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And it woke up things that had happened in my lifetime. So in this class, it would talk about family dynamics, and abuse, and violence, and the environment. I had gotten into a diversion-like program on my fourth prison term. NFL players lobby Congress for criminal justice reformīurton: Yeah. Related A small town in Georgia where prisons play a big role Ryssdal: You had gotten into a drug treatment program in prison, right?īurton: Yeah I had. What happened to turn it around?īurton: So what happened that turned it around was first a conversation with a teacher at California Rehabilitation Center. And it takes us a while to get to the point where it turns around for you. Ryssdal: The first two-thirds, plus or minus, of this book is really hard to get through because we live along with you all the setbacks, and all the falling off the wagon, and all the going back to jail. He had to get booted out of the house if we were going to have welfare. So if my mother and father were going to patch things up, her being on welfare didn’t allow for that.
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And I remember a social worker coming to our houses looking in the closets and looking up under the beds and inspecting our house for a presence of a man. The county didn’t allow you to be on the county if there was a man in the house. And then my father would be often gone for periods of time. And we would hear the arguments and see my mother with, you know, a bruise. And my father and mother started fussing and fighting a lot. My mother ended up doing housework, and she actually applied for welfare. And then the rest of your childhood and early teen years?īurton: You know, they were problematic. Ryssdal: How old were you when your dad lost his job? And we stopped going to the drive-in on weekends. I think that things aren’t talked about until it starts to affect people other than black people. It wasn’t talked about then, and it wasn’t recognized. He was a proud black man, and that all sort of vanished as America began to export jobs. And that was a weekly routine for my father. You know, I can remember, as a child, the happy days of us all piling into the car and going to the drive-in. And then it all kind of fell apart.īurton: Yeah. Ryssdal: Though you were born in poverty, there was a time in your life, early, when your dad had a solid factory job and things were doing all right. Getting enough food is still a problem for many Americans How the poor are ending up stuck in modern-day debtor’s prisons Related Fighting poverty one house at a time Never ever being offered any type of help with my grief from the loss of my son, and the substance abuse that was a result of trying to medicate the grief. The drug use sent me to prison, and I was caught in this other sort of institutional abuse and criminal justice abuse of traveling in and out of prison. I began to drink very heavily, and that drinking escalated to drug use. And the death of my son, K.K., was sort of like the falling-off place. And I endured it, and endured it, and endured it. And in that poverty, there was a lot of different types of abuse. And that, I think, is the trigger factor here, right? Tell me about that.īurton: So, you know I was born into poverty. And I won’t go into it too much because I want people to read this book, but there’s sexual violence, there’s drug abuse, there’s prison time. Ryssdal: Because the trip you’ve been on, the journey you’ve been on, has been long and violent and hard. But also this idea now that you are raised up to this place where you have earned that respect. Ryssdal: Because it clearly has been for you. But through this journey, I’ve sort of risen to a place that I get this level of respect of Ms. Life has took me on a journey, and through much of that journey, I didn’t feel whole, connected and grounded. Kai Ryssdal: There is so much to unpack in this book, and I just want to start with the title. Burton.” She talked with Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal about her journey. Her personal story is the subject of a new book called “ Becoming Ms. Since founding A New Way of Life in 1998, she’s provided transitional housing and support services for over 900 formerly incarcerated women. Susan Burton served six prison sentences in 17 years, caught in a cycle of drug addiction and incarceration. But to understand how that organization came to be and why it matters, you have to understand the story of the woman who founded it.
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A New Way of Life is a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles that offers transitional living and support services for women just released from prison.