[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 tonights 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 colleges 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 thats 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 UniversityPrison 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 maximumsecurity 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 its 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 havent 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 its 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 whos 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 thats 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 dont 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 thats 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 dont 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 wasnt personal it was systemic about entering the system to be obliterated. So the proceedings are so adversarial. Its 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 . Its the initiativive for education and there were a lot of hurdles i expected expect td get something before i go the floor, and its 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 id gone through or things id 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 dont 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. Its 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 its 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 didnt feel angry but guilty of. She could understand what life was like and the things i was going through. I felt lik she wasnt listening to what i was saying so i stopped telling her things. She couldnt 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 peoples experience and its hard for a lot of families to drive up to the prison. And if you dont 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 thats 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 im 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, im 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 ive 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 wasnt 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 doesnt mean he doesnt have a plan. He always has a plan, for each and every one of our lives. We can see where its 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 cant tell me anything, but it hasnt 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 dont revere me, dont 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 hes like wait a minute, thats not what this is. You dont live your life for me. You live your life for christ, and i was like thats 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. Its completely different. Thats 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 its different than anything i have ever encountered so now i get to spend my days with my best friend, with my partner. Hes everything. And hes here. [laughte i wonder if you can talk a little bit about what you are doing now. Youve 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 havent 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 im forgetting the first w word. Im 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 im sure th