My Ma may be many things but listening to her testimony, you’d know she always wanted to be a mother – and I wouldn’t want any other.  She’s an affable woman, kinda quirky, though stern, sorta introverted, yet capable of being extroverted.  She was the perfect match for me.  But early on there was a problem.   According to her, doctors told her she would not be a fruitful woman.   You’d have to know her struggles growing up to understand how the nineteen-year-old-her felt hearing such news.  But she clung to her faith, praying to her God to be able to have children.

Some time later she became pregnant with me.

To let my mom tell it, the voice of God spoke to her and told her she would ‘produce fruit and multiply’, akin to some women in the Bible, Manoa, Hannah, Elizabeth, to name a few.   Some folk thought my mom read the bible too much.  Some would tell her to eat kale with her stacked plate of gravy filled pork chops.  My mom’s mother also told her I would grow up to be a preacher preaching from the pulpit.  HA!  I’m sure she’s turning over in her grave if it is possible and if she can see me now.

In all, my mother gave birth to six beautiful children with good character.  Not bad for a single mom.   When her time comes to enter those pearly gates, they will accept her with open arms. 

Recently,  my mom wrote to tell me that upon receiving one of my letters, she almost questioned her faith, that it took her a few days to reason with her better self and allow the Lord to help her move on.  

When I was arrested for capital murder in 1998, every day felt like intertwined moments travelled in slow motion.  Days passed in a nebulous state.  Mentally, I was part optimistic, believing,  ‘Okay, I know I did not kill any girl. I will tell this to the jury, and I’ll be back to the hole-n-the-wall in no time’.

I was part delusional when I spoke to my baby mommas, ‘Yo, don’t worry.  I’ll be home in a few months.  Nothing has changed.’

Reality though?  Reality can be a cruel and cold awakening.  That was my reality after the verdict came back.  The all non-black jury got it wrong.  It was harsh.  Wrong.  So fucking wrong.

The pain I felt for the next 2,160 hours was a feeling I beg to never endure again – and there was nothing I could do about it.  

While I awaited trial, I was held in Harris County’s jail, the 701 annex.  They had regular church services there, and I was invited to attend.  The room held about fifteen young men – all black, many serving county jail time, a few waiting for the ‘prison chain bus’ to begin their lengthy penitentiary time.  And a couple of our fates were still up-in-the-air.  I thought that if I showed God I was  willing to sit in a banal smelling church’s chapel in a genuflection pose, mumbling a few amens, God… this mighty Being, would help a brotha out.  I have to be honest to give my testimony, right?

One inmate was asked to sing a song.  His last name was Cook.  He was about to go home.  He spoke about wanting to become an R&B artist.  Other brothers laid hands on him, as if to pray for his success.  I recall a lot about that moment, and I’ve forgotten a lot about that moment.  I’ll never forget his voice though, the lyrics he would sing, nor the emotional tsunami he stirred inside of me that night.

“I AM a Living Testimony.  Should have been dead and gone, but the Lord helped me to move on…”

His voice was celestial, and a montage of images from my life – good times and bad, accomplishments and many failures – cluttered my mind.  You see, I should have been dead and gone, and for whatever reason, the Lord helped me to move on.

Still today, I live, not because I’m good looking or wear two pair of socks on my left foot and only one pair on my right.  I survived not because I am a con man, nor because I have dodged the wrath of the racist judicial system.  No.  I live ‘cause the Lord God wants me to live on.

Before I was sentenced to death, folks said I wouldn’t live to see 21.  After I was sentenced to death they said I wouldn’t live to see 35.  As of April, 2021, I’m 46 years old and counting.  I’m not bragging about ‘me’ –existing in solitary confinement for over two decades is a daily struggle, mentally and physically.  But what I do want to brag about is my ‘message’.  What I’ve learned.  Whatever you are going through – addiction, your cross to bare – you are greater in will than any drug that was designed to crush your will.  Illness can wreck your body, but it can’t wreck your spirit.  If you are homeless or incarcerated for a crime you didn’t do – you are alive. 

Do better.  Be better.  Love more.  Each of us is a ‘living testimony’.  For some reason, the Lord has let us live on… 

‘Anyone who is living still has HOPE.  Even a live dog is better off than a dead lion.’ – Ecclesiastes 9:4

TO CONTACT CHARLES MAMOU:
Charles Mamou #999333
Polunsky Unit 12-CD-53
3872 South FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351

You can also reach him through jpay.com.

SIGN HIS PETITION – LEARN ABOUT HIS CASE. Charles Mamou is a long time WITS writer. He is part of our writing family and his case has been studied and shared here for a couple years. Please sign a petition requesting that his case be investigated – for the first time. What we have found has made it clear to us that it never was.