Returning Citizens: Life Beyond Incarceration

[Music] Space, a splash of color, meaning; when you're sent away to prison, you lose more than your freedom, you lose your voice.

Art has the power to both heal and connect.

Art is also a set of skills that can be taught and learned.

When you come out of prison, it's difficult, sometimes nearly impossible, to find your place back in the world to reclaim your voice.

Give someone the opportunity to work.

You can feed their self-worth and pride, nurture their creativity and self-expression, feed their soul.

Returning Citizens is made possible by ...

The United Way, fostering success of those who as they return to our neighborhoods, remain a largely untapped resource.

The formally incarcerated.

Waterman II Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation at the recommendation of David Hass.

The Independence Foundation.

Philadelphia has become known as the City of Murals due to the efforts of hundreds of artists and one woman, Jane Golden.

Jane is a Stanford educated, unstoppable champion of art in public spaces.

She's been changing urban landscapes and lives since 1984.

Jane created the Guild Restorative Justice Program, which uses art to heal and empower people and communities impacted by the criminal legal system.

We met at a neighborhood mural called Family Interrupted.

So it's the early 80s, you graduated from Stanford and you're living the life.

What was that like?

Well, actually, it was really lonely.

I was painting in my studio and driving around Los Angeles and seeing these extraordinary murals, and I remembered that I grew up in a family with parents who talked a lot about the murals that were created during the WPA.

And they talked about how artists could make an impact in the world.

And I'm driving around, I'm like mural, mural, mural.

I'm like, these are so beautiful.

One day I'm coming home and I open the LA Times and there's an article about the LA mural program and they give out grants to artists to do murals and communities.

So I think, ha, I I'm going to apply.

They said all the things they have to do, like find a wall, hire people from the community, do a community inspired design.

So I hung up, I did everything, I did all those things.

I found a good wall, I did a design, I I knocked on people's doors and said would you make a mural with me like strangers and then dropped off my packet.

I called them every day for three months and after three months I got a call and someone said: "I'd like to speak with Jane Golden."

And I said: "This is she."

And they said, this is the truth: "We hope we never hear from you again but you have the grant."

And the grant was $300 to do a wall, 100 feet long and 20 feet high.

It was such a thrill to do this mural and I just decided then because I was an I was a double major at Stanford, political science and fine art and I thought, I'll be an artist, I'll be a lawyer.

And I thought, I'm not going to be a lawyer, I'm going to paint murals.

But murals that seems like the perfect way to do political science and art.

That's right, I found my calling.

I mean, I'm telling you, it was like such a thrill.

And then we started working with young people on probation and doing bigger, more complicated projects, and I got to see the power of art like firsthand.

It was, it was like, contagious, right?

So and that takes us to 1984 and you're back in Philadelphia.

I pick up the Philadelphia Enquirer and I read about that there's a man named Wilson Good who's running for mayor.

I read that he's won our first black mayor, it's hugely exciting.

And then I read an article that he's going to start an anti-graffiti network and in the article it's buried, he says he's going to work with young people who are writing on walls and create an art component because he thinks that they have talent.

And I thought to myself that could be my job.

Like, what a random thought, right?

I don't know Wilson Good.

So I go home and I write a letter to Wilson Good.

Like, I would be like, my honor to work in your administration and then a few weeks later, I get a call from this man who was head of arts and culture.

And he said: "I know your boss from the City of LA I got your resume, I called her, I said, should I hire Jane Golden?"

She said: "She'll drive you crazy, She's so tenacious, but you should hire her."

I mean, I felt like the sky's the limit and then I started meeting all these graffiti writers with enormous talent and potential genius actually.

What they did not have were opportunities and options.

And then communities started asking for murals.

So we had this old city vehicle and we kept paints in it.

And we were like, da, da, da, we were like, on the move all the time, okay, this corner, that corner.

People were like, we want a mural, we want a mural.

And for young people, it was like, oh my God, it was like art became a lifeline for them.

Included in the people you work with are returning citizens and people who are doing time right now.

We started working in the county prison a little bit and then we got an invitation to come present at the state prison to a group of men in the art class.

And I remember thinking, this is, you know, I don't think anyone's going to really relate to the work.

And we drove, it's an hour and a half outside the city and we went in this class and I walked in and saw remarkable work.

And after the talk the men said, Jane, if we'd only had an anti-graffiti or a mural arts program, maybe we would not be here.

And so it just really moved me and I went back and then the art therapist reached out again, said let's do a mural.

So we go out there, we do this mural.

The mural changes every two weeks the men change it, change it, change it, change it.

I'm like, look, this is like the Sistine Chapel, we have to finish the mural.

They said: "Jane, if we finish it, you're never coming back."

Wow.

And they said: "You know what we call sometimes people like you?"

And I said: "What?"

They said: "Taurus, people like you come in, they want to put it on their resume, they get a grant and then they they leave and never come back."

I'm like, well, you don't know Jane Golden.

First of all, I'd never really go away.

We're sort of like Lou, I said: "What would you like to do?"

And they said: "We want to do outdoor murals."

And I'm like, wow, because mostly they were lifers.

I'm like, I think that's above my pay grade to get you out.

So what can we do?

Oh, I said, oh, we get pain on parachute cloth.

So Parachute cloth?

Yeah, it's this lightweight material and I think this mural's actually on parachute cloth.

You can't tell it's gelled up, but it makes it totally an inclusive experience.

That's how we have thousands of kids working.

That's how we can work behind them ...

Okay, hold on.

You actually mean like pure issues that people jump out of planes with.

It's similar to that.

Okay.

Yeah.

But then in 2007 we said, you know what we're not doing?

We're not working with people coming home and we need to do that.

So people coming home, they need jobs, they need healthcare, they need a place to live.

How did you make the case that they need art?

Because art can be practical, art can be useful.

And if you mine all the skills involved in art making, you actually have a lot.

You have scaffolding building, you can get people also trained, they can learn to work with a lift.

There are all kinds of surfaces.

There's house painting, there's community organizing.

There's being a leader in the community, it's also remember we need to not just think about the skills, but we have to feed people's hearts and souls.

We have to help them become resilient and gritty and be sort of like feel okay in their own skin and art can do that.

Why?

Because we approach everything with rigor and with love, we're embracing our constituents and saying that we see the glass half full and we are not judging.

There is so much stigma in our society, it hovers over us and I say break it.

Let's shift the paradigm.

We can do this.

We can reclaim public space and reclaim individual lives at the same time.

[music] So at the beginning of this project we had a lot of engagement.

There were multiple meetings in person with people with our Guild members, some men who are commuted from their prison terms.

And when you say Guild, what's what do you mean by the Guild members?

The Guild program is a group of youth and young men who are at risk that we, that we work with.

Some of them come to us directly from prison and some of them you know are are are considered at risk that we that we work with.

What is it that you think the people you work with take away from the experience of working on a mural?

I mean at the end of the day you just hope that its ownership, you know they they they ownership in the wall in the final work of art, but then also that they feel like their voice was heard and their their experience is valued and reflected in the design.

That's what I hope that everybody takes away.

So what the team's doing today is very important because how this wall is primed dictates the health of the mural moving forward.

And then they're going to be transforming this into something really beautiful and magical, because I've seen the design and there's the leader, Dawan Williams.

- And they're working hard too.

What's up, Dawan?

- Dawan, Dawan.

Good to meet you, brother.

Good, good.

So what you see here today, you know like Jane said, we had uh nice location in North Philadelphia you know the community demands a mural, they they demand the beautification, you know of the City of Philadelphia.

How do how do people get in the program?

How does one become a member of The Guild I personally, I've come in contact with the Mural Arts Program when I was at Graterford prison years ago and I was involved in a program that was geared towards reconnecting incarcerated fathers back with their children.

And what Mural Arts did was they provided the artwork and the art served as a vehicle that brought my family personally back together.

So that mural is is here in Philadelphia and when I I returned home from prison and my my family seen that, it gives them a sense of empowerment.

And what are the kinds of things that they're learning, obviously how to paint.

Well, we learned in basic introduction to carpentry, you know, teaching guys, young men, and women how to work with their hands.

We teach them a basic introduction to art class.

And all the guys and young men and women that you see here today, this is their first-time painting.

Really.

This is their first time, This is their first experience wow.

You know, and these, these are trades and skills that they take back home with them.

You know they're able to help their families, They're able to help the community.

You know they're they're able to add value you know and assets you know to to their their Armory.

That's wonderful.

It's very inspiring.

Thank you for sharing that.

Dawan is a real role model and and an incredible leader.

And you know, we just believe strongly people shouldn't be defined by a part of their life where something went wrong.

Right, the worst day of your life was not the last day of your life, the words of Jane Golden, you know?

That's right.

And how did you get involved in the Guild?

The Guild was a program that, of course it's for people that's reentering society from being incarcerated.

So you know, I had a good word from a brother named Dewan, and he got me right into the program my first day home.

And I've been on a straight, narrow ever since, yeah.

Yeah, and when, when you were locked up, were you thinking this is something that you could do when you came home?

Oh yeah, for sure.

I didn't know exactly what the program was about until I got into the program.

And once I found out what it was about and the people that surrounded the program, that supported the program, that fund the program, it was like being at home.

Being at home?

- Yeah - What do you mean?

Like you know you feel home when you're in this program.

You feel safe, you feel loved.

You know that's just what this program give you.

Growing up inside the city and me and misguided it just a lot it just you know we never really get to find our path until it's too late.

So now just it's it's more it's more light for us you know it's more hope.

It's never too late.

So, Akil, I heard you're the boss man.

I'm not the boss man.

I'm I'm just a teacher.

Okay.

What what do you teach?

I teach art here at the Guild, teaching art-based skills to kind of get guys back involved in the community in ways that repair some of the damage that they may have done, but ultimately help repair them.

Restorative justice is not just about restoring the community, it's also about restoring the individual.

Well, some of these guys don't really have other options and to see other options being given not just to to me, but to others, and to see it proliferated in this community is really beautiful.

Because at the end of the day, there are real people behind these murals.

It's not paint and a wall, it's this blood, sweat and tears of everyone that has worked on this wall.

The Crown, a mural of the heart of Philadelphia, is a living world that has evolved in response to ongoing protests and the fight to end systemic racism and inequality.

I spoke to its award-winning creator, Russell Craig.

During the 2020 uprising, the riots, and things like that, Jane Golden asked me to participate in putting a mural here to represent the people, highlighting the people, the names of victims of police brutality, people of color just wanted to give the people something to believe in, like some hope.

Coming home is is so tough.

For so many... Yeah.

...brothers and sisters.

What made your journey home successful?

Believing in yourself like I believed.

And people may not understand what it means to become stronger from some of those tough experiences.

I had an epiphany one day to change it around and art would be my tool.

And where was that epiphany?

In my insides, you know, like I just felt it, that it was time to make a change.

And did art help?

Of course it was the tools all I had.

Plan A with no Plan B, all, or nothing.

So you got to believe, and here we are.

Here we are.

Congratulations my brother.

All righty.

Thank you.

Jesse Krimes is a highly respected working artist whose career since he came home focuses on criminal injustice and prison reform.

I spoke to him near a piece to honor his mentor, James Yaya Hough, it's called Prophesied.

So I was incarcerated in federal prison and I served five years of a six-year sentence.

And while I was in there, the director of the Restorative Justice program with the Mural Arts of Philadelphia came in to visit the prison.

And you know, I got to show her a little bit of my art and she basically offered me a job on the spot and said that when I come home to look her up at Mural Arts and they would have a job waiting for me at the with the with the Guild.

And may I ask what you were incarcerated for?

Yes, I was incarcerated for on drug charges.

And while you were going through all this, were you still making art in prison?

I was.

It was actually the thing that I began to do almost immediately.

When you go into the prison system, they basically take everything from you, right?

So they strip you from your family and friends and everything that can kind of like that forms your identity.

Artwork was one of the only things that they couldn't take away from me.

And so I knew very early on that it was something that I had to invest myself in.

The system is basically designed to crush you like it's designed to destroy who you are as a person, take away your dignity, take away your sense of self.

And so by making artwork, it immediately provided something of value to me that they could not touch.

You know, people who are both incarcerated and formerly incarcerated face a significant amount of barriers to not just reenter society like on a very basic level and live with dignity, but it's very difficult to be visible and valued.

Like there is a deep, deep stigma that is attached to people after they've been incarcerated.

All it takes is for, you know, one or two people to actually see you and value you and Mural Arts was that thing for me.

Being seen in that way and being valued in that way was something that I it gave me a very solid foundation to stand on and it was something that I was able to then build from.

That's the type of investment that I think is necessary for people who have been incarcerated.

And so even in that vein, like since then I've, I've gone on to start my own fellowship, which supports people who come home from prison.

And so it's like, you know, the support that was offered to me from Mural Arts is now something that I'm able to kind of replicate and offer to other people.

And through that we're able to build a much more kind of just and equitable world that is not based off of punishment and retribution, but more on advancement and community and how we move forward in this world.

Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter is her government name.

Her rap name is Isis Tha Saviour.

She's spent a harrowing time in prison where she gave birth to her son.

Now she's an acclaimed artist who creates socially conscious music, film and visual art based on her own life journey.

Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter.

Yes.

You are the artist.

I am the woman behind this design.

I love this.

You're a successful artist.

You're an accomplished artist.

Right?

What's your story?

So, you know, I grew up in a very under resourced neighborhood.

You know, we didn't have textbooks in our schools.

And then on top of that, my mother, she had schizophrenia.

So, you know, there was a lot of fragmentation and interruption and disruption in that area of my life and, you know, being passed on to family members.

You know but I want to rewind a little bit because I always loved art as a kid, you know.

- Yes.

But just not having the infrastructure and the support that I needed to, you know, cultivate, and nurture those skills.

I found myself back in Philadelphia trying to get, you know, a job, McDonald's, whatever could hire me.

People told me I was overqualified or I just never heard back.

And then I found myself doing survival crimes inside of the criminal economy, just trying to feed myself.

But after my incarceration, which was when I the day I turned nine months pregnant, I was arrested.

And after about three3 days in the prison system, I was also nine months pregnant so I went into labor and that was kind of like the the eye-opening moment for me where I knew that things had to change.

And you gave birth in prison?

Yes, after 43 hours of being shackled to a bed at Einstein Hospital, I gave birth to my first and only child.

You were, and you gave birth while you were shot.

Yes, at the time, in 2007, Pennsylvania did not have any laws that prevented the shackling of pregnant women.

And it ironically, like I said, I'm a multimedia, multidisciplinary artist.

So I I created a film around that experience called Ain't I a Woman?

It was kind of cathartic for me to go back and really realize the injustice that had occurred.

So when when I hear you talking about your art and your activism.

- Right.

They seem intertwined.

They are, you know, for me, you know, like Nina Simone said, you know, an artist should reflect the times.

And that's what I I try and I, you know, ascribe to.

My work reflects the moments that we live in and I I try to, I try to speak to those.

And like I said before, I don't believe that an artist should stay, you know, in the studio.

We should, you know, take that work further.

The conversation is just the beginning.

Dig deep.

Dawan Williams served too many years in Graterford prison and when he came home, passionately dedicated himself to making up for the time he lost as a father and as a man.

He's become an inspirational leader in the restorative justice program.

I met him and his son Dawan, next to fathers and children together.

What's this, tell us about this beautiful artwork.

So what do you what do you see right here is the phenomenal fact FACT fathers and children together ...

Okay.

Mural and this mural was done done inside of the walls at Greaterford prison.

And you talked about the father looking down at his son.

Yeah, I used to because I had to sit when when we was first drawing it, I had to stand in front of little Dawan like this because this this a part right here of our program that's called Air it Out.

So while you in the visitor room, it's 15 fathers, it's fifteen sons.

Mmm.

Right?

And then you have an external team.

And I had to get up in the circle in front of all these other fathers and sons, and I had to look little Dawan in his face, and I had to apologize to him for being in prison and not being there for him.

Wow.

And making those bad decisions.

And as a man, you know, coming from these communities, we've never been taught to have emotion.

We was never taught to apologize.

We was never really taught when we were right or wrong, weak, or strong.

You know, that could be a bit much.

It's not a dry eye in the room.

And what was that like to have your dad apologizing to you?

I'm not going to lie, probably made me want to shed a tear because that is crazy that my dad is away that well, he was away in jail, and he wasn't with me to like, he said.

Go on my first bike ride, tie my shoes, teach me how to cook, teach me how to wash clothes, stuff like that.

But we we're going to leave that in the past that we just going to focus on now.

When you get to know a child, get to know their favorite color, you know their basketball players, we got to know that about one another.

And I'm wondering if he still know.

You know who my favorite basketball player is?

Oh, LeBron, LeBron, LeBron.

Remember my favorite movie?

Beverly Hill Cops.

Right.

Yeah.

Remember my favorite color?

Red.

Favorite food?

Fried chicken.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's good.

And that's very important because think about it, it's a lot of fathers living in the home with their children, and they don't know their favorite color, they don't know their favorite book, they don't know their favorite ball player and vice versa.

So we got to make sure that we're really, really, really tapping into these children.

And fortunately for us, we was able to use art as a vehicle to be able to do that.

With the young men and women in the Guild program, I know what it's like being 18, 19 and 20 years old and having no direction, nobody out here to tell you the right thing.

Everybody's telling you wrong.

So when everybody's telling you wrong, the only thing really left to do is wrong.

So now, for the first time in our lives, we're all from different neighborhoods in a different part of the city, and we're listening to somebody who used to be into that lifestyle that everybody uplifts and glorifies.

But I'm telling them not to do that because it's all a lie.

Me knowing that because I was able to sit in in time out for 10 years, six days, 12 hours, 37 minutes, and 13 seconds straight, I learned.

I learned.

I learned not through lip service but through action.

So what you see is what you got.

You run the largest public works project in the country, so what's next?

What's next, is that we scale up and we just keep moving forward and we work with cities across the country and the world because art is powerful and it ignites change and transformation.

I believe it with all my heart.

Thank you, Jane Golden.

Thank you.

Some of the artists and community leaders we met went to elite schools, and others were educated on Philly's hardest streets.

Together, they're making their city more beautiful and more welcoming for everybody.

We're all works in progress.

Sometimes we have to start over or add or subtract.

Here's to the power of creation in art and life.

[music] [music] Returning Citizens is made possible by ...

The United Way, fostering success of those who as they return to our neighborhoods, remain a largely untapped resource.

The formally incarcerated.

Waterman II Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation at the recommendation of David Hass.

The Independence Foundation.