to understand the historical significance of what he is trying to do and the opposition trying to revitalize and resuscitate a country in that manage decline >> good evening everyone thank you to this evenings showing the distinguished college speaker series featuring conversation with our author and activist for criminal justice reform. thank you molly it was her suggesestion we we to campus also to develop the program for tonight's event. thank you molly.

[applause] also thank you to my colleagues for their work on thisorum and other events throughoutut the year. i would like to acknowledge more than one does in cosponsors of tonight's event. too many to name individually. it is gratifying so many organizations across the university joined us to support this event. it demonstrates the concern and commitment to students and faculty and staff. we understand to touch on difficult experiences i will encourage you to support each other to seek support and for those who are well prepared and committed to dealing with these issues as you saw in the

video for the college's 20th anniversary founded in 2000 with the purpose of advancing the commitment to civic life our mission is to ensure all students across all schools and academic disciplines acquire the knowledge and the values to become leaders and problem solvers in their communities near and far. we began with a single student program now known as the fish scholars. any here? shout out. we are offering support of initiatives for students in and out of the classroom and around the world. also home to nationally recognized research center that studies youth voting in civic education and other aspects of civic and democratic life and the

community partnerships always the central element have evolved and expanded to see the broader impact. the distinguished speaker series began seven years ago with a visit by senator elizabeth warren. today other events have grown to match actually that's a tree to have her we are honored to host her here but today other events have grown to the match the scope of our work we are excited of guest speakers and visitors yesterday we hosted a lunch about thelack power movement with professor williams later we will host congressman kenned kennedy, and swell well to talk about the impeachment and chris wallace , political strategist and many other scholars and

leaders whose work informs our views and challenges our beliefs and have participation inivic life. with a diversity of speakers we want to highlight the way people can impact issues they care about and though the more just world. tonight to guest personify that idea to remind us from humble beginnings far outside the walls of power, all of us can learn fromom those experiens and become a force for change. an author and activist and advocate for criminal justice reform and victims of human trafficking. born to a young mother who struggled with alcol abuse and victim of sex trafficking. as a teenager to become a victim o trafficking herself and at 16 arrested for killing a man who solicited her for

sex she was tried as an adult and sentence life in prison without parole. the trafficker was never arrested. in prison she experienced a spiritual transformation the documentary called me facing life tel her story to chronicle her experience and as a result many celebrities and clergy began advocating on her behalf. the #, went viral then her sentence was commuted by the governor of tennessee and august of last year, after 15 years behind bars, she was released from prison. since then she has become a powerful advocate for criminal justice reform, especially for women and children in american prisons she published a memoir my search for redemption in

the american prison system that she wrote while she was incarcerated she and her husband founded the fouatioion for freedom and justice and mercy and this year the institute of justice recognized her as one of the best justice reform honorees also a 2020 nominee naacp literary image award. joining us on stage night professor h hillary and the founding director of the tufts university prison initiative. mentioned earlier about the educational programs and one of the newer initiatives that we are proud of. managing the college degree program that is a partnership between tufts university and

bunker hill community college to award an associate degree to incarcerated men inin the program as part of that prison initiative running the inside outsid course at the maximum-security prison through which the students and professors take a course together. currently in the search of higher education a senior lecturerer with a phd in english and directs the program of sexuality studies. has strong advocate for the importance to bring higher education into prison and we are grateful she joins us in conversation tonight please join me to welcome our distinguhed speaker and gas. [applause]

>>. >> i want to start by thanking you again. is such an honor to be here with you and i hope it's the first of many. >> i also want to thank you for your beautiful book and sharing your journey to educate us on the issue of the criminal justice system

anymore particular journey on your faith. so f people who haven't yet read the book i want to start by acknowledging how recently you are free. august at 3:18 a.m.? so do you want to share with us the first that youet to experience like the first meal or something. >> everything is a first my first meal was i can of ravioli. >> at 3:18 a.m. it was great. [laughter] so before we start talking about your story could you reflect on what it's like telling your story cracks i could only imagine going over the difficult details can be hard or also very helpful. >> it has definitely been a blessing to talk about my

story and coming from my background and our experiences. so to have the opportunity to tell everyone each and every time. >> you talk and to be the battle narrative not about who's telling the truth and who is telling the better story. so you getting the final word? >>. >> i come to find that out if i just explain this to you know what happened so with

this case law then they will rule in my favor but that's not what happened so whoever can spend the best narrative or put on the best performance wins and nine times out of ten it will be the prosecution. that was a very hard hurdle to overcome. >> one of the things you do so powerfully is portray yourself as a child in the early part of the book and as a teenager and a mom loving and searching for love and independence like all teenagers. and you also talk about you were repeated the victimized

and how long it took you ten years into your sentence you had not identified your experiences were as victimizatn and being a victim of trafficking that but the media was presenting you as. talk about why you think it ok so long for those that experience that reality. >> people that say their childhoods were taken away from them. we don't understand what that means there were several adults i look around putting the impositions as an adult as a child i had grown wen teaching me my body was a commodity and a means to get things from men and completely

accessible in return for my companionship i was told my entire existence revolves around pleasing a man in some form. so really that is the trajectory to be more vulnerable so my worldview was shaped to the this is how it works and that's how this goes so by the time i met a man who convinced me we were in a relationship and that meant that i could have sex with other r men and bring the mone back to him i thought that was normal i was called the teen prostitute not a sex traffickingg victim that i made

these with my own volition there is never anyny conversation that the adults that taught me these things and convince me to do them not from the court system and it took a long time for that understanding we still have a lot of work now i cannot tell you how many times i was told i was fat and hot instead of a child. >> the media portrayal with your incarceration was horrific. do you have a sense how the media might handle the

situation better? or have things gotten better? >> in my particular case is painted as though horrible monster the media referred to me as a paying prostitute obviously now things have changed with aertain cases of child prostitution it is changing but there still work that needs to be done with the criminal justice aspect i don't see me personally it has changed but i see it

especially with young kids the pictures i posted on the news they are painted as a horrible individual and then the rush to try people by the media that you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. >> and theory with the rehabilitation begins. >> talk about the reality that is traumatizing affect to get caught in the whether the system and how that impacted the sense of yourself.

>> that reality is that found the time we were mistreated to be warehouse put under strict control the only time the rehabilitation was an issue if there was something at stake with funding to have certain prprograms in place. however much was necessary to get by to coly whatever standards they set for the grant from the time they walk into the door how do we help them to become better and what

do we do to have a successful reentry into society >> talk about the multiple trials and preparations you also describe working with those that were on your side antrying to help but in that case wanted you to tell your story. that struck me it wasn't personal it was systemic about entering the system to be obliterated. so the proceedings are so adversarial. it's all about taking this is what they have. . . . .ours is y

of incredible survival against all odds and i wonder if we can turn to some positive things that happened thinking about your college experience many of us who were involved in that work, to hear you talk about the role of can you share se of

the? it's the initiativive for education and there were a lot of hurdles i expected expect td get something before i go the floor, and it's going to look really good on paper but once i got into the class and realized i had been welcomed into the community. i was in a place where all throughout life in public school and in my own community i had always been made to feel like i was an outcast because of things

that i'd gone through or things i'd done i was riffing off. the process amplifies that cou could. that was redeeming beyond anything i had ever experienced. they saw something in me that was worth salvaging. the only as something worth investing in and it was hard to believe in myself and i started excelling at everything that i put my mind to and ended up getting a 4.0 in every class. ask a what do you think the students

you talk about being accepted. what were tse interactions like? >> i don't know if there is an examplef those that treated you in a different way to get a university where there are people that send their children there. a lot of these kids come from very privileged backgrounds although they were the same age as me, completely different from my own and you go into thinking one thing that i found his we have more in common than i ever thought that. it was cool to sit down and see these conversations and that they were interested in learning

what life was like from our perspective. seeing how could they be more respectful of the experiences and be more helpful of changing the prison system, the justice system. they were about much more that e invested to try to change things. >> do you see the role for education in your future? >> i thought about law school to much just a matter of when will i have time for it. it's just setting aside the time to do that. i absolutely love education. very rewarding.

i wanted to ask you also about the powerful role that you created in the booook and i wonr if you could talk about that and how was she part of the? my mother adopted me when i was just eight months old. the only mother that i have ever known always wanted to give me the lifthe like any mom would wo give h her child. even when i struggled, she was always there to figure out how can i help. she would be like what can i do. obviously they gave her no helpful answers that she tried very hard and was there. so when i was arrested and saw all the people i was hanging around for teaching me things

they were nowhere to be found the only person left standing there with my mother. she had been my best friend from that moment she came to visit me every other week in prison. >> she got to know your husband before you were out of. >> they became best friends. [laughter] i was very struck by how it's just the teenagers job to blame their mother first. i can tell you this from personal experience. it you have such a loving relationship with your mom. there was a powerful moment where you talk about plexiglass when you send into the visits

had to be behind plexiglass and you didn't feel angry but guilty of. she could understand what life was like and the things i was going through. i felt lik she wasn't listening to what i was saying so i stopped telling her things. she couldn't be there for me in the way that she needed to be. i spent some time in life pushing away but it was that time i was there and had done

everything under the sun but there she wasas. you pretty much live a relationship over a payphone calls when you can afford it. that is a lot of people's experience and it's hard for a lot of families to drive up to the prison. and if you don't get hassled and

sometimes because it is restricted by the administration there are a lot of barriers in massachusetts they decreased the number of visitors. i am wondering if you would share a little bit. i would say that just working in prison for t the last seven yeas or so has brought me the questions of faith like nothing el has at this pointnt and i know that's been an important part of your journey and i wonder if you can talk about the role

>> i was asked that same questiothe same questionand i wd them this is the only reason i'm sitting here with you all today. i tried everything. i put my faith in case of, very experienced attorneys d each time that failed. i miss my husband who told me god says you are getting out of prison. this was the time that all of my bales had been dend and he said are you going to trust with the mawhatthe man says or what s and i said you know what, i'm going to try trusting what god says. he introduced me to jesus and i say introduced becaus i felt i had been told about jesus and as someone who died on the cross and if i believed in him i would

have eternal life, but i never really knew him or got to kno hi or knew what having a relaonship with him meant. never really understood his own journey onarth and really got to know him in a whole different perspective and it changed everything. having a relationshihip with him was different than anything i've been told in my earlier life growing up in a baptist church about faith. so that is when my faith was truly born, and it changed everything. [inaudible] when i first joined the university i was completely resistant to any talk about god. i was so angry at that point because i had spent so much time praying to god to free me from prison and i was still sitting

there. i prayed not to be given life in prison and not be tried as an adult but i was. i felt god is not real. there is no one listening to me. i went around and told anyone that would listen that god wasn't real. but i was proven wrong.old thate think things are supposed to go a certain way and because the things that we see the lineup, that doesn't mean he doesn't have a plan. he always has a plan, for each and every one of our lives. we can see where it's leading us, but i promise you he plans for our good and he made a believer out of me. can you talk at one point seeing

god asommunity. is this something you can talk about if you still feel that way? >> this is a journey, s so wheni talk about my faith and now you can't tell me anything, but it hasn't always been that way. i went through the searching process and thinking okay this must be what this is and this must explain this. but when i really got into the program can and this is a community of believers, this is the first time that i really had an interaction with people that really professed to believe in jesus, where my friends were completely different and they looked at me how people would look at jesus. consider the below of the low. you are no different than this guy over here. i love you jt the same. it was a completely different experience to see i do belong to

a community. that was powerful. you kind of alluded to this earlier, but it seems like your personal growth and relationships of a particularly romantic and/or relationship to your faith and god were all kind of intertwin and there is a moment in the book where the you describe something that your husband said and you describe it as the sexiest thinis the s sexr said was don't revere me, don't put me on a pedestal. a very different version of love than what you would experience as a child.

can you talk about that? >> eveearlier about how i was totold everything about my existence should revolve around pleasing, and i was supposed to put them and their needs on a pedestal. i was always taught that life is supposed to do, and then i met him and he's like wait a minute, that's not what this is. you don't live your life for me. you live your life for christ, and i was like that's completely different. he showed me the difference between being with someone much bigger own ambition and how they feel they should treat other people and being with someone who is led by their love for christ. it's completely different. that's what really showed me god

put this man in my life. all the time i was looking for a man i was looking for my own ideas about what relationships were but he sent me the person he created for me and it's different than anything i have ever encountered so now i get to spend my days with my best friend, with my partner. he's everything. and he's here. [laughte >> i wonder if you can talk a little bit about what you are doing now. you've got your freedom before they were released anbefore you knew you were going to be freed. you started working on juvenile resentencing walls and a bill in tennessee that haven't passed

the first time that maybe continue working on that. designing juvenile facilities and thinking about different protocols for how to work with juveniles who get caught in the system. you also talked about your capstone project. suddenly i'm forgetting the first w word. i'm wondering if you can talk about them and they talked of the importance of your speaking and how you see your role as an advocate and activist in the world going forward granted is been a few months and i'm sure things will continue to shift, but you are alrdy so involved. >> like you said, that began when i was still in prison. when i joined the program they

helped me understand just because i was given life in prison, it didn't mean that my life was over. i could still choose how i was going to live that life and for me i wanted my life to have meaning. i didn't want to just lay there and be done. so when i thought of things that need to be changed i want to sit in the classroom and it just me talking or say this isn't right for the system or this should be this way i want to see what i can do about it. so i started having conversations with people and the next thing you know i'm sitting in the prison visitation area with a state representative talking about a bill he is going to present on my behalf to change the sentencing laws for juveniles. now it is a very conservative state, not very keen on reform so that has yet to pass. i just testified about the bill so we are still working after five years in the making.

with so many opportunities like that to redefine the juvenile facilityor davidson county. really just being able to put myself outhere and feeling i have a voice and what i have to say matters. i can have a seat at the table, too. it's made all the difference. >> i have many more questions and i was signaled that is the last. i'm going to open up to the audience and ask people to be sureou're asking a question, not repeat questions. concise. if you cou just raise your hand, we will have a microphone propped.

thank you for comining here. it's wonderful all that you've done. and i would like to ask you have gone through quite a transformation that happened. was there help along the way to address what that would look like? did you have spiritual advice, how did that understanding come about? >> that's really a good question. i have my own encounter but didn't know what it was. we started having these dreams

and then it would have been. i couldn't explain that with my usual explanation that this isn't real, this doesn't exist and there's nothing going on here so i had to spend a lot of time thinking. a minute. if of seeds were planted. i had to go through a lot of different processes for those. she sent my husband along and that really helped my face, but it was definitely a long drawn out process of first thank you

for sharing your story and for the transformation what you are doing.. i briefly introduduced before te initiative is offering an associate degree through the community collelege of. but major studies in the school of arts and sciences students wantnt a positive impact on the communities as they are released

and this gives them the tools to do that. the mission statement says that they are dedicated to the application of knowledge providing transformative exriences for students and culty and collaborative environments and innovating in the space of complex challenges to students as active citizens of the world. having heard this and having done education in prison and understanding the impact it can have on someone, how do you understand the mission statement in upholding it in that context every university that tries to be successful you have to acknowledge the other pulation. you have to acknowledge the population and they are deserving of education so what

about them. i know my own experience the small group of people ha to fight for it. they currently don't receive any funding from the university but that would go a long way to stand up andnd say we know that there's these conversations goinon about reforming thehe reentry and we know that equipping people and givining tm the tools they need to succeed is gd for all of society, not just these individuals if we want to be part of the solution. i think it is absolutely in keeping with the mission event. so how committed are they to the states and? >> i b became engrossed in you

story and i just kind of wanted to know historically they have been policed in a different way than other bodies and there is a disproportionate amount of black men and women in prison compared to white men and wom so i wanted to know what you thought the experience just as the justice system as a woman of color and how do you think that foowed in the process and do you think it influenced the relationship you have with your attorneys or the judge or general? >> it wasn't just what race you are that matters. it matters who you knew and where you came from.

i sold that a lot. they didn't get access to edational services. they were expected to learn english. they were not given any kind of resours. the list goes on and on. they came from situations where they had abusive husbands who happened to bebe police officers and their storiesere never told him that they were given life sentences f defending themselves. the. to put people down and make them undeserving is unfortunate because everybody's life matters and everybody's voice matters. it's ridiculous.

thank you for coming tonight an sharing yr story [inaudible] the students and faculty is doing this potential that social chanange is an abstract y the classes and. after this pgram i see firsthand the often surpass.

with the education and preparation how do you think the experiences have been able to have similar stories and background to further their academic ability as well as the academic environment here. thank you. [inaudible] [laughter] like you said, the professors say they saw that we were working harder than some of the outside students. they did just enough to get by. i'm only doing this because my pares want me to do this. for those of us who have been denied we had no kind of stimulation in the prison and this was our ticket.

but i've never gone to college to take college classes they were always told that it wasn't for them, they were not good enough, it was never an optn so you are that much more hungry for it. what i fnd is we could encourage outside students. so i just kind of took this for granted. and the learning experience, leaving outse of the classroom and having no real world experience beyond the textbook, from beyond the lecture was far more rewarding for them. ..

>> so what are you thinking about partnering with the solutions to dismantle the trafficker from the top down? and to support and help in a way to decreasehe demand go through the broken world.

>> when you said supply and demand to decriminalize and whenever it's open season like that to bee motivated with the populations is definitely not supporting that so that's part of the problemem supply and demand that only people who encourage young girls but the traffickers as well. so continuing to talk about that that something i'm personally committed to its

committed to dialogue but a lot of the things that we understand is normalhat contribute to my understanding as a young girl that's a conversation we need to be having. and with the commodification that's a conversation we need to have. >> it definitely will be expanded we are working on that the grassroots learning initiative it's about educating one another with the

social norms and the understanding of why it is okay in our society. 57 percent of mandated those that choose to prostitute themselves those that yes that's a problem and a issue that is what i would like to see changed it in the intro they talked about what m made your story go viral so what was the level of your accuracy

for advocacy work? >> social media isn't always 1000 percent accurate. we know that but for me it wasn't about me personally that i thought about all these girls currently going through what i went through and then just to forget about them so i saw someone talking about my own situation so that has the potential to create change but you hav to take it a step further like what can i do to help and then do i so the

things that we see when it comes to the system to changes in the law he just don't necessarily see their names. so i can imagine the devastation how did you not fall into that cycle had to

turn this into advocacy for yourself? it was devevastating to be told that my life was over before i had a drivers license and then i was told my life is done but there is something in me that was defiant that said i'm not about to allow these people to tell me. and i will keep fighting with that resilience that was the lord pushing me on. it was definitelely him because i don't know how i could sit here to be of sound mind and not have that bitterness nothing but him and forgiveness so i am wondering

if that's about the complexity of freedom? >> so for me a lot of people talk about being free and incarcerated in about what they will do to feel a sense of responsibility and that i was put into this position to help him so when you look at me people think they have done this guys can turn anyone

around and they can sit here and have the same conversation so putting a face to them and add experience because we have seen them demonized and at the end of the day they are people. it will completely change your life i'm not saying that because i am biased but that's what i have been told time and time again those who sat on the appellate court in my own district attorneys something completely changes when you can put a face to someone this help see the humanity in them. >> thank you so much for being here and sharing your story with us and your beautiful book thank you to everybody

here for coming out i hope you will read her book today's a good day to do it. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> good evening everyone i'm so glad you are here tonigight i will say a few words before i welcome tonight's guest for moment of history the strand was founded 93 years