Formerly incarcerated community members speak for JustUs

“It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know a change gonna come,” sang Robert Johnson at the end of Thursday night’s JustUs Monologues, a soulful rendition of Sam Cooke’s song “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

The performance capped a night of vulnerability, courage and honesty as formerly incarcerated community members gave accounts of life in the U.S. prison system. The performers spoke on a need for change in the justice system, promoting restorative justice and compassion as a means to rehabilitation for those facing life-long consequences for poor choices.

Motus Theater’s JustUs Monologues present men who share autobiographical performances of their experience in the U.S. penal system. These men of color don’t shirk their own responsibility or deny their accountability — each one takes ownership of their mistakes, their faults and the decisions that led them into the criminal justice system.

“I hope the stories of myself and my colleagues can become the impetus to affect positive change in the criminal justice system,” said JustUS Monologist and Project Strategist Juaquin Mobley.

On the stage of the Longmont Museum’s Stewart Auditorium, three men shared tragic tales of life in the criminal justice system. Stories of the lasting consequences of making the wrong decisions, the psychological toll of incarceration and the ramifications of a rehabilitative system that dehumanizes its wards.

The performance at the museum brought monologists Dereck Bell and Daniel Guillory to share their stories of addiction, incarceration and recidivism, joined by Colorado jazz musicians Robert Johnson and Victor Mestas. Accompanying the two monologues, two local leaders — NAACP Executive Committee Member Madelyn Strong Woodley and Boulder County Commissioner Marta Loachamin — read Mobley’s story, “Unhireable.”

The JustUs Project is about vulnerability and finding the paths to reform a criminal justice system that dehumanizes inmates, stripping them of a name and reducing them to a number. Instead of rehabilitation, most residents of the Department of Corrections are confronted with more violence, illicit behavior and increasingly poor living conditions and overcrowding.

Motus Theater’s Creative Director, Kirsten Wilson, started the JustUS Project as part of a 17-week workshop for formerly incarcerated people, guiding them through story development, public speaking and therapeutic catharsis so those men could share their stories from the frontlines of the penal system.

Guillory said when the project started, each of the nine men involved were divided and guarded — defensive habits from experience in prison. The vulnerability and openness with each other helped break down the self-erected barriers and start to heal. Guillory, Bell and Mobley laughed affectionately about Wilson “suckering them” into opening up.

“That’s where we get our power — in opening up to reveal our true selves and our hearts and hurts,” Guillory said. “You’re not allowed to do that in the joint, you can’t show any vulnerability.”

The rights of felons vary from state to state, but in many states convicted felons lose their right to vote, travel abroad and own firearms. Felons in Colorado cannot vote while incarcerated or on parole, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. Felons also face hurdles when applying for housing and employment, though the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employers from discriminating against felons unrelated to the employment — a convicted child abuser could be barred from teaching, a felony DUI could be barred from driving jobs.

According to the Center for American Progress, 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. have some sort of criminal record while 9 in 10 employers and 4 in 5 landlords use background checks to bar applicants with criminal records.

Mobley’s story, as read by Loachamin and Woodley, recounts the struggle to find work and support a family while on probation from a felony drug conviction at the age of 18. Being on probation threatened access to public housing for him and his grandparents — with whom he lived. The struggles didn’t stop there as the felony kept Mobley from a job at Home Depot or finding any job due to the difficulties African-American men face finding work without a felony, let alone with one.

The civic leaders read Mobley’s story as a way to model civic hospitality and speak with empathy and without judgement from another’s perspective. After the reading, Loachamin and Woodley had an opportunity to comment on Mobley’s tale. Both civic leaders commended Mobley for the courage and bravery in not only writing down his story but making the vulnerability public. Mobley responded with honesty and gratitude for Loachamin and Woodley and their willingness to see beyond their own perspective.

“I think Juaquin is the example that so many of our young men need to see,” Woodley said, speaking of his vulnerability and personal responsibility.

Loachamin said she would take the experience of the JustUS stories and bring those conversations into her role as county commissioner in Boulder County, to guide resource allocation and services offered in the county. 

Guillory’s monologue, “Truth Not Facts,” recalled his struggle of addiction, incarceration and the loss of hope. How his mother took out a loan to post bail, only to find himself confronted with his own drug addiction, hopelessness and the power of a mother’s love. When his mother caught him with narcotics, Guillory remembered how his mother supported him unconditionally instead of rejecting him. In his monologue, Guillory emphasized the vulnerability and defenselessness he felt in the face of love instead of admonishment.

“That’s the thing that we gotta convey to society. It’s when a person is broken, messed up and deserves love the least, that is exactly when they need it most,” Guillory said.

Bell’s story, “Belly of the Beast,” is about the best of intentions leading to the worst of consequences and how misplaced loyalty landed him in a world of violence he was unprepared for. Bell took ownership of the actions that led him to incarceration while asking about the corrections officers, judges and prosecutors complicitness and contribution to the violence of prisons. 

While incarcerated, Bell defended himself against an attack that would have killed him. If it weren’t for a corrections officer testifying that Bell acted in self-defense, Bell would have faced life in prison for attempted murder.

“And even though I was determined not guilty, the criminal justice system still took my innocence away because they put me in a position where, to survive, I had to stab a man in the neck. And his blood was just pouring out of his body  all over me — all over me — and it should be all over the judge, DA and prosecutors — them too! And that is not the worst of it,” Bell said.

A running thread through all three monologues is how the criminal justice system takes one criminal action and turns it into an identity. Inmates under the ward of the Department of Corrections are referred to by a number instead of a name.

“The fact is, all of us in prison are human beings who committed crimes, but that is not our truth. We are not ontologically criminal. That is not our essence,” Guillory said. “And instead of helping us return to the full truth of who we are, the criminal justice system takes away our names, gives us DOC numbers and robs of of our dignity, freedom, happiness and most of all, the potential to be our best selves — who we could have been if someone had tried to nurture us instead of neuter us.”

Mobley called the work to reform the criminal justice system a community-saving mission. The path forward is through practices like restorative justice, the monologists said, and humanizing those people who enter into the criminal justice system. 

“Restorative justice is the pathway to success in leading us out of the dark tunnel of criminal justice,” Mobley said.

The JustUs Monologues will perform locally at Lafayette’s Arts HUB on Nov. 13. Motus Theater will return to the Stewart Auditorium on Nov. 14 with a screening of Rocks Karma Arrows, a multimedia look at Boulder history.