.172
my little Blackberry

0:08:23.172,0:08:25.123
and I started learning how to text.

0:08:25.123,0:08:26.790
But the thing is, the people around me,

0:08:26.790,0:08:28.386
they didn't realize that I had no idea

0:08:28.386,0:08:31.080
what all these abbreviated texts meant,

0:08:31.080,0:08:36.110
like LOL, OMG, LMAO,

0:08:36.110,0:08:37.852
until one day I was having a conversation

0:08:37.852,0:08:40.108
with one of my friends via text,

0:08:40.108,0:08:44.139
and I asked him to do something,[br]and he responded back, "K."

0:08:44.139,0:08:47.318
And I was like, "What is K?"

0:08:47.318,0:08:49.280
And he was like, "K is okay."

0:08:49.280,0:08:50.279
So in my head, I was like,

0:08:50.279,0:08:53.297
"Well what the hell is wrong with K?"

0:08:53.297,0:08:55.810
And so I text him a question mark.

0:08:55.810,0:08:59.481
And he said, "K = okay."

0:08:59.481,0:09:04.170
And so I tap back, "FU." (Laughter)

0:09:04.170,0:09:05.926
And then he texts back, and he asks me

0:09:05.926,0:09:07.600
why was I cussing him out.

0:09:07.600,0:09:10.260
And I said, "LOL FU,"

0:09:10.260,0:09:11.959
as in, I finally understand.

0:09:11.959,0:09:13.996
(Laughter)

0:09:13.996,0:09:17.261
And so fast forward three years,

0:09:17.261,0:09:19.135
I'm doing relatively good.

0:09:19.135,0:09:21.813
I have a fellowship at MIT Media Lab,

0:09:21.813,0:09:25.030
I work for an amazing company called BMe,

0:09:25.030,0:09:27.360
I teach at the University of Michigan,

0:09:27.360,0:09:29.337
but it's been a struggle

0:09:29.337,0:09:30.800
because I realize that there are more

0:09:30.800,0:09:32.435
men and women coming home

0:09:32.435,0:09:35.596
who are not going to be[br]afforded those opportunities.

0:09:35.596,0:09:37.401
I've been blessed to work with some amazing

0:09:37.401,0:09:40.085
men and women,

0:09:40.085,0:09:41.847
helping others reenter society,

0:09:41.847,0:09:46.060
and one of them is my friend named Calvin Evans.

0:09:46.060,0:09:49.015
He served 24 years for a crime he didn't commit.

0:09:49.015,0:09:52.783
He's 45 years old. He's currently enrolled in college.

0:09:52.783,0:09:54.507
And one of the things that we talked about

0:09:54.507,0:09:56.219
is the three things that I found important

0:09:56.219,0:09:57.839
in my personal transformation,

0:09:57.839,0:09:59.778
the first being acknowledgment.

0:09:59.778,0:10:02.204
I had to acknowledge that I had hurt others.

0:10:02.204,0:10:05.000
I also had to acknowledge that I had been hurt.

0:10:05.000,0:10:07.421
The second thing was apologizing.

0:10:07.421,0:10:09.571
I had to apologize to the people I had hurt.

0:10:09.571,0:10:11.643
Even though I had no expectations[br]of them accepting it,

0:10:11.643,0:10:14.395
it was important to do because it was the right thing.

0:10:14.395,0:10:17.354
But I also had to apologize to myself.

0:10:17.354,0:10:20.171
The third thing was atoning.

0:10:20.171,0:10:21.854
For me, atoning meant

0:10:21.854,0:10:23.447
going back into my community

0:10:23.447,0:10:24.990
and working with at-risk youth

0:10:24.990,0:10:26.790
who were on the same path,

0:10:26.790,0:10:30.530
but also becoming at one with myself.

0:10:30.530,0:10:32.294
Through my experience of being locked up,

0:10:32.294,0:10:34.475
one of the things I discovered is this:

0:10:34.475,0:10:35.691
the majority of men and women

0:10:35.691,0:10:39.112
who are incarcerated are redeemable,

0:10:39.112,0:10:40.372
and the fact is,

0:10:40.372,0:10:42.723
90 percent of the men and[br]women who are incarcerated

0:10:42.723,0:10:45.411
will at some point return to the community,

0:10:45.411,0:10:47.326
and we have a role in determining what kind

0:10:47.326,0:10:50.945
of men and women return to our community.

0:10:50.945,0:10:53.556
My wish today

0:10:53.556,0:10:57.209
is that we will embrace

0:10:57.209,0:10:59.358
a more empathetic approach

0:10:59.358,0:11:02.578
toward how we deal with mass incarceration,

0:11:02.578,0:11:03.722
that we will do away with

0:11:03.722,0:11:06.037
the lock-them-up-and-throw-away-the-key mentality,

0:11:06.037,0:11:09.960
because it's proven it doesn't work.

0:11:09.960,0:11:12.413
My journey is a unique journey,

0:11:12.413,0:11:15.078
but it doesn't have to be that way.

0:11:15.078,0:11:17.484
Anybody can have a transformation

0:11:17.484,0:11:20.324
if we create the space for that to happen.

0:11:20.324,0:11:22.086
So what I'm asking today

0:11:22.086,0:11:23.793
is that you envision

0:11:23.793,0:11:26.133
a world where men and women

0:11:26.133,0:11:29.829
aren't held hostage to their pasts,

0:11:29.829,0:11:31.262
where misdeeds and mistakes

0:11:31.262,0:11:34.030
don't define you for the rest of your life.

0:11:34.030,0:11:37.221
I think collectively, we can create that reality,

0:11:37.221,0:11:38.924
and I hope you do too.

0:11:38.924,0:11:40.690
Thank you.

0:11:40.690,0:11:43.773
(Applause)