FROM EXODUS TO EXCELLENCE

Grand Rising

Ten years ago, my day began with a routine. Prayer of thanks to seeing my eyes open, basic absolutions, and my mindset to be better than the day before. I was in New York State's only Maxi-max Correctional Facility. It is a place where all we're deemed worthless, violent, outcasts, and put out to pasture - to die. My stance was in and remained aligned with Viktor Frankl's quote from Man's Search for Meaning," Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's own attitude in any set of circumstances, to choose ones own way." And for a quarter of a century, I did just that; I decided how I was going persevere in prison. I learned to walk by faith in the daily realities filled with terrifying sights. Many of my peers identified me as the angry man because of the pain I lived within, realizing," I had been hoodwinked, bamboozled and tricked into playing a hand in my demise." I took the life of a brother who was I, and it did not matter that he had injured me first. My spirit said," I wasn't justified." I resisted every notion that I was destined to end up in prison and found genius and radical thinkers; men in prison who educated me to prove my fate or destiny of imprisonment was no accident. I lived, breathed, and ate knowledge that helped me thrive where I should have died. These men realized that I was a seed, watered my soil, and watched me grow. Shawangunk spared the lives of brothers held at the abolishment of the NYS Death Penalty. It held the so-called leaders of gangs, escape artists, and those deemed to warrant special monitoring by the system. It was there that I first started the movement of" Be You, Be Your Beautiful Self." Whenever we would see each other walking in the hall's, at the infirmary, law library, visiting rooms, we affirmed each other worth by saying," Be You." It was a daily victory against a system and set of circumstances that meant we were nothing.

When in crisis or battle, you don't see the race you see people, and when we see each other as people, we treat each other differently. -Darryl B.

This morning, ten years ago, my Exodus ended, and I walked out those gates into the promised land, freedom. With every step leaving, I doubted it was happening. I just knew the evil clown from IT would jump out from nowhere to say," sike, your ass ain't leaving here." As I put on the clothes my brother purchased for me and walked toward the gate, I was numb, in shock, and detached as I was when I entered. So how did this nightmare come to an end of me? For sure, it was people who were part of the system and volunteering in it. Please forgive if I don't remember last names or omitting names and reference affiliation or title. I'm referring to people like Brian Fischer (Superintendent that rose to become commissioner and changed DOCS through restoring education for men and other program opportunities inside. Elizabeth Gaynes, an executive director of the Osborne Association, Family services, and self-help programs that connected me to Carl Mazza, a fantastic clinician. Additionally, Quaker groups and Friends, Hank Elkins, Ethel Virga, Bill Bortree, and living friends Matt Scalon, Don Badgley, the late Bill Webber, NYTS, and Sister Marion B were supportive. I cannot forget the countless professors at Cayuga, Skidmore, and NYACK. I will always remember the French and Youth Awareness Program, the correction officer in Attica SHU, an old Hack Mitch in Comstock. So many more were instrumental, for instance, the counselors that helped me get transferred to sheer higher education and programs closer to my family.

Last but not least, Hans Hallundbaek, RTA Katherine Vockins, Rye Presbyterian Church, Bob and Nancy Steed, the group, RIP Trudy, Mi K-Kathryn Summers, who championed Embrace a Brother, and my buddy Sean Pica, now executive director at Hudson link. ALL MENTIONED ABOVE ARE WHITE; INDEED, THEY EXERCISED THEIR PRIVILEGE TO LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD FOR ME TO HAVE ANOTHER CHANCE IN LIFE. I emphasized my Angels and Friends because of times we're in to give thanks and show by exercising white privilege does make a difference. I know it was my God, my ancestors, the gifts of other men greatness, parents, family, and holding onto the last of my freedoms - to choose my own way in the worse circumstances that opened those gates. I want to express my deepest thanks to all those who stood in the gap for me and exercised your privilege for me to have a second chance at life. Today marks a decade in which I have honored that sacred trust.

Ubuntu