Episode 108: Justice-Impacted Brilliance

Brittany White, Meek Mill, and others in conversation at Harvard Radcliffe Institute event

Photo by Lou Jones

EPISODE 108: Justice-Impacted Brilliance, with Brittany White and Meek Mill

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On This Episode

In this episode, Meek Mill, an award-winning rapper and one of the nation’s top voices for parole and probation reform, talks with Brittany White—a practitioner in residence at Radcliffe and Harvard Law School, an organizing fellow at the Institute to End Mass Incarceration, and a formerly incarcerated Black woman—and others. This conversation brings together people with lived experience of incarceration as experts to discuss their efforts to change the probation and parole system, helping to make the US justice system more just.

This episode was recorded on May 1, 2023.
Released on November 16, 2023.

Guests

Ayana Bean is an activist and founder of A Year and a Day Foundation.

Meek Mill is a rapper and cofounder of REFORM Alliance.

Wallo is a podcaster, an influencer, and a speaker on prison reform.

Brittany White is a 2022–2023 visiting practitioner in residence at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, an organizing fellow at the Institute to End Mass Incarceration, and a voice for formerly incarcerated Black women.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial lead at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Kevin Grady and Max Doyle from Radcliffe's event streaming team for their invaluable contributions to recording this podcast episode.

Transcript

[MUSIC]

Ivelisse Estrada:
Welcome back to BornCurious, a new podcast from Harvard Radcliffe Institute. I’m your cohost, Ivelisse Estrada.

Heather Min:
And I’m Heather Min.

Ivelisse Estrada:
We’re mixing it up a little bit today and bringing you some highlights from an invitation-only event organized by Brittany White this past spring. Brit was a joint visiting practitioner at Radcliffe and Harvard Law School, and she is also an organizing fellow at the Institute to End Mass Incarceration and a voice for formerly incarcerated Black women.

Heather Min:
The event was organized for Harvard students from Radcliffe’s Law, Education, and Justice program and young people who are involved with the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services. Radcliffe’s Law, Education, and Justice initiative was created by our dean, Tomiko Brown-Nagin, to support the rights of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people and to call attention to the devastating impact of mass incarceration in our country.

Ivelisse Estrada:
It was an incredible event. Lots of the kids invited didn’t even know who would be speaking. And then out walks Meek Mill, an American rapper with a huge following, who also happens to be a powerful voice for parole and probation reform. He cofounded the advocacy group Reform Alliance with several partners—one of them Jay-Z, with whom he’s worked on music.

Heather Min:
The panel also included Wallo, who spent 20 years in prison and is now a successful podcaster, influencer, and speaker on prison reform, and Ayana Bean, a Boston native who served federal time and now works as an advocate for at-risk women.

Ivelisse Estrada:
Now, when Meek Mill cofounded Reform about five years ago, a little after his release from prison, the organization targeted probation and parole reform. Their research showed that nearly 44 percent of people released from prison nationwide ended up returning in less than a year.

Heather Min:
Meek himself was sentenced up to four years on a technical parole violation in 2017 and was not released until the popular #FreeMeekMill movement called for change. Let’s dive in.

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]

Brittany White:
What up? My name is Brittany White. I go by Brit. I am the visiting practitioner in residence between the Institute to End Mass Incarceration at the Harvard Law School and here, a 2022 proud fellow. I’m originally from Dayton, Ohio; grew up in Dallas, Texas.

In 2009, I caught a trafficking charge in the state of Alabama. A lot of my community organizing work is about the experience of a woman who’s been incarcerated in the Deep Red South, and I’m super happy to be here with you all.

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]

Meek Mill:
I go by the name of Meek Mill. Young kid from Philadelphia—y’all know my story, kind of. If you don’t—a young kid, grew up in a single-parent home. My environment led me to growing up in the streets till I was about 18 years old. When I was 18 years old—19—I ended up catching a case, which I was carrying a firearm in Philadelphia in an environment where murder amongst Black people was normal on a daily basis. And at that age, I felt like I needed to carry a firearm in the neighborhood where my dad was murdered at.

Being as though carrying that firearm, I got charged with a few other charges. And it was pointing a firearm at a police officer, which I would never do. I’m not suicidal. I never had plans of ever trying to hurt a public official or anybody in the world, especially a cop, at that severity, which we know a young Black person would probably lose their life, trying to pull a gun out on a cop.

Selling cocaine, I always made—just as a 16-year-old, with my mom being at work and my dad at the graveyard—I always just made a conscious decision that I didn’t want to sell crack cocaine. But I got arrested with weed on me, and I still got found guilty of selling crack cocaine to an undercover cop, which I never did, which I was never a part of.

Through my time from 18 to 31, I was on probation. I spent three, four years in jail, in and out of prison from technical violations. And when she sentenced me to two to four years, I had people in America stand up for me.

And of course, I came up with a foundation—me, Michael Rubin, Jay-Z, a few others. And we came up with Reform, which led us to being here at Harvard today, which is a big honor, myself, to be in this building amongst you guys today.

Brittany White:
It’s an honor to have you.

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]

Brittany White:
So I just want to open it up. Wallo, is it cool if I start with you? You hear so many people talk from this perspective here at Harvard as academics about the law. And we often center law enforcement and lawyers when we talk about experiences with the legal system.

But I remember back in 2009, when I struck a jury and went to trial, it was one of the hardest things I did in my life. And every single person who loved me told me, bruh, just take the plea. And I decided to go and strike that jury, and I lost. But I just wonder if you could tell us a little bit about what is that monkey on your back like, when you’re contending with the government and fighting for freedom?

Wallo:
I first got into the system June 30 of 1990—I was 11 years old—for a couple of days, and I got arrested for armed robbery in Philadelphia County. And it wasn’t that hard for me coming into the game, really, because I got so institutionalized, that I was just used to it. It was like a time machine. So I’d go in there and just take a deal, mercy of the court most of the time. I’d be like, come on, Your Honor. Get my time, so I can go back out there and get busy again. So my outlook was a little different than most people.

I only went to one jury trial in my life. I probably got locked up, like, 12, 15 times. So I went to one. Or any other time, I’m pleading guilty. Before we even get to that phase, I had my whole spiel together: I don’t want to waste the taxpayers’ money, Your Honor. Boom, boom, boom. And they’d give me a little leniency, and I’d get a deal. And you know, so I never was the one to try to fight. Because everything I got locked up for, I knew I’d done it. I was due and had done my stuff, you know what I mean? There’s a lot of people that’s innocent. I just wasn’t one of them. So I didn’t never had to fight or figure it out, of what I wanted to do. I’m like, I’m just gonna get this time and come back again.

Brittany White:
Can you describe that violation of just knowing that someone has the capability to take away your freedom?

Wallo:
It’s the reality here, man. To me, the criminal justice system is a business. And either you’re going to be a part of it or you’re not. And you’ve got to respect that. America’s big business is, you know, jails. And that’s why rehabilitation is serious. Because you really got to be on your own game, going into some of these institutions. Because like, with me, like, I always say, when I was in jail, I wasn’t in jail. I was in Yale. I wasn’t in prison. I was in Princeton. I wasn’t in the state pen. I was in Penn State. I had to educate myself to be able to bounce back. You dig what I’m saying? So it was like, at the end of the day, I think it first starts with accountability.

And then, it starts with, like—you don’t even want to be a part of the system. Because the system isn’t designed for the comeback. Because what business in America you know that don’t want their customers to return?

So I’m not looking at the system like, oh, they just did it. I’m looking at it like, OK, I know you’re not—I know how you going to help me out when there’s 500 of us on the cell block and we only got two counselors. So I know it’s not designed for me really to learn unless I tap into myself.

And I was able to tap into myself and say, you know what? I’m done with that. You know, and I woke up and realized that the world was bigger than the hood and the mentality that we was running off. Because a lot of these young cats get misled, because we tell them that the streets is cool, and all that is cool, but nobody talks about, when you’re in jail, you got three years, and they got 17 to go. Because I got sent to 19.5 to 52 years when I was 17, certified as adult for two armed robberies, two firearm convictions.

So you know a lot of stuff. Like, me and Meek talk about it all the time, man. Like, accountability changed the game. And once you get to a certain age, you know the system ain’t for you. You got to go a different route, you know.

Brittany White:
Ayana, can I direct the same question to you? What is—can you describe, particularly from the unique experience of a woman, what is it like to contend with the government for your freedom, or to know that somebody has the power to take away your freedom?

Ayana Bean:
Well, one of the things is that, and as Wallo just said, you don’t contend with the government. Being a person who has experienced a state prison sentence and also a federal prison sentence, I would like to say that when you see your documentation, it says, the United States versus Ayana Bean. And it’s like, oh, the whole world is against me.

So if the whole world is against you, then who’s for you, and how can you fight that? You can’t, no matter how much money you have, or else Meek wouldn’t be sitting here. He could have fought his case, too, right? But you can’t buy your freedom that way. The world is against you.

Brittany White:
Appreciate it. Meek, can I direct the same question to you?

Meek Mill:
From first grade to kindergarten to the fourth grade, I used to be a straight honor roll student. My dad died probably when I was, like, five or six years old. I read a book in prison. It was called The Fourth Grade Failure Syndrome.

I don’t know if anybody ever read that, but it’s about young kids that grow up in bad environments, and when they make it to the fourth grade, their life just spirals out of control. When I read that book, I thought about my life. And when I got to the fourth grade, I moved from a neighborhood that—it was still hood—but I moved to a hyper violent neighborhood after that.

And once I moved to that neighborhood, I kind of fell off from school. My classroom was more disruptive; I would say more bullies in the classroom. And it kind of made me adapt to that environment.

From middle school to high school, by the time I turned 16 and 17 in Philadelphia, if you check the records in 2004, 2005, we got one of the highest murder rates in Philadelphia. So carrying a gun was like the best decision for me as a young kid, because my father was killed in this area. A lot of my friends and things were killed in that area, you know.

I went straight from just honor roll student, to disruptive classroom, to you might lose your life tonight when you come outside. So me coming outside to that led me to using marijuana, smoking weed at night, really. And I would say, I’d always been a guy that—I wanted to live my whole life without using drugs. I’m based off of being sharp. I make music. I like to flow good. I like to remember my lines. I like to be on point. So I never was like a person that wanted to pursue the life of being high. But being caught up in the ghetto and seeing people die and going in and out of prison as a young person, it made me become somebody else. But as soon as the moment I got—environment changed through music, you know. It changed my life.

But I would say, my monkey on the back, I’m 18 years old, I got a case for selling weed. Really, I was supposed to have a case for selling weed and a gun, which I was able to do the time for that. I made a decision, a conscious decision, as a 17-, 18-year-old. Going into prison, I got 30 charges. I don’t understand any of the charges. When I got to prison, when I got to the police station to talk to the judge about the bail hearing, you can’t even speak for yourself. Just as an 18-year-old kid, I just thought that was kind of super unfair to anybody who was innocent until proven guilty, and it was just common sense.

When I made it to the prison, I got lost in the system, just an 18-year-old kid. You got 10 minutes to contact your lawyer, your mom, whoever you can. And then, when I came home from prison, they charged me with 30 charges.

Now, a public defender—I don’t know if you all know the backgrounds of the system of public defender—they’ll tell you that a public defender probably will lead you down the railroad to make you lose your freedom or lose your life. I came right back out to selling marijuana again, because I had to get a lawyer to actually fight these 30 charges that I really didn’t commit.

I was supposed to have two or three charges now. I’m in prison at 19, 18, with $160,000 bail. That was the monkey.

The system knew that I’m from a public housing environment. They have evaluations to know the type of background I come from, that I can’t pay a $160K bill. When I actually went to trial, I probably talked to my lawyer two times. A 15-minute span within three years—there’s no way he could be prepared to fight my trial or fight my case. I don’t even know this guy. Of course, he knows I’m uneducated. He knows I’m illiterate. He knows I doesn’t know the secret language that he knows. And I couldn’t even direct this guy to even attempt to fight a case for me.

I went straight into the courtroom, lost everything, and that guy that was my lawyer—I never spoke to that guy again. And that was the rest of my life that I had to figure out through the system. So I would say the biggest monkey on my back was just even entering something as treacherous as an 18-year-old kid, trying to figure out, how do I get out of this, and not losing my value in myself, and not committing to that lifestyle.

Brittany White:
Yo. I’m going to just put some air on that for a minute, because that’s really profound. And you know me. I just have so much love and respect for you, because it was hard for me to fight my case privately and come back as a regular shmegular Jane Doe. For you to do that publicly, under the scrutiny and opinion of the whole world to see, I just can’t imagine.

Meek Mill:
Yeah, no, I appreciate. It was worse in the dark. When I was going through this stuff and nobody heard anything I was going through, it was like—it was the worst. But when I knew people had an ear on what I was going through and what I had on my hands at the time, it made me feel better, because I knew that I had people that would actually speak up or say anything, not just as—and I use this for a lot of people. When you label somebody as a criminal, you can make them people lose value in they self, knowing that you might not have a second chance. Knowing me, I had people fighting for me and wanted this to become better, the judge giving me that two-year sentence—I probably would have committed the rest of my life to just bitterness and probably involving myself with that lifestyle. Because I felt like my rap career was over. I probably would have lost my house. I would have lost my kids. And I would have still had some money, but that two years would have ruined the rest of my life. And God let me get out of that situation.

Even having a person with the opportunity and knowing that you can have a second or a third chance, because God gave out how many chances he want, is enough to have a person value themself to want to rehabilitate and become someone for, say, if someone calling you a felon and saying you can’t get a job and you’re just like an alien to us.

Brittany White:
And you’re a beacon of hope, because you represent possibility for so many people. Ayana, you know it was so important for me to have a woman represented on this panel. And part of that is because oftentimes, men are afforded opportunities to profit, use their clout, street credibility, and have resources based off of their system, their experience in the criminal legal system. But women are often excluded from those same opportunities. Can you say why?

Ayana Bean:
Well, I don’t want to speak for the people who make that decision to say why, but I’ll give you my thoughts as to why. When prisons were created, when most things are created, it’s not created with women in mind. There’s the term, women break glass ceilings. Well, there’s never that term associated with men. They don’t have to break a glass ceiling. The sky is just right there. They can keep on reaching as far as they want to go. So I think that in terms of how society is alone, it’s just not that it’s made for us to do.

So when you have someone that’s able to use their street credibility or their finesse, their environment, their network of people, it’s because in our urban communities, in our Black and brown communities, it’s made cool. Like, you get stripes if you go to prison. That’s something that makes you tough. It makes you legit.

But for a woman, it’s kind of like, we didn’t build prisons for you to be going to prison. We didn’t build this environment for you to be here or belong here. And we definitely didn’t create any resources for you when you come out. You know, so you have to create your own lane. You have to create these environments. Yeah, we women get in trouble. Women make mistakes.

If you take the heads of a family away, which would be the man, then the woman picks up the slack. Right? And then, what does she have to do? Well, she can’t afford a life for herself or her children off of welfare alone. So there’s other choices and there’s other decisions that people tend to make in order to actually just make ends meet most of the time. And that is a lot of women.

Brittany White:
Ayana, I’m going to stay with you, and then Wallo, I’m coming to you next. Once people find out I’m formerly incarcerated, they usually say one or two things. They used to say, you? You don’t look like you’ve been in the system. And then, when they find out that I have a trafficking marijuana charge, they start asking me inappropriate questions, like how much you get caught with? Who was you hustling for? That was your man’s work?

They feel very entitled to the personal details of my life. And I believe if I was a man, they would never come at me like that. And so I’m just curious, as a woman who’s been in the system, do you experience people being inappropriate with you?

Ayana Bean:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because again, I’m a woman, so they think that that’s OK to do. Not to offend anyone—women are one of the most disrespected humans on Earth—

Brittany White:
Black women.

Ayana Bean:
—Especially Black women.

Brittany White:
You can say it. Black women.

Ayana Bean:
Yeah, especially Black women. We come from an urban community. We’re from the Black and brown. So if there’s anything lower than, we’re there at the bottom. But it’s OK, because I know who I am, and what I did is not who Ayana is. That’s something that Ayana did. You know, and it’s about what I do right now.

Brittany White:
Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

Brittany White:
Wallo, Rob from Reform put me on your podcast and had me follow you a couple of years ago. And it seems like every Black man in my life knows who you are, and they drink their coffee and listen to your daily check-in every single day. And you are so inspiring.

And I just wonder. So many people who are formerly incarcerated experienced so much shame and can’t be public about the fact that they’ve been in the system, or else they can’t get housing. They can’t get employed if people know these things. So how have you navigated shame on your journey, and how do you continue to do so?

Wallo:
You know what’s crazy? A lot of people, a lot of times, they don’t believe me when I tell them I was in jail. You don’t look like you was in jail. I’ll be like, all right. Well, you know, it’s a duty of mine to tell people where I was at. Because I represent the possibilities after prison. I’m out here holding it down for people that I ain’t going to never meet. But I’m knocking doors down and kicking doors down and showing them that it’s thousands of more Wallos, that if you give them a shot, they’re going to kill it.

If you give them a chance to execute and if you give them the proper opportunity, they going to kill it. So I’m representing that. So I always tell people where I came from. You know what I mean? Because my story is my glory. You know what I’m saying?

And got to let them know that, just like Meek could tell you. A lot of stuff that I know, a lot of why I’m sharp and I’m on point with a lot of old heads that don’t get the opportunity to come back, that’s in the penitentiary, they put a lot of game on me. You see what I’m saying?

A lot of our elders that we lost in the community, they in the pen, and they taught me a lot of things. And I’m never ashamed of where I was at. And I always look to tell people as much as possible about the journey.

Because that’s where I come from. But before I go further, I got to give a shout-out to some special folks. Now, a lot of people, they hear about Reform, but I don’t think they understand the importance of Reform and what they do for our community. The benefit that comes from Reform is giving people that chance and going to fight for people that can’t fight for themselves. I’m a dude that grew up in the system. Listen, it wasn’t even cool to talk about rights for people that was in jail. Or you do the crime, you do the time. You don’t got no rights. You don’t mean nothing. That’s going to be on your jacket forever. But Reform is kicking down doors.

And I’m thankful that Meek had—his situation put a light, and it opened the door. We’re not here with Reform if it wasn’t for me getting crucified in the courtroom. You see what I’m saying?

A lot of people hear about the story, but I was in there that day. And when Mike Rubin pulled me to the side and we go to take a break, Meek’s sitting there, because Meek’s looking like, what the fu—k is going on?

And Mike Rubin said, yo, Wallo, this is what they do. Just for that Caucasian man to see how we be executed in them courtrooms, it opened his eyes. And then, he get up to speak on Meek’s behalf, and she looked at him like you ain’t nothing either. So this started a movement that’s changing lives across the country, getting legislated. Listen, think about this. When did we ever have anybody fight on the strength of the people that the world forgot about? Think about that.

So Reform represents something that, for me, is emotional, for me, is hope. For me, I just know that some brothers and sisters and some people that never had no representation got real-time, big-time people caring about them now, caring about the welfare of us, caring about the struggle of us, caring about the opportunities that we supposed to have, caring about how we’re treated on probation and parole.

And I’m saying that for me, because right now, I’m in a situation where it’s though they’re helping me out. You see what I’m saying? I’m on parole to October 29, 2048.

Brittany White:
Say that one more time, because they missed it, Wallo.

Wallo:
I’m on parole to October 29, 2048. But it ain’t stopped me. But no matter that invisible cell that I’m in, I still got to move and get busy to let them know, this is what we can do under all circumstances. Because we’re some extraordinary individuals. The whole Reform staff, for getting out there, touching the community, filling community, making sure people got employment, making sure people got programming that they need, and just making sure people know you ain’t alone. That’s very important. So you know, I’m just thankful for them, and I always got to give a shoutout to Reform, because they’re doing the real work that’s never been done in the history of life. So I’m thankful to them.

Brittany White:
Yo, that’s the perfect segue.

[APPLAUSE]

Brittany White:
That’s the perfect segue to come back to you, Meek. I want to just share a short story. So I came home September 6, 2014, on a 20-year sentence. So in the state of Alabama, they give you split sentences. You serve every day of five years, and then you come home and do 15 years on probation.

Well, if you’re in prison and you act up on that 20, they pull your split, and now, you’re on a straight 20. Or if you come home and you violate probation, they violate you, and now, you go back on a straight 20 instead of a split. And so I came home on 15 years of probation, paying $76 every month to my probation officer to remain free.

And after three years, my probation officer submitted me back to the state of Alabama for what’s called a reconsideration. Well, when you have a split sentence, you’re not under probation or parole. You’re still under the jurisdiction of your judge. My judge retired while I was in prison and left me in there. So when I went for my reconsideration, I went to the judge who inherited me, who had never seen me before. And I took two of my mentors back to a very rural town in Alabama and went before them for my reconsideration. I thought it was going to be easy. So I told them, I didn’t need any lawyer. It was going to be a formality. My probation officer in Dallas had recommended me. We were just going through formalities.

They were smarter than me and got a local lawyer. And we’re sitting there. The four of us are sitting here, and the lawyer walks up to me, Meek. And she says, I don’t want to alarm you, but they’re trying to hit you with a $150,000 fine at the last minute. They said it was a clerical error. And as soon as she said that, they said, Brittany White, and it was my time to come before the judge. I didn’t even get time to process what happened. So we get before the judge, and my prosecutor said, Ms. White has been a model probationee. We recommend that she be let off probation, except in 2010—when I was sentenced—there was a clerical error, and we forgot to give her the mandatory $150,000 fine for trafficking. After she pays that, we’re happy to let her go. And so we all look at the judge. I make my plea. My mentors make my plea. And the judge who never met me before let me off probation.

I was able to walk out of there, because I had an army of people behind me. And I’m just so grateful for organizations like Reform, because my story is not an anomaly. It exists across the country. So can you just talk a little bit more about your experience with this amazing organization and why the issue of probation is so important to you?

Meek Mill:
At Reform, we focus on the issues of probation, because that’s just one level. With the system, you’ve got many levels of bail reform, probation reform, sentencing reform. Me and Michael Rubin, on a visit, he took a brochure, and we sat down and just talked about what could we do to impact the system in the most largest way.

Instead of going after individual cases and circumstances of what happened in cases, me and Mike came up with a model to affect a large number of people that was incarcerated or under the system in America. And we looked at probation and parole. Technical violations send a lot of people back to prison. I think 25 percent of the whole prison population is there for technical violations.

And if I can explain a technical violation to you guys, a technical violation is not committing crime. So if I’m on probation and I live in Philadelphia, and I go across the Ben Franklin Bridge to New Jersey, which is two minutes away—I lived in Philadelphia. I moved my son to a better environment, and I moved my son to New Jersey. And just to go get my son every day or drop him off from school was a violation. Like she just said, her judge retired in the middle of her life. That’s a big deal. It might not be a big deal to a judge, but that was her whole life.

And probation, most probation offices around America close at 5:00. So you know, my son’s after-school school program—he gets out of school daycare at 5:30. If I come in town—I live my life on the road as an artist, and I try to be a great father—but if I’m on the road for two weeks, and I get that one day to come home, I might get it at the last minute, and it might be 4:00, 5:00. If I can’t contact my probation officer, I can’t go get my son from school. But what do you think I did every day? Do you think I went to get my son from school in the middle of a violation?

Yes, I went to go get my son from school every time. Because in my mind, I was willing to take that violation to continue to be able to father my son’s life, because I knew that was a common-sense rule that didn’t make any sense. So we took all statutes and rules amongst a board of smart people, businessmen, and people who actually care about this situation, reforming the system, and we came up with common-sense things that don’t—anything doesn’t make any sense in the system.

She got 20 years for marijuana, but in America, marijuana is legal. People have been snooped up and smoking marijuana since I was three on television. I didn’t know you could get 20 years selling marijuana, even when I was 18 years old. I used to sell marijuana. I got locked up. If you check the record, I think it was $18 in my pocket. I was 18 years old. I got locked up with men 34 years old, 33, 28. They charged me as the commander of that whole drug operation. I just was a young broke kid with $20 in my pocket and four bags of weed. So just to be able to have an outlet, because I talk about value, because I come from not being felt like I wasn’t valued, just having an outlet for people that’s in the darkness, I think, just is a big deal for our culture and all. Because I talk about me. I talk about doing things like stop the violence, environmental things that lead up to being incarcerated. Because there’s a lot of different angles to it. I try to tap in places where I know that it’s super effective, and probation was one of the ones where it affected my life.

I started at five years of probation and ended up with 18 years of probation. She just kept adding time on to it. And you know me, I’m one of the lucky ones, and I’m strong. They could send me to jail four times. I’m going to still smile. I’m going to still come home and say I’m still going to chase my dreams. Every time I went to prison, I said I’m going to come back 10 times harder and chase my dream. And if anybody was following me, you see Meek Mill hot. Go to jail. Beefing with Drake—it went down. Go to jail. Go back up. Because I use it every time as my motivation. I didn’t let it bitter me out. I hope that has to be nobody else’s path, but I didn’t let it bitter me.

And you know, we have an open way now for people. I think it gives people a chance to hope and a chance of enlightenment to know that when you get caught in the system, that’s not the end of your life if you made a mistake.

Brittany White:
All right.

[APPLAUSE]

Brittany White:
So I’m gonna offer everybody one last question before we open it up and take questions from the audience. And I’m going to go to Ayana first. What would you like your legacy to be? What will they remember?

Ayana Bean:
Well, I would like them to know—and more so, my family to know, because I think that that’s very important to have something to follow—but I would like them to know that I fell a million times. I banged my head, like, I have a big forehead, so I banged my head a lot of times.

Brittany White:
All pretty girls do. All pretty girls got big foreheads.

Ayana Bean:
That’s right. But I want them to know, even though I fell a million times, I banged my head a million times, that I stood up 5 million times, and I stood tall. I’m only 5'1", but I stood 7 feet tall. And I want them to know that.

[APPLAUSE]

Brittany White:
Wallo, what would you like us to remember you as? What will your legacy be?

Wallo:
As somebody that just was really a helper of the hood, just really pushing people. Let them know we got a shot, never giving up. And just always believing in who we are. I think that belief thing, like, I push people to believe every morning, you know what I mean? I encourage people every day to be the best they can be. And just a person that let people know, no matter what you’re going, you’re not what you’re going through.

Because a lot of times, I remember when they used to come in my cell, stripped me down. Even at ’em slave conditions, I knew I was a king. They got me ass-naked, they stripping me, I’m like, man, let’s get it done. Let’s get it done. Come on. It ain’t going to stop me. So I just think, a lot of times, we take on what we’re going through. Because we getting high. That don’t mean you a fiend. Because you in jail, that don’t mean you’re an inmate.

It’s a mindset. My main thing be just a person that—Wallo was a person that just helped people, man. And I’m going to live forever, because I’m leaving something out here. Every day I get up, I’m going to make sure I leave something out here. Whenever I expire, I left something out here. I encourage. I push. I believe in people that the world forgot about, and as long as I got that, I’m going to live forever.

[APPLAUSE]

Brittany White:
Meek. What will your legacy be?

Meek Mill:
I never really said this like this, too. I’m not going to really tap on the music. What I want people to know my legacy for, for what you know Meek Mill for, what I would want to leave people with, that I’m just a young kid from the ghetto that decided to start working my way out of the ghetto to take care of my mom, my sister, and my grandma. Because I just thought that was like an honorable person if you’re the young man out your house, taking care of your mom and your grandma and your sister. They was the three women in my household. I’m an average young kid that just grew up in that environment.

I got one of my friends with me in the crowd. We went to jail all our lives until they took us out of that environment. The moment we got out of that environment, we never been back to prison again, so just, who I am as a Black man, what I represent—you might see me talking about Reform, or you might see me talking about things that don’t have to do with the lifestyle that I came up in. This is like a place where God put me. I got locked up. People stood up for me. We came up with Reform. This is not a gimmick. This is not clout. This is not how I power my rap career. I didn’t get paid to come here today. I got to spend money to come to this, because—

Brittany White:
We grateful.

Meek Mill:
Yeah, no, I’m saying—

[LAUGHTER]

Meek Mill:
You know—

Brittany White:
Much obliged to you, Meek.

Meek Mill:
In the industry, you got a lot of music. You got a lot of PR tricks that can make people look a certain way, and they might not actually be that way. Yes, I use profanity. I come from the streets. My music is not the cleanest. I don’t live in a lifestyle of crime. I don’t sell drugs to my community. Like the stuff that I came up in my environment—I overcame that. And that’s where I come from. That’s not who I am.

I know what that is, and I know what that’s about. And just be the one young person to my culture to lay out a narrative to the young Black people that you could be some things like me. Like, growing up, I used to want to be the guy on the corner that was going to jail, because that’s all we seen in our environment. All we seen was failure. So even if you almost made it big, it was still a lot. Like, even back in my hood, they used to say, what kind of car you want? I’m like, I want a Rolls-Royce.

People used to actually tell me I was crazy and make me feel bad about myself for wanting more. And me actually making it here today, I would say, leave a legacy to the young people to know you could do anything and take things to the highest level. I never thought I would be in here today.

[APPLAUSE]

Wallo:
A lot of times, we get in environments and we be humble. If you hear Meek rap, he going to pop it on that rap song. He going to let you know that he that, you know what I mean? But we never talk about this, but you know, and I said this to him one time. We from Philadelphia. When it comes to the people that the world forgot about and the real people at the bottom, Meek is Rocky to us. Meek did the unthinkable. He wasn’t supposed to make it. Everybody in his class of artists, they didn’t make it.

But to be able to get on this higher level and to be able to change lives—his legacy going to live forever. There’s somebody that’s in jail in Illinois, Pennsylvania, somebody that got sent back in Saint Louis, Kansas City. In some way, they’re going to be affected by the work that Reform is doing because of Meek.

So Meek, he going to play, I’m cool, you know me. But Meek is the Rocky to the hood, man.

Brittany White:
He really that guy.

Meek Mill:
Appreciate that.

Brittany White:
He really that guy.

[APPLAUSE]

Brittany White:
I just want my legacy to be that I’m from Dayton, Ohio, and I actually got my homie here, Meek, who’s from the city. And you remember back in the early ’90s when they barricaded the community of Five Oaks where I’m from. And I always tell people, before I was ever locked up by the state, I was incarcerated in my own community in the early ’90s. And people know that even as a woman, that I pop my stuff. I talk for my people, and I’m unapologetic about my power.

[APPLAUSE]

Brittany White:
All right. So now, we have some time to take questions from the audience.

Audience Member:
My name is Prince. I got a question for all three of y’all, because I speak for jail reform and community activism. So if you know, what was the exact moment or what happened in your life when you was like, I want to help people and give back to my community? Can you break that down for us, and when that was, or what happened for you?

Meek Mill:
Mine is when I seen people actually supporting me. I grew up in a single-parent home where you got, like, your mom and your sister, and that’s your last support system. When I seen, like, thousands of people actually rallying for me, I made my mind up that, based off of loyalty, my programming, that I’m going to make sure I pay those people back with the same energy they gave me.

[APPLAUSE]

Ayana Bean:
My moment was, after I was released from federal prison in 2014, probably, like, the 100th job that did a CORI background check, and I couldn’t get another job. I was like, I have to do something about this. So it was depressing.

I have a condition that I have to have a job, right? But I have a CORI, so where do you want me to go work that I can afford to pay my restitution and live in the city of Boston? That would have been—

Wallo:
I started putting major work as soon as I came out of prison. Because I seen too many dudes that was supposed to be the old heads running with the young boys and not giving no game. And everybody was afraid to speak truth to the young boys. When I always believe in you can’t teach what you don’t know, and you can’t lead where you don’t go. So I made sure I gave it to the youngins from the chest. If you know my work, I tell them exactly what it is, whether they like it or not.

So I knew that was my duty and that was my position from our community. And I just started giving it to them straight through the gram, straight in person. And that’s the way it happened, as soon as I came out of prison.

[APPLAUSE]

Brittany White:
Over here, name and question, please, quickly.

Audience Member:
What’s good, y’all? My name Michael. I’m from Jersey, Newark. I really like what Reform’s doing, because I feel like y’all are really tackling the system. What else you guys think you could tackle that’s a part of the system that brings Black people down? Like, what systematic issues you think, were possible to tackle?

Wallo:
The way this game go, we got to focus on tackling what we tackling right now. See, a lot of times, things go crazy, because we be octopus. We be all over the place. But Reform can’t do everything. You see what I’m saying? You might got to tap into other organizations. Reform got an area of concentration right now that they focusing on.

So we got to focus on that and get that locked in before we can jump over. It’s many issues we can talk about. Everybody got a different issue that they fighting within the community. But they’re doing something, and they’re good at what they doing. See what I’m saying? You got to know your strength and respect your weakness. Know your strength and align with your weakness. They know their strength, and they sticking to that until we get to a certain place. You dig what I’m saying? Big Rob going to make sure you get—

Brittany White:
I’ll just also say quickly, before we hear directly from the CEO to answer your question, Reform is part of a larger movement, which is the formerly incarcerated movement. And you have people in this room who are tackling different parts. To Wallo’s point, everybody has a lane.

Probation and parole is one area. And part of the problem is too many people trying to do too much, that they’re not excelling at anything. And so we want people to stay in their lane and be excellent at what they do. And other folks, like the Stacey Bordens, the Armards, the Nobles in the room, to be in their lane, doing their work, and being excellent, and that way, we can tackle the problem holistically.

Robert Rooks:
So I really appreciate the question. Reform is focused on probation and parole. But when I started the organization two years ago, Meek, myself, and Rubin were together. We were going to Virginia because a piece of legislation was just passed, and we were going for the signing ceremony. And Meek, I don’t know if you remember this question, but you raised this—OK, what happens when someone leaves the system? What else? Like, besides ending their probation, what else can we do?

And I felt charged, as I was a new CEO. I felt charged by that question. We can’t just send people back to the communities that they came from and expect, all of a sudden, things to change, unless we are a part of it. And so at Reform, what we did is we built out an economic pathways program. So we go city to city, hopefully in partnership with NBA teams, because we want this to be a big deal. And we do large-scale job fairs for people impacted by the system, for people exiting the system, to get people jobs. Right?

Because we know that jobs, housing, and supportive services is what people need when they leave. And so we want to do our part, as an extension of probation and parole reform, to get people jobs, so they can be on their way to provide for their families and their communities. So that’s an additional piece that we’re doing, in addition to probation and parole.

Brittany White:
My man right here—your name and your question, please?

Audience Member:
Yes. My name is True. Yeah, so I’m formerly incarcerated. I’ve been out about six months. I’m on life parole, just got out after serving 16 years. And I was watching a lot of what you all were doing with the Reform Alliance. And it was beautiful to see while I was in there, very encouraged. I started a storytelling project called Explanations from Exile. And what it highlights is violence, right? So two-thirds of the state prison populace nationally is incarcerated for violent crime, right?

So we talk about decarceration, and we talk about ending mass incarceration. I’m curious, what efforts, if any, that you all are dealing with to address violence at the front end of prosecution, to ensure that we’re not overcharging and oversentencing people, the vast majority of the state prison populace?

Robert Rooks:
Yeah, no, I appreciate that question. And I’ve been doing this work for 25 years. And so about 20 of those 25 was working on sentencing reform. Right? So I could talk to you about campaigns—Proposition 57 in California, I worked on—that addressed violence. But Reform is uniquely focused on probation and parole. That’s our lane. That’s what we do. And there are organizations all across this country, like the one I used to work for, that are taking on the question of violence.

Where we do weigh in on it, though, is on parole boards. Who’s on the parole boards? What’s the makeup of the parole boards? What’s the decision-making process of people on the parole boards? And how are people supported once they are on parole? So we weigh in to those conversations, and that directly speaks to the violence question.

Meek Mill:
Me, I’m working on working with all the sports teams from different—me, I’m from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I seen yesterday the Sixers just announced something that they combating gun violence in Philly. I was talking to Robert Kraft about that. We took a trip to Poland.

He just wanted me to learn about his background and things that he cared about with his culture. My background, when it was time for him to stand up for me, he ain’t just stand up for me and put his neck out on the line for a random person. Through time, he always learned about my background and everything I had going on.

So I try to use powerful resources and take people that don’t come from my background and educate them about our upbringing and get them to invest in things to try to combat violence and stuff like that in Philadelphia. Because that’s where I actually experienced it and I know about it at.

Audience Member:
Hello, I’m Sky Brooks. I’m from North Philadelphia. Hello.

[LAUGHTER]

Audience Member:
Your stories really resonated with me because it’s not unusual to hear about a cousin that’s gone away for 10 years and, like, you won’t speak to them probably again, or hear about family members that’s coming back from serving 27 years in prison. And this is very normal in the city.

I’m wondering, specifically young people in Philadelphia, how can we get involved? Because there was that moment where the Sixers was throwing the Free Meek shirts in the crowd, and we all repping our Free Meek shirts. But I wonder how can I take that a step further? How can I organize people at my old high school and people within the city, young people, to really get involved and care about this when it is so normal?

Wallo:
Just do it. See, the young people—y’all the owners of tomorrow. Y’all dictate the pace. Y’all know the technology. Y’all know how to organize. Y’all know how to put it together onto technology.

I just think it’s about just putting a team together, people that care just like you, and going to the communities that you feel as though is affected the most, and just lending a hand, being there, just being visible, and be willing to work. I don’t think you need no permission. You don’t need no permission. And sometimes you don’t even need the financing. You just need to be there, and everything comes in line when you putting in the work. See, nothing works but work. When you see the work, the finance is going to come. The support’s going to come. The celebrity backing’s going to come. All that stuff come.

But sometimes people got to just put the work in, because there’s so many people talking about some, I want to do, I want to do. But the people that do is going to get the support, and it’s going to materialize into something, and it’s going to create the change in the community, because you’re doing.

So little sister, all you got to do is give a couple of your friends to believe in it, start doing. Get some graphics done. Create a website. Get your mission statement together, and go out there and execute. And everything going to come. Because now, you have the power to put the pressures on the corporations in that community that’s making all that money, the politicians. You can put the pressure on them when you got action and you got proof of concept. But you just got to do it.

[APPLAUSE]

Brittany White:
All right. Y’all, I’m running low on time.

Audience Member:
All right. My name is A1 Mook. I’m an artist out of Boston. I just want to ask, like, Black men and women, we make it look easy when we go through our ups and downs. And I want to know what made y’all, like—y’all drive to keep going and feel like, I could make it out of wherever I go through, you know? What made you put your foot down?

Meek Mill:
I don’t really know. I can’t really tell you. I would say teachings from my mom and a drive from God. Just always in the hood, if I’m around 10 guys, I’m going to be in the top three guys that’s, like, the leaders. I’m going to be a choice maker. I was always programmed to go with your move, go what you know, no matter what. The system was like a hurdle for me. I was taught when you face hurdles, you go 10 times harder. You don’t sit back and cry about it, because crying don’t really get nothing done. You try to fix the situation. And that was just my teaching. I don’t know if I learned it from my mom or it was just a God-given talent. But my drive, I would say, always make me want to work harder when I take a loss, for say.

Brittany White:
All right. Over here.

Audience Member:
So thank you for this panel. My name is Stacy Borden. I am the executive director and founder of New Beginnings Reentry Services, formerly incarcerated woman, first Black woman to have this reentry program in our community. I’m not quite sure what the question is, but I have to say, I mean, we have a progressive DA, Rachael Rollins, in our audience. And without the hope and the strength of her hearing us, hearing the movement, hearing the pots of our incarcerated people who are serving natural life sentences, we have people, federal level, just serving marijuana sentences for life. We know that. We have women like—we brought Angie Jefferson home after 31 years—

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]

Audience Member:
—from her discriminatory practices that we’ve been doing for the past decades. I think the question is, what is your look on ending LWOP? Or do you all do the work with some of our progressive district attorneys or any of our policymakers who continue to discard us and not make the right policies?

Brittany White:
And so LWOP, for people who don’t know, is life without the possibility of parole. And I appreciate that, Stacey, because as a formerly incarcerated person, you know, oftentimes we’re addressed through hierarchy, with people who have nonviolent crimes being the most palatable for change. But many of us understand when you go behind the wall, you survive through community. If I got a sausage and you got a soup, now, we got dinner. And those are often people who don’t have a pathway home. And I feel that charge and responsibility to lift up people like my sister, Bianca Irby in the state of Alabama, who’s been put off for the possibility of parole five years maximum at least three times, and say explicitly that we have people who do not have a pathway home, who deserve to come home.

And I absolutely agree with you, as it was stated before, it’s going to take electing different decision-makers to do that. And I think having people like this caliber of panel come and continue to educate people and place a sense of urgency around this issue will be our pathway to get there. All right.

Audience Member:
Good to see you, too, Miss.

Brittany White:
All right. Let’s keep them coming quickly. Name and question, please?

Audience Member:
Yeah, I’ll be fast. What’s up, guys? I kind of know her in the middle, so I don’t got to ask her anything. I know her life. But you two guys, man, Meek and Wallo, and I know this might be far-fetched—if you guys didn’t go through what y’all go through, as you being a motivational speaker, you being the great rapper you are, if you didn’t get the—I don’t want to call it luck, either—the blessing didn’t come for you to be the rapper you are and the motivational speaker you are right now, what would you guys be doing right now, you think, in Philly?

Meek Mill:
I’d probably be dead or in jail, me myself. My environment, basically coming out of just high school in suburban areas, playing basketball and football is the thing. In our area, it’s like beating an extremely bad environment and making the right decisions. You could just make one bad decision in your whole life in an environment. I don’t know if you come from that environment.

Audience Member:
Would you say rap saved you?

Meek Mill:
Say—

Audience Member:
Would you say rap saved you? Your rap career?

Meek Mill:
Yeah, rap saved my entire life, basically. Me, I just give you my advice. I put it all on the line. I put all my energy into putting it on the line with no plan B and just ain’t look back. That actually worked for me.

Audience Member:
OK. Thank you.

Brittany White:
I appreciate that.

Meek Mill:
You’re welcome, too.

Brittany White:
OK, my last question is coming right here, and then we have to go to the close. I’m sorry, y’all.

Audience Member:
I appreciate it.

Brittany White:
Name and question.

Audience Member:
Yeah, my name is Gene. I have a question. Just based on the title, “Justice-Impacted Brilliance,” like, you guys all redefine the word “brilliance” to me. And one thing that I’m leaving this talk with is understanding that brilliance is resilience. Like, all of you guys on the panel have showed that you’ve fallen, you’ve been able to get back up. So I’m wondering, my question basically is like, how do you define brilliance? If it is resilience, or if it is another key thing, just for a young person like me and any other young person to know how to understand brilliance in another context?

Meek Mill:
Me? I call myself a hybrid. You got people that’s street smarts. You got people that’s smart in school. You got people like lawyers—what I was speaking on earlier—they know a secret language that I don’t know, you know. They’re brilliant to me in what they do, you know. But if you put me in a terrible environment, I’m brilliant in surviving. I’m brilliant in making decisions. I’m brilliant in picking a side of right.

You know, these things that I can’t tell you how I got it. I always wanted to be somebody that was—in our community, they never taught us how good being smart was. They say, get your education, but it’s many types of education. It’s not just math, science, and social studies. I stepped into education of making great decisions and making timely decisions and doing things, going to the studio 90 days straight, just to learn that talent a little bit better than the next person. So I don’t know where I got it from. I just think being smart and focusing on trying to be smart in any situation to get you through most situations.

Brittany White:
Give my brilliant panel some love, y’all.

[APPLAUSE]

Audience Member:
Appreciate it.

Brittany White:
Thank you. It is Harvard’s absolute honor to be able to welcome such brilliant experts. We thank you for educating us, for pouring out your gifts, and just for being such a beacon of hope. Please show them some love, y’all.

Meek Mill:
Thank you guys.

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]

Meek Mill:
If I can say this. Just being here on this panel with you guys—I come from a background where my life was more like that of what I was telling you guys. It was more of extreme terrible environment than this. You know, I’ve been on this side, living this life for, like, seven, eight, nine years. And things like this—coming to Harvard, having Reform being a part of foundations and giving back to my people—these are the things that helped me change. There’s no amount of money. It’s no stars or no different environments that I’ve been to. Things like this help me see the value in myself and help me become a better person. I have no plans on being a politician, a perfect person. I am a rap artist. Never forget that.

You’re never going to see me cross the boundary line. But you’re going to see me having fun, living my life. And I want to remain that and do good for my people as much as I can. So I appreciate you guys for having me here today.

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]

Heather Min:
The BornCurious podcast is brought to you by Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Ivelisse Estrada:
Thanks for joining us. You can find BornCurious wherever you listen to podcasts. And to learn more about Harvard Radcliffe Institute—

Heather Min:
Visit radcliffe.harvard.edu.

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