Derrick Washington
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Derrick Washington is the founder of the Emancipation Initiative movement (EI), which provides a platform for activism inside prisons and in the larger civilian community to advocate for human rights of Massachusetts State prisoners. The Emancipation Initiative advocates for policy change on Life Without Parole sentences and prisoner suffrage through the Mass POWER movement. In 2020, Washington also authored a chapter in My Body Was Left on the Street. Washington grew up in Cleveland, OH, where systemic inequality and racism marginalized his community and presented barriers to employment and the ubiquitous presence of drugs in his community, eventually resulting in law enforcement arresting his mother. Throughout his incarceration, Washington has noticed strong parallels between American slavery and his treatment as an incarcerated person. Washington too, has experienced the pain of incarcerated people’s “unnatural separation” (Washington, 288) from their family members, wrongful indictment without evidence for crimes, and most of all, the negativity and brutality of prison life, especially from the cruelty of correctional officers. Washington has a son and family from whom he was separated at his imprisonment, not long after his son was born. Despite these painful circumstances, Washington has implemented strong self-discipline in order to make sense of these painful experiences and work to change them for the better. Every day, Washington sets self-education goals for himself through reading and exercise. He also has participated in prison education programs, most notably the Empowering Song class with Professor André de Quadros. Both Washington’s self-discipline and positive educational experiences allow him to stay focused on achieving his activism through letter writing correspondences, internal organization, and community outreach. At the time of this writing, Washington is incarcerated in a Massachusetts maximum security prison. A message from Derrick: |
