Close to thirty-three years ago, at the age of twenty-two, I became the newest addition to North Carolina’s Death Row.  There were about eighty-four others here then, and since that time our disparaged population grew to more than two hundred.  Also over time, I became lost, with no conscious direction.  I had no sense of hope in my life and fell into unfathomable darkness, with many of those I once knew lost – my grandmother, my parents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  Those I had left became strangers.  I staggered through the sands of my sanity, clinging to the delusion that I was merely existing and not really alive.  I became the embodiment of the walking dead.

At one point in my stay here on Death Row, I tried to bring an end to my remaining appeals…  Thankfully, I was unsuccessful.  There came an ‘awakening’ here on the row in the form of two classes – Creative Writing and Houses of Healing.  The following year new classes were added and greedily devoured.  In these classes, we began to experience parts of ourselves we hadn’t known we’d lost, and before long we hungered to change the narrative of who we were, how we imagined ourselves and how society perceived us. Those very words,  Change the Narrative, became our mantra and our movement.  

We began to counsel ourselves and monitor each other’s actions, challenging each other to excel and take pride in our accomplishments.  Some of us wrote newspaper op-eds and magazine articles.  Some wrote books.  Some even began community outreach programs to encourage the youth to believe in themselves and succeed in life.  We are even – to the best of my knowledge – the only Death Row in the United States to ever put on a live play, Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, and we also created a play, Serving Life, which was adapted into Count and performed by student actors at the University of North Carolina.  

We worked hard, many of us for the first time in our lives.  Classes became safe spaces where we could open up and be ourselves.  They were places we could leave the negativity and degradation of incarceration behind.  We forged new and deeper bonds with each other, and I learned things about people I’d known for years.  For example, a guy I’d known for twenty-four years once attended nursing school.  Another I knew for nine years had completed three years of college trying to become a social worker.

We inspired each other to believe we could achieve great things.  We not only changed ourselves, we also changed the culture here and our way of thinking.  There was a major drop in write-ups and speech and debate made arguments fun instead of stressful.   We were truly changing the narrative.

Yet…  If there is ever a constant in this life, it is that reality is paved in the unexpected.  The classes were shut down, and like Dante’s leopard, lion and she-wolf, we were confronted with obstacles we needed to overcome.

Our leopard came in the form of custody staff, many of whom don’t recognize any value or potential in us.  Our lion, the program department, did not provide programs and was unwilling to allow others to do so.  And our wolf lived among us, haters, unhappy with their lives and intent on sabotaging the growth of others.  

But in the end, we’ve learned that it is only ‘us’ that holds us back.  Knowing that, we will never give in or give up.  We will and are achieving great things.  We are still writing creatively on our own, publishing books, short stories, poems and magazine articles.  We are becoming versed in modern technology, learning new languages and working towards achieving our dreams.  We no longer accept merely existing in a state of learned helplessness.  We inspire each other daily and we have changed our narrative.  Now it’s time to live our new stories!

ABOUT THE WRITER.   The author writes under the pen name Resolute, and has placed Second in our most recent writing contest with this essay. Resolute answered the prompt, eloquently sharing the inner strength and community building among his peers, describing members encouraging and uplifting one another to change their narrative.

Any comments left on this page will be forwarded to the author.

Dominica Raggs and I spent both seventh and eighth grade in the same class.  For two whole years she sat directly behind me. There was a mere three feet between us, yet we were worlds apart. Finding out this quiet, hazel-eyed girl was the only other person from my graduating class to attend the same high school as me was mildly shocking.

Freshman year was, honestly, more interesting than difficult.  I didn’t think much of it the day Ms. Anderson canceled fourth period swim class due to a maintenance problem with the school’s pool.  She left a notice on the door informing us to report to Coach Torian’s gym class immediately.  

The change in scenery was ideal for me.  I’d been wanting to ball in the school’s gym all semester and wasn’t going to miss the opportunity.  I chilled in the bleachers with some of my dawggs, assured I was running next.  

As the game neared its end, I got up, anxious to play.  It was then that I noticed a commotion at the side of the bleachers.  From where I stood, all I could see was Walter Jones throwing what appeared to be hair to some dude I couldn’t really see.  Then I realized a girl was running between Walter and his partner in crime, trying in vain to get the hair they were keeping from her.  

I don’t recall what exactly drew me to this tasteless spectacle.  What I do remember vividly is the moment I was close enough to see the tear stricken face of Dominica being laughed at as she begged Walter and his friend to give her wig back.  Seeing the pain in her eyes and the absence of hair on her head, I suddenly realized that all the days she’d been absent in elementary school were probably because she was hiding how truly sick she was.

I felt a piece of my soul begin to decay as I stood there, and I knew if I continued standing there I’d never be whole again.  A compulsion overtook me, and I found myself standing over Walter after I educated him on the seriousness of the situation.  Walter’s accomplice dropped the wig and ran before we could discuss his participation.  

I picked up the disheveled hair and tried to straighten it as I gave it back to Dominica.  When she looked into my eyes, still crying, I knew I would never regret standing up for her.

Fifteen minutes later, I found myself in the principal’s office being suspended for fighting.  Eleven days into my two week suspension I learned from a friend that Dominica died.  She’d had leukemia.

When I attended the funeral, Dominica’s mom came over to personally thank me for my actions.  Someone must have told her who I was.  Then she asked me to speak a few words on Dominica’s behalf.  I didn’t have it in my heart to say no, and the words I spoke that day came from a place in my soul I didn’t even know I had.  In the three years I had known Dominica I learned absolutely nothing about her, but in the moment I stood up for her, our souls touched.  I’ll never forget her. 

ABOUT THE WRITER.  The author writes under the pen name Resolute, and although he doesn’t write often, the work he has shared here has been nostalgic and genuine, though both have been pieces about loss. Both have also been little windows into his past, and he has a very charming way of opening them.

Any comments left on this page will be forwarded to the author.