TOKENS PODCAST: S4E10
On August 7th, 2019, Cyntoia Brown Long was released from the Tennessee Prison for Women, 13 years after she had been sentenced to life without parole for the murder of a man to whom she had been sex-trafficked. On this special episode, taped in front of a live audience at the Rabbit Room’s Northwind Manor, Cyntoia tells her story: an uncensored account of the great personal and systemic brokenness which led to her imprisonment, and the dramatic, at times hard-to-believe nature of the grace and providence which led to her coming-to-faith and ultimate release.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Cyntoia Brown-Long is an author, speaker, and advocate for criminal justice reform and victims of trafficking.
Cyntoia had a difficult start in life. She was born to an alcoholic, teenage mother who was a victim of sex trafficking. Cyntoia experienced a sense of isolation, low self-esteem, and alienation that drove her straight into the hands of a predator. Cyntoia was trafficked during her early teenage years and, at the age of 16, was arrested for killing a man who solicited her for sex. She was tried as an adult and was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole for 51 years. Her trafficker was never arrested. In prison, Cyntoia’s life took a dramatic turn when the prison education principal took her under her wing and introduced her to a spiritual path. She encouraged her to build a positive life in prison and to resist the negative influences that lead to despair.
Cyntoia’s journey was a roller coaster ride that included a documentary about her life, a profound encounter with God, an unlikely romance, and, eventually, a commuted sentence by Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam. She received unprecedented national and international support from social media advocates, pastors, and celebrities and was released from prison in Nashville, TN, on August 7, 2019.
Her memoir, Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System (Atria Books), written while in prison, documents her early years and the 15 years she was incarcerated and takes readers on a coming-of-age spiritual journey. Set against the shocking backdrop of a life behind bars and the injustice of sentencing sex-trafficked juveniles as adults, Cyntoia struggled to overcome a legacy of birth-family addiction and a lifetime of being ostracized and abandoned by society. Of her time in prison, Cyntoia says, “I was just a teenager when I was sent to live behind a razor-wire fence. My entire coming of age was within the walls of the Tennessee Prison for Women.” She is a 2020 Nominee for the NCAAP Literary Image Award and has been featured as a guest columnist for the Washington Post.
Cyntoia hopes her story will not only inspire others but also shine a light on the injustice that people still face on a daily basis, especially the injustice to women and children in American prisons. She, with her husband, Jaime, is the founder of the Foundation for Justice, Freedom, and Mercy. In January of 2020 the Vera Institute of Justice recognized Cyntoia as one of the Best of Justice Reform honorees. As a thought leader for legislative and societal reform, Cyntoia is available to speak to a wide variety of organizations.
ABOUT TOKENS SHOW & LEE C. CAMP
Tokens began in 2008. Our philosophical and theological variety shows and events hosted throughout the Nashville area imagine a world governed by hospitality, graciousness and joy; life marked by beauty, wonder and truthfulness; and social conditions ordered by justice, mercy and peace-making. We exhibit tokens of such a world in music-making, song-singing, and conversations about things that matter. We have fun, and we make fun: of religion, politics, and marketing. And ourselves. You might think of us as something like musicians without borders; or as poets, philosophers, theologians and humorists transgressing borders.
Lee is an Alabamian by birth, a Tennessean by choice, and has sojourned joyfully in Indiana, Texas, and Nairobi. He likes to think of himself as a radical conservative, or an orthodox liberal; loves teaching college and seminary students at Lipscomb University; delights in flying sailplanes; finds dark chocolate covered almonds with turbinado sea salt to be one of the finest confections of the human species; and gives great thanks for his lovely wife Laura, his three sons, and an abundance of family and friends, here in Music City and beyond. Besides teaching full-time, he hosts Nashville’s Tokens Show, and has authored three books. Lee has an Undergrad Degree in computer science (Lipscomb University, 1989); M.A. in theology and M.Div. (Abilene Christian University, 1993); M.A. and Ph.D. both in Christian Ethics (University of Notre Dame, 1999).
JOIN TOKENS ON SOCIALS:
YOUTUBE
FACEBOOK
INSTAGRAM
JOIN LEE C. CAMP ON SOCIALS:
FACEBOOK
INSTAGRAM
LEE C. CAMP WEBSITE
TRANSCRIPT
Lee: This is Tokens. I'm Lee C. Camp.
At 3:20 AM on August 7th, 2019, Cyntoia Brown was released from the Tennessee Prison for Women. She had been sentenced to 51 years without parole, for the murder of a man to whom she had been sex-trafficked. Be advised: her story is graphic, and we encourage listener discretion.
Cyntoia: So, you know that night started, you know, I was there in the hotel room. And when I woke up, went out and I started walking towards the Sonic, which is right next door.
And this man comes in his white Ford F150 and he asked if I wanted a ride. We went back to his houseand the whole time I just wanted to get out of there. He started showing off his guns to me, but I felt like I couldn't just walk out the front door, so I shot him.
Lee: This episode was taped in front of a live audience at Northwind Manor, a beautiful home base for our friends at the Rabbit Room. Coming up, we'll hear from Cyntoia about her experience as a victim of sex-trafficking, her stints in juvenile detention, her life in prison, and the coming to faith and hope which ultimately lead to her release and current work to combat the issues to which she herself fell victim.
All this, in just a moment.
INTERVIEW
Lee: Welcome, Cyntoia. Delightful to have you here tonight.
Cyntoia: Thank you. It's good to be here.
Lee: So I liked that, your first meal out of prison was ravioli.
Cyntoia: Ravioli.
Lee: Yeah.
Cyntoia: Chef Boyardee.
Lee: Why Chef Boyardee ravioli? How did that come to pass?
Cyntoia: I think when you've been away from things for so long, you kind of forget, like they're not as good as you probably think in your memory. Um, but I just remember when I was a kid I loved it. And so I was like, man, I want some ravioli. That's what I want. And my husband was like, are you sure? It's like, yeah.
Lee: Other surprises just about daily life? Since you were in prison for 15 years from the time you were 16, I would imagine things have changed a bit since you, uh, got out.
Cyntoia: Yes. Everything has changed. A lot of surprises, just like random things that you would probably never twice about. I think it's amazing that you could just like tap your phone on something and then pay for something, like that just blows my mind. I know the toilets I was telling you back stage about. When I came home, I was freaking out. I was like, oh, Jamie, we've got fancy toilets because we've got the buttons on the top. And he was like, babe, every toilet is like that now. I was like, oh, okay. So just everything that's changed is like different and every single day there's something new that just blows my mind.
Lee: Yeah. One of the things I was repeatedly impressed upon me, as I read your book was the degree of vulnerability that you exhibited in the writing of this book and your courage in doing that. And to start tonight I just wanted to thank you and honor the fact that not only in the writing of the book, but in doing something like this that you're exhibiting an immense amount of courage and that I wanted to honor, and let you know explicitly, I really appreciate that. And thankful. Yeah. Thank you for that.
As a, as an elementary school student, you were identified as gifted and you were put in the, uh, academically superior students program in your elementary school, I think maybe second grade, perhaps. And yet during those same years, beginning to struggle with a sense of belonging.
Cyntoia: Right.
Lee: And you talk about how this, uh, the story of being in a production of Tom Sawyer and the whitewashed fence, and you're curtsying to the applause at the end. And you hear a boy say something that seemed to be very significant moment for you. So what do you, what do you remember in that moment?
Cyntoia: So, in that moment, like, I was already struggling, like you said, with feeling like I didn't belong with my identity.
Um, in kindergarten I found out that I was mixed. I didn't really know what that meant. And not only that I was mixed, but then I was adopted. Back in that time you didn't see a lot of kids that were, you know, biracial, you were, you were Black or you were White, that was pretty much it where I grew up. So I struggled with that for many years. And then at this play, one of the kids had said look at that dirty white girl. And it was like, wow. Like here I am. I’m feeling proud of myself going through this play and once again I'm running into that.
So like that, that was difficult. And so it’s like, you know what? You don't want be my friends. I don't want you. I don't want you as friends. As a matter of fact, I don't want any friends. I don't need friends. I'm fine by myself.
Um, and so I just really just started to push other kids away and I felt more safe that way, like being to myself. Um, but really it was just, that was angry at everything. And then, you know, I would start to have more of an attitude, um, with other kids and with the teachers. And obviously brought on more problems and even more labels.
Lee: More problems, more labels. What does some of that begin to look like for you?
Cyntoia: So in the classroom I told my teacher that I didn't want to work in groups, you know, that was me having a bad attitude. That was me not wanting to work on a team, but really it was me not feeling like I belonged there, not feeling that, you know, I was comfortable in that setting because the kids didn't treat me like I was one of their peers.
In class when I didn't necessarily want help from the teacher, then, you know, like that was an issue. Again, I was one of the bad kids and I just didn't want to do what I was supposed to do. When I finally did want to participate, if I spoke out an answer, then I was disruptive because I didn't raise my hand.
So I felt like there was always something and, you know, any little thing that I did resulted in me getting punished or me getting sent to the principal's office. It was just an excuse to really just push me further and further away from the classroom.
Lee: Then in time you began to get crosswise with the juvenile system. What does that begin to look like for you?
Cyntoia: So it started out again, so many trips sent to the principal's office for all of these little things. Then there was one incident where I actually brought something called NoDoz to class, which is a caffeine pill. You can get it at Walmart. But I had brought it for show and tell, and it was treated as drugs.
So I got kicked out of school under the no tolerance policy for having drugs. And because I was kicked out of public school, I had to go to an alternative school. And an alternative school is a place where they send kids who have been kicked out, kids who are on probation, kids who have gone to facilities, juvenile detention facilities, um, kids who are in state custody. And being in that environment, I started skipping school with them, um, started to things that they were doing. And I found myself in a court room being sent to juvenile detention when I was just 12 years old.
Lee: So you get sent to juvenile detention at 12, and then you're kind of in and out of several facilities, right? As you look back on those two, three years, what strikes you about what stands out to you as, I know, as I read the book, I just thought the system seems so broken. And even when you have good people working in a broken system, you know, the system can just have so much power over people caught up in that system. But as you look back, is that fair to say that the system seems broken or what?
Cyntoia: I think it's more than fair to say.
Lee: Yeah. What are some particulars of that, in your experience?
Cyntoia: First and foremost, I should have never been in state custody and going to all of those facilities. When I went before the judge the first time, there was never even a question asked. I never got the opportunity to talk about what had happened, um, before they had decided to send me to a facility for evaluation.
And when I went to court, because I didn't have someone to pick me up and take me home, my father, he was a truck driver. He was away. My mother couldn't leave school right then because she was a teacher. They put me in state custody and that's why I had to go to all those facilities. That should have never happened. When you're in custody, you have a case manager. Ideally this person should be connecting you with resources in that community, trying to find ways to help you be successful.
That’s not what they do. Um, they have basically this spread sheet that they look at to see where you fall under their different classifications to determine where they want to place you, where they're going to put you.
If it's a problem with you going there, they'll just find you somewhere else. It's basically them just warehousing you. So that's, that's a start. Uh, they don't really listen. They don’t really listen to what it is that you're, that you're going through. They're not really trying to help you. They're just trying to do whatever is in the policy that they have to do for you while you're in there.
Lee: Yeah. And I, and as you tell the stories there, I watched the ways in which that, you would get angry. And, and I would think and I'm, as I'm reading, I'm thinking I'd be, I'd be ticked to be put in that situation. And as a, as a 13 or 14 year old is going to do anyway, right? You find yourself acting out of anger in various ways, and then the consequences just keep ramping up. Um, it was kind of like a no win sort of situation it seemed like as, uh, as the situation unfolded.
Cyntoia: Right.
Lee: Then it gets even heavier and darker with, at one point you had decided to run away from one of the facilities, right?
Cyntoia: So, you know, not just the problems with the actual people who work there at the facilities who work there for DCS. But being there with the other kids is rough. You have a lot of kids in this situation, we're all dealing with this anger, we're all in this situation.
And, you know, we're kind of taking it out on each other every single day. You know, you're having to fight somebody, in addition to fighting with the staff. They're trying to figure out, you know, like just how to make it day to day. Finding some peace is pretty much impossible. So I just wanted to run away. I wanted to leave the facility.
And the opportunity came about and I did. I left and I started staying on the streets here in Nashville and got in touch with some people who were much older than me that did not treat me as a 13 year old girl.
Lee: Things continue to kind of begin to devolve pretty quickly into much darker, much more difficult season of your life.
Cyntoia: Well, I mean if you can imagine, you know, being a kid on the streets, everyone who is out here, you don't have your parents taking care of you. You have to survive somehow.
Um, if you can't go get a job, um, if you can't get any kind of assistance from the government, what are you gonna do? You're going to do whatever you can, whatever opportunities are placed before you. Um, at that time it was, you know, stealing as part of a, a small boosting ring. It was meeting up with different guys.
I, uh, the women that I was staying with, they taught me how to have conversations with different men, how to go on dates with men and get money from them. And, you know, in my mind I was being taught that this is how relationships work.
Lee: And you were like 14 or 15 at this time?
Cyntoia: Yes. By the time that I was 16, it was so engrained in my mind that this was normal. When a man came along, that was older than me, I looked at him like he was my boyfriend. I thought we were in a relationship. Um, I didn't think of it as trafficking, but that's exactly what it was.
Lee: Again, with any of these questions, you feel free to, we can move on, but, um, I think you're so vulnerable in the telling some of those stories. And I think, I think what happens in listening to your narrative is, um, the tragedy and the drama that you're having to deal with as a very young person.
Would you tell this story, this shocking, once I got to the end of the story, I was just shocked about this fellow who, um, who takes you and, um, for a couple of days. And, uh, are you okay telling that story?
Cyntoia: Oh, I am. Um, that was actually the man that I was selling drugs for. And he had called meover. He came to pick me up. He called me up to pick me up to take me out of town with him to go pick up some drugs, or at least that's what he told me. And instead, he took me to a hotel room out on West End and said that he had to get some things before we got to the bus station. Um, told me to come on in, be just a few minutes, asked me if I wanted something to drink. He poured me a drink. I had that drink and I didn't remember much of the next few days. There were just flashes in my mind. And at some point I kinda just came to and realized what was happening. And it turns out that was three days later. And he kept me there and had raped me repeatedly in that room for three days.
Lee: So then, you meet the, the young man that you mentioned a moment ago. His name was his name was Cut, short for…
Cyntoia: Yes. Short for cut throat.
Lee: Yeah. And you, you describe it as a sort of genuine falling in love, it was a teenage falling in love, right?
Cyntoia: Yeah.
Lee: As, as you look back on kind of falling in love with him, what, what was it about him that you think prompted this falling in love?
Cyntoia: Well you know, one of things is, you know, all throughout my life, I had never felt like I was seen. I had never felt like I was heard, I never felt like I mattered. And that was constantly being reinforced by the school, by my peers, by the court systems, by the people in the facilities. And here was this man who, when we were together, I could go on and on talking about everything that I wanted to. I can talk all about myself, and he seemed so interested in knowing everything about me, knowing everything that I liked, everything I didn't like. Um, my dreams, my goals. And I had never had that. And I took that as him caring about me. Really, he was learning how to manipulate me, but I wouldn't realize that until much later. Um, but it felt like the love that I had always wanted. And pretty soon. And I mean, pretty soon after a few days, it was, we were staying together in a hotel all the time. Um, and I thought it was just because he was that into me and he loved me that much.
Lee: And then with that relationship, you recount that, you know, the, the pictures I have in my mind from your book. Rather quickly, you've got guns involved with him, waving guns around, 40 caliber, around in your face, a lot um, increasing levels of verbal abuse, and even, um, a no clothes policy?
Cyntoia: Yes.
Lee: Which was, I suppose, I mean, I made up, as I read, this was, uh, uh, yet again, a kind of another form of control, right?
Cyntoia: Oh, absolutely. This was, you know, like I said in the beginning, of course he was sweet, he was kind, he was everything. And, you know, I felt like this was the love I always wanted. And so when it started with these conversations where he just started telling me things about myself, that he didn't like about me. I felt like I had done something wrong or there was something with me that I needed to fix. Those turned into lectures. And those lectures started, you know, just him pacing aroundthe room, telling me what a horrible person that I was and, you know, how no one would ever want me, but he wanted me because he likes people that, that other people may not necessarily want. So that's okay. Then telling me what I needed to do, how I needed to go out and get money for the two of us. Then he started waving the gun around, but it was kind of just a gradual kind of thing. But throughthe whole process, I felt like it was something because, that I had done something wrong.
And if I went out and I made enough money or I did well enough, then I could get us back on the right track.
Lee: Yeah.
Cyntoia: And we could get back to the place where we were so in love in the beginning, but.
Lee: Yeah.
August 6th, 2004. Uh, you go out. You and Cut have had this difficult exchange, the difficult moment. Again, the expectation that you, you provide somehow, financially, and…
Cyntoia: Yeah, I was being lazy, he said.
Lee: Yeah, so you go out across the street from the Sonic or close to the Sonic. And you, you get picked up. You say, you say in the book, everything that happened at his house plays in my memory, like a movie out of order.
Cyntoia: You know that night started, you know, I was there in the hotel room again with no clothes because I wasn't allowed to wear clothes. And we had been at the hotel for a few days. And, you know, he said that I was getting lazy because I hadn't went out and got any money for the past few days, which just as a side note, I had never thought that this was going to be something that I had to constantly do. He told me in the beginning that if I could get enough money, that he could actually take that and invest it and he would use it, you know, to sell drugs. We would live this perfect life, happily ever after. Um, and in my mind at that time, I thought that that was ideal. Like, okay, I can do this a few times. So here he was telling me that I had been getting lazy and I needed to go out and I needed to get money so we could get another hotel room for the week.
So, that night we had got into it, and he had choked me. And when I woke up, I went out and I started walking towards the Sonic, which was right next door.
And this man comes in this white Ford F150 and he asked if I wanted a ride. And you know, at first I told him yes, because I was going to head out to East Nashville. And when I got in the car he asked was I was hungry. I said, yes, I’m hungry. And I remember when I was walking to that point, it was another one of those times where I was just done. Like, I was just at my bottom like, I'm so sick of this. I didn't feel this was what I had signed up for. Like, I'm done. And I decided to take a chance, like maybe this nice white man will actually help me. He's, you know, asking me if hungry, things like that.Let me just tell him what I'm going through. And I told him. I told him that I was up here from the summer from school. And I was staying when in his hotel room that’s constantly fighting on me, constantly making me go out and sell my body. And I was crying when he had met me. So I'm thinking maybe he's going to help me, but instead he just looks at me and he says, so are you up for any action?
And I remember that moment. I just like, like, is this, is this it? Like this, this is what it is. This is my life. Like, this is all there is. So I told him, yeah, sure. Of course he haggled me over the price. We went back to his house after he stopped at the ATM to get the money. There was a small moment that he actually talked about Christ to me, which you know, I often think about, because he said that he was a Sunday school teacher. But there was nothing about that interaction that felt Christ-like, um, nothing about it.
And the whole time I just wanted to get out of there. He started showing off his guns to me, but I felt like I couldn't just walk out the front door. There was never any kind of like outward threats, but you kind of just felt it. You felt like, you know, this is not a safe situation. This is not a safe person. But I kept trying for, I think maybe two hours I was in that house with him, trying to figure out a way to sneak out of there, trying to get out of there. Wasn't able to. So I thought, well, maybe if I ask him if I could rest for a few minutes. If I could just get a little bit of sleep, he’ll fall asleep. He’d already been drinking and I could just sneak out. So that’s what I tried to do, but obviously it didn't work.
There was one point when I felt that he had turned over and was reaching for something. So I shot him with a gun Cut had given me. And after that I went back to Cut.
Lee: What were those next couple of hours like?
Cyntoia: Um, it was, it was crazy. I don't think I processed in my mind, like what had really happened. I remember, like when I was leaving out of the house, I felt like for some reason he was asleep because I could hear the sounds that his body was making, which is like, that's just what happens. It sounded like snoring. It was like, so did he just fall asleep? Like I just shot that gun and he just fell asleep?
And I left and I was thinking, I don't know what happened. I said, I think I heard someone when I went back to the hotel room with Cut. And he was like, what do you mean? I said, I, I think I just shot somebody.
I thought, I think I just killed somebody.
Lee: And, you know, he told me to wipe the truck down and he told me to take it to the Walmart parking lot and park it. And so that's what I did. And I kept on like that entire night. I didn't even, I didn't even hardly sleep. And I was like, is this person okay? Like what just happened? Like whatreally just happened right now? So I would watch the TV, the news to see if anything happened, if there was any reports, like, am I tripping? Like what's really going on?
Lee: In time you're arrested. You're um, time to have a hearing and there's, um, there's a picture of youin an orange jumpsuit, two pigtails.
And that's, your hearing, I think, where they're deciding whether to try you as an adult, right? What's going through your mind at that point, of, and the consequences obviously of being tried as an adult, as a 16 year old what's kind of going through your mind? What are you thinking? What are you experiencing during that, that time?
Cyntoia: Uh, that was, well first of all, when I was first arrested, I really didn't understand, like, again, I didn't understand the gravity of the situation. I really didn't. When the detectives had picked me upthey told me, you know, if you talk to us, it’ll be the difference between nine years and 99 years.
Just tell us what happened.
And, you know, my father, he raised me. He was in the military, he always talked to me about self-defense and I felt like what I had done was justified.
And I didn’t have any problem talking to the officers about it. I said sure, I'll tell you what happened. I'll tell you everything that happened.
Um, but then when I met with my attorneys and she explained to me that I could be tried as an adult, which would mean I would get life in prison, um, which is 51 years in the State of Tennessee.
It just, I mean, it's like somebody just snatched the earth from underneath me. Um, I couldn't believe it. There was a two month waiting period before I actually had that hearing. And at the hearing where you saw me with the orange jumpsuit in the pigtails, that's when I had the chance to really talk to the judge and tell everything that happened. And I, I thought it went well. I thought, you know, surely the hearing went well. You know, I've been praying every single day. I remember reading that if I pray, anything I asked is going to be given to me. So this is, this is not going to happen. I’m not going to be tried as an adult. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life in prison. But two weeks go by after thehearing. And I was given the news that, yeah. I was being transferred and I was going to be tried as an adult.
Lee: Five-day trial, I think it was?
Cyntoia: I think so, yeah.
Lee: Um, what memories of the trial for you?
Cyntoia: Oh, stressful, um, horrible outfits. Cause obviously I couldn't pick out my clothes. Um, um, just, it was really horrible. I remember the first day that we had trial like, it really just hit me like how overwhelming it was. And so I was sitting there like, well, during jury selection and I was like crying. Cause I was thinking these people are going to decide my fate and I may do life in prison and they may be the ones that put me there.
And the DA in my case, I don’t know what his deal was, but like, from the very beginning, like he just had this disdain for me. Um, and it was almost like personal, like not like what a DA, like I understand the DA's not supposed to be your friend. The DA is not supposed to want to set you free. Like I get that, but there was something else, like something underlying that.
And so during the break for that first day, I know my attorney had taken me back and she said that, you know, he was saying things about oh she’s crying now, don’t cry now. And I was like, okay, I won't cry anymore. You won't see another tear fall from my eye. And from that moment like that, I just sat there stone faced through the whole five days as you know they were debating everything. They were saying, all these things that, that they just knew happened. And you know, inside I’m screaming, like, that’s not what happened. Like you weren't there, like that's not how that happened, but it's like, you can't say anything, like you don't have a voice in that moment.
You told your attorney everything, but like, they’re not defending you the way that you would defend yourself. Obviously there's reason for that. In the courtroom you have decorum and things like that, but it's just in that moment, you don’t feel that. You're just like help me, like tell them what really happened.
So it was really hard to sit through all of that. And then to finally have them come back through and, you know, not look you in your face, because they did find you guilty.
Lee: They announce you’re guilty and you're sentenced to 51 years in prison.
Cyntoia: Yeah. On the spot I was sentenced. I think it, I don't even know it was so quick that it happened, but it felt like hours that I was sitting there. We stood up as the jury came in and I felt like I knew in that moment when they didn't look at me, and there was one guy, the one black guy, he, he kind of like just looked off, and just shook his head.
And I was like, they found me guilty. I knew in that moment. And so then whenever they went through, they announced it and everything, and everyone got pulled, the jury got pulled and like, it was just final.
We were told to stand up for them to leave out. Obviously I did not stand up for those people. Then the judge, he said you're sentenced to life in prison right there on the spot.
Lee: We're going to take a break for intermission. Before we do, I want to thank you again for your sharing and your honesty and vulnerability. Let's give a little, thanks for Cyntoia, and then we'll be back.
You're listening to Tokens: public theology, human flourishing, and the good life. We’re most grateful to have you joining us.
If you've not yet done so, subscribe today to the Tokens podcast on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
We do love hearing from you, and are always pleased to hear some of the things you'd like to hear more about. You can email us at podcast@tokensshow.com. Also remember you can sign up for our email list, or find out how to join us for a live event, all at tokensshow.com.
This is our interview with Cyntoia Brown Long. Coming up, we'll continue to hear her tell stories, heartbreaking and hopeful, of her time in prison, her release, her coming to faith, and her efforts to raise awareness and bring help and healing to trafficking victims.
Part two in just a moment.
HALFWAY POINT
Lee: Welcome back to Tokens and our interview with Cyntoia Brown Long, taped before a live audience.
One piece of your storytelling that, another recurring piece that, I found so lovely was in the midst of all the pain and amidst of the drama and the tragedy you pointed to episodes of people that were kind in the midst of all that. There was a Miss Diane, there was a big oh and Tim D. There was a Sergeant Henry and there was, your mother, of course.
There was another that you mentioned, quite a few times, who's here tonight and we welcome Ms. Seabrooks. Please welcome Ms. Seabrooks.
But if you think back, uh, reflecting upon kindness in the midst of all that trauma, any, any particular pictures or stories that come to mind with us?
Cyntoia: Definitely, Ms. Seabrooks. She was the very first person to take a chance on me. She was the first person to give me an opportunity after so many years of just nothing and being made to feel like I was nothing, you know, she believed in me. And she helped me to believe in myself. Um, she gave me a chance to enroll in the Lipscomb program with Dr. Kate and Dr. Goode here, and it just completely changed everything. I had been so broken down, like over the years, like I had literally no self-esteem, and, you know, just these people not just showing me kindness, but you know, showing me things about myself that I never knew. Um, it really helped to put those pieces back together, and become a person that, you know, I was proud of that I had, I have never. I've never been able to say that I had been proud of myself.
Lee: I know before I got to spend some time at Tennessee Prison for Women on a number of occasions. I had no conception of what anything about prison life was like at all, even from an outsider's perspective but when you go in as a 16-year old you're immediately put in solitary confinement, because of your age. So for two years in solitary confinement, but describe what that just so people can kind of have a sense of what that even means or looks like.
Cyntoia: Well, I don't know if any of you have gone into the bathroom since you've been here, but that bathroom in there was bigger than the cell that I was kept in for 23 hours a day. I was kept in that cell. And some days if they remembered to come let me out, I would come out for an hour a day. That doesn't mean I just got to come out and roam around. It means that they came to my cell and there was a, a square in the door in the metal door and they would open that flap. They would handcuff me and then I would go kneel on my bed. They would shackle me and I got to come out there with handcuffs and shackles. They would transport me to the shower if I wanted to shower. Um, take the shackles off and the handcuffs off while I went in the shower, lock me in there, and then handcuff and shackle me on the way out. So, I had to use the phone with handcuffs and shackles. Um, if I just wanted to sit at the table, I was handcuffed and shackled, um, for an hour a day. But other than that, I was kept in a box in a room and pretty much the only human interaction that I would have was when the guard was bringing me my food tray.
Lee: Early on, even though you had kind of intended to make good choices going in, you began to make some bad choices and you have a chapter entitled “Self-destruction,” about making a lot of those bad choices early in your prison experience.
But at the very end of that chapter, you say your, I think it's your closing sentence. I didn't know how close I was to meeting the people who would save my life. And then you go on to talk about some of these mutual friends, Kate Watkins, and Richard Goode and others, who, uh, Richard starting the Lipscomb LIFE program years ago.
And then Kate directing that for a number of years. And I think it'd be nice if we recognize you all here. Thank you all for being here tonight.
Uh, but, but then you get invited into that program. So what, what's that experience like for you? What, what does that mean to you in your unfolding story?
Cyntoia: Well, if you can, if you imagine what prison is like, like all the horrible things that you could possibly imagine, it's all of that, right? It's a very negative place, very dark place. It's a spiritually darkplace.
And you don't really have a chance to do anything. Like you could sit at the table and play cards and argue with people all day. That's pretty much your only options. Um, if they do provide educational opportunities, it's because people like Ms. Seabrooks has fought to bring them into the prison and it's because people like Dr. Goode and Dr. Kate are fighting to come in. And so they finally were successful. They got to come in. And someone like me who has to live in that environment, that dark environment, finally gets to come. And these people are bringing light, right? And it was just incredible. Like, I would look forward to that one night a week where I could feel normal, where I could feel like a human, where I could feel valued, where I could feel worthy, where I could feel like I mattered. And it was just incredible for all of the women that were in that program.
Lee: Let me go back to a little bit more question about prison life just a second, because I think, again, there's a lot of things I suspect a lot of folks may not know. You have a job?
Cyntoia: Right.
Lee: But your wages are?
Cyntoia: If you are lucky, you'll have a job where you can make 50 cents an hour. But other than that you'll make 17 cents an hour. You'll work your way up to 34 cents an hour. And then you'll top out. Um, after 42 cents you’ll top out at 50 cents. So there's four different phases. And then most people, within your first few years, you're going to get a paper in the mail saying that the State of Tennessee is going to take half of that.
So, in about a month, you'll make $10 and 40 cents a month that you have to survive off. Um, if you're making 17 cents if you're lucky enough to make 50 cents then you'll live off of $25 a month. Um, and that has to buy your soap, it has to buy your deodorant. It has to buy your lotion, your feminine products, every single thing that you need. Um, and for those of us who do the shopping in the house, you know that that does not cut it. Um, so it's really difficult. And sometimes you have to resort to things, um, like doing other people's hair, like a lot of people resort to doing illegal things, but they're just trying to survive because it's very hard.
Lee: Yeah. In time, then you meet esteemed lawyer here in town, Charles Bone. And, uh, this began the process of, uh, your case coming up for a hearing. And in that case, your childhood kind of experiences began to be examined and the roles they might've played in your experience? What gets played out in, in that setting?
Cyntoia: So I was, I think it was like 20, 21, 22. When I started looking at the documentary. The first documentary that was filmed about me, it was played on PBS called Me Facing Life.
And in that documentary, they had interviewed my biological mother who said that she drank a fifth of whiskey every single day while she was pregnant with me. So Mr. Bone, who is, you know, a very prominent attorney, he's not a criminal attorney, but he does know some. And so he reached out to some of his friends to look at my case. And one of the things that one of them had said was, I'm pretty sure that affected her negatively. I think we should look further into that. Um, so they hired some experts out of their own pocket for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and have them evaluate me and do a brain scan. I was actually working for Ms. Seabrooks at that time, and they did this brain scan on me. And they came back and they said that I had fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, specifically, alcohol-related neurological disorder. And the way that they kind of had said it like was really, it was really traumatic because I found that out in a courtroom in a hearing um, with these experts sitting on this panel calling me mentally retarded.
And that just completely devastated me, because everyone who's in here who knows me from Lipscomb knows that I pride myself on, you know, my intelligence because I've worked hard for it. I study hard. Like I completely commit myself to it. And that was one of the big building blocks to my self-esteem, where I had put myself back together after being broken down for so long. So to be told that, you know, that was a farce that, you know, there was something wrong. They literally used the word mildly retarded. I was like, whoa, what? And I remember just going to Ms. Seabrooks’s office. And I just broke down and cried and she was like, honey, there's nothing wrong with you.
Lee: Shortly thereafter, the kind of the public narrative around your case begins to change, right? So originally it’s teen prostitute commits murder, but then at some point the narrative changes. So can, can you kind of narrate the way that narrative changes?
Cyntoia: Yes. So after the documentary had aired on PBS, I started to get like a lot of letters from different people. This was back in 2010, I think.
And along with that documentary came some press coverage, just, you know, not, not anything crazy, but just a bit. And the tone was really changing. Um, so people were looking at my case just a little bit more. When you go through the justice system, they don't really look at things like that.
And then if you go back to my trial, I didn't get a chance to talk about certain things, even during that time. If I was to talk about these things, they didn't consider girls like me trafficking victims. They called me teen prostitute.
But you know, times changed. And so things started to change, like the conversations we were having in the community started to change, and that was being reflected in the media um, reports on me.
Lee: And the federal definition of trafficking means necessarily anyone engaged in any way related to sex with minors is trafficking now, is that, is that how that works?
Cyntoia: Absolutely. So anyone under the Age of 18. Um, if you are soliciting someone under the age of 18, if you are encouraging someone under the age of 18 to have sex in exchange for money in exchange for goods, you're violating the trafficking act.
Lee: In a TED Talk that you've done, you've talked about how, I think you said maybe 90% of sex trafficking cases is not necessarily enslavement or kidnapping of a person, but is much more related to psychological power and psychological holds over young people, right?
Cyntoia: Absolutely. And that's, that's what you're going to see when you go out and you actually talk with the girls in the community who are victims of sex trafficking. Um, they have stories like mine where, you know, no, this is my boyfriend. So a lot of those girls, you know, they get mislabeled.
They get called, you know, prostitutes. They get said that, you know, this is something that they're doing all on their own. They're not entitled to services and they're not victims, but they most definitely are.
Lee: Throughout the book, you encounter God in various ways and you, you recount your experiences with God, by and large being a question of doubt, right? You know, this prayer very early on don't let me be tried as an adult, but you're tried as an adult. And then you find yourself in 51 years, sentenced to the 51 years in prison and the, difficulties and the travails.
And so this questioning about God, but you began in time to soften. I, and I must say, you know, one of the, one of the travails of academics and academics who do theology is, uh, our rationalism. And so, so I, you know, your Memphis stories are wild.
Cyntoia: Yes.
Lee: So would you share some of those about kind of what begins to open you up to the possibility that God is somehow involved in your story?
Cyntoia: Absolutely. So, you know, I first started questioning, you know, after I had spent all that time praying and I think like the last time that I really just spent time praying is right after I was convicted. And you know, I just begged God. I said, man, if you let me out of here, I will, I will tell the world about you. I'll do anything. Just please don't let me do life in prison. Um, and then that's really, after that point, when it started to set in, that I was serving a life sentence. It's like I started to be so angry and I was so disappointed, but instead of acknowledging that I was angry and that I felt disappointed, I said, I didn't believe in him. Um, so for several years I went through this and then I went down to Memphis and I had an experience. I remember that I went down to take a nap and I started to wake up because I heard someone tell my roommate to wake me up because we were getting puppies there at the prison. Um, and there used to be a dog program at the prison where they train dogs, but it had been shut down months before, and they weren't coming back. There were going to be no more dogs, but I heard them tell her, to wake me up cause puppies were coming. And so she came in the room right after I heard that and she said nothing to me. And I said, Deanna, were you not going to tell me what they said? And she said, no one said anything Cyntoia. I said, I heard them tell you to wake me up because we were getting puppies.
And she said, no, honey, no one said that, you need to go back to sleep. I said, really? So you're just not going to give me the message? And so I got down off my buck, I'm upset because she's not telling me that we're getting puppies and I go out to the table. And the voices that I heard are sitting there at the table. and I asked them, I said, did you just tell my roommate to wake me up because, we're getting puppies today? And they laughed in my face. They said, no, honey, go back to bed. You were dreaming. I said, I was not dreaming. I know I heard you say, wakes Cyntoia up, we're getting puppies. But I went back, I laid down anyway. Went back to sleep, and next thing I know they're waking me up with a puppy. They got puppies. Um, and so it freaked me out a little bit, and I was like, whoa. Okay. Well. So I went to sleep a few days later, had another dream. This time I had a dream that I saw a dog that was white with black spots and it had like a knot on its head and a pink, pink spot on its tail.
And I was like, well, that's a funny looking dog, no way that's going to come true. But I told them anyway, because I'm like, I need to tell them these dreams ahead of time or else they'll think I'm lying when I say, oh, I dreamed that. And so I told them and they was like, well, that's weird. And then a couple days later, sure enough, we got Luke. Luke was a bird dog. He was white with black spots. He had a knot on his head cause he's a hound. And then there was a pink spot on his tail from where he would beat it up against the wall and the pound. And so by this point I was getting really scared. And then I would have…
Lee: What are you going to dream next?
Cyntoia: Right. And not what really like where is this coming from? What is happening? Because I couldn't explain that away. How I would explain to, you know, Dr. Cade and Ms. Seabrooks, when Ms. Seabrooks told me I would never get out of prison until I came to Jesus. Like, he's gonna let me out when I come to him. And I said, well, that's not the way the law works any I've studied. Yeah. Trust me. I was like, I'm going to get out when my appeal gets handled and my attorneys are going to get it done. Don't worry. But, you know, I, I couldn't explain these dreams like that. So I was really struggling, like, okay, well, I'll say that there's something I'll admit that there has to be something, but I'm just gonna call it this energy.
I'm just going to call it the universe. That's what I'll do. Um, because again, I was angry at God, even though I wasn't admitting that it was really anger, but that's when I really started to open up and say, okay, I'll admit that it's something. um, but again, it would take me much more searching, much more work on that area, before I actually acknowledged who it really was.
Lee: And then, um, you began through this time soon, either before or after that to, to fall in love?
Cyntoia: Yes.
Lee: To Jamie. Yeah. How does Jamie come into your life?
Cyntoia: So I had gone through all my pills, because again, like, you know, that's how things were going to work. I was going to win my appeal. Only that's not how it worked. My very last appeal was denied and I was just sitting there and now it's finally sinking in that, okay. I may actually do life in prison. So I get this letter at mail call one day. And it really stuck out to me because the, edges of the letter were burned. So I was like, huh, that's interesting. And I read this letter and this man from Texas, is telling me, you know, God wants me to prepare myself because I'm about to get out of prison. I'm like, okay. Yeah, sure. And he says, people all across the world, He's going to put you on their hearts, and they're going to begin praying for your release. And then at the bottom of it, he signed it free Cyntoia hashtags 2017. I still have the letter. And I wrote him back just because, you know, the edges were burned. Something was telling me to write him back. And then honestly, because he was, really freaking cute. Um, yes. And you know, he writes me back and he starts telling me, you know, about his own faith. And it got to the point, you know, where I was so vulnerable with him. Like, I opened up about, you know, my thoughts on what I believed. And, you know, if you ask him now he was thinking, oh, Lord, what I done got into with this heathen, because like, I would argue with him, butsomething about his own walk and his own faith. And then he had similar experiences. He had had, you know, dreams that were coming true. He had actually had experiences where he heard the voice of God. Um, and he could point me to places in the Bible where that happened. And it's like, well, this is the only explanation. So I had to really force myself to admit it. And he's the one that pointed out to me. He said it's not that you don't believe it's that you're angry. Then when he talked to me about Jesus. And I said, yeah, I know I hear about Jesus every single week at Lipscomb, like I got it. I get it. I know. He was like, no, but have you read? Like, do you know? And so I actually started reading the gospel for myself, instead of what I would hear other people say. So I kind of just tossed that to the side and started getting to know myself and it's like, wow, like, wait a minute. Like, he is for me. This is my friend. Like, this is someone who loves me, he believes in me and everything that he stood for. Like, I believe in that, like, that's what I'm about to.
And so Jamie taught me what it was like to actually have a relationship, instead of just, you know, going through the whole religion thing where I feel like this is a genie in a bottle. If I, if I pray and ask for certain things, it's going to be given to me. He explained to me the concept of how, you know, my will is not God's will. And, you know, just because I think things should be done in a certain way, that doesn't mean that's how God's going to do them. When I told them that the root of my anger was that I felt like he let me down when I prayed that I not be given life in prison. He said, what, makes you think you're doing life in prison? What, what made you think that? How do you know he's not getting you out? And I said, well, because my last appeal was denied. He said, that's what man said, but God says you're getting out. And he brought it to my attention that the way things were working out, once I started that relationship with him, was that he was going to free me, but he only did it in a way that I could serve to glorify him through my freedom. And that my freedom would help to free other people.
And so, yeah, ever since then, I've just been head over heels in love, not just with my husband, but with God, most importantly.
Lee: Through very small odds, uh, ended up having a clemency hearing before the parole board. It's a two to two vote. Two for you two, I think, against you into saying, give you a 25 years. And then you're waiting for the governor. And then finally, how do you learn that you get clemency?
Cyntoia: So I'll tell you. I knew in my heart, because, you know, God told my husband to write that letter and said I was getting out. And so for many months like that, what you just described took place over the course of several months.
Lee: And he even moved to Tennessee from Texas, not knowing…
Cyntoia: Okay, so I'll go back.
Lee: …his, his knowing that you were going to get out.
Cyntoia: Yeah. So I'll go back. So I'll start from when we filed the application, right? So all that stuff happened online with the hashtag, like I said. This was in November, but my husband had said that in January, something else that had happened prophetically, that was just like, wow, I can't deny this. So all of that happened November, 2017, but months are going by and there's nothing. There’s silence. We filed my application in December and we heard nothing, nothing from the governor's office, nothing from the parole board, nothing from the prison, nothing at all. So literally the only voice that was telling us that it was going to get granted was God. And so in February we got word from our minister that was counseling us, uh, pastor Tim. And he said, you're going to get a date in March that's, I don't know what the date is, but it's going to put you closer to bringing, coming home. It's gonna, it’s March and it's gonna bring you home. And so every single day in March, we were waiting, we were claiming, okay, yes, we're going to get out. We're going to get a date, something, I don't know if it's a release date or what, but something in March and on the very last day of March is when we actually got word that we were getting a date for the hearing. And less than 1% of people who file clemency applications in the state of Tennessee ever get a hearing. So that in itself was miraculous. So we have this hearing and like you said, they voted. Two for me to do 15 years, two for me to do 25 years, and two of them said they don't feel like I should get out at all. So all that is just a recommendation for the governor. He's the one that has to make that decision. So during that whole time, we're still praying. We're still praying. We're not hearing anything. That happened in May, May of 2018. We heard nothing. And you know, we just kept believing what God said. Then my attorneys were coming back saying, well, it's likely that he's going to say you could probably get out after 30 years. So just prepare yourself and odds are, he's not going to say you can walk out now. And my attorney thought that I was crazy because by this time I was fired up and I said, oh honey, I rebuke that in the name of Jesus. He said, I'm walking out of here and I'm walking out of here.
Uh, and so like, I was just like on fire at this time. And, you know, we kept believing it, me and Jamie did. And months would go by, and then finally he felt the holy spirit telling him, you know, to get ready, cause you're going to go get your wife. You're going to pick up your wife.
And it didn't matter what the lawyers had said, he heard what God said. And so he started, he said before he knew it, he was pulling pictures off the wall in his condo and he sold his car, like his dream car he had a Bentley. He worked in music. He worked very hard. Sold that car, sold all his furniture. I didn't know a thing about it until I called him that night on the phone. And he told me that he was making his pallet on the floor and I was like, pallet on the floor? Why are you on the floor? And, you know, he told me he got rid of everything cause he's moving. God told him to move to Tennessee and get his wife. And, I understood like having faith cause I'd had a lot of faith, but in that moment I just started crying, like, wait a minute. Wait, what? Why would you do that?
Because you don't really know anything. And he he rebuked me. He said, I know what God said. And I was like, okay. All right. So this is what we're doing. So November of 2018, he packed up, he came up here on a whim. And January 7th, I was told that I was getting out of prison. My attorneys came through and they said, you're getting out in August.
Lee: Wow. We've got to close, but tell us briefly about the advocacy work you're doing now.
Cyntoia: Um, so he and I actually started a nonprofit called The JFAM Foundation. The Foundation for Justice, Freedom and Mercy. And one of our projects, we actually have over here pins for the glitter project, which was actually a program that I started in a Lipscomb class. It's the grassroots learning initiative on teen trafficking, exploitation and rape.
Um, and that's actually to tell other young kids what trafficking really is. With me, I was trafficked because I didn't understand what it was. I didn't understand what was happening to me was wrong, that it was a violation. And I never would have never would have thought that, you know, it would have happened to a girl like me, but other kids need to know about it.
Um, they also need to know like what can happen if you make some of these choices that people around you are telling you that you should make. And so right now, we're going into facilities to youth facilities, we're talking to the girls about trafficking, um, and actually we're helping them to develop and to mentors themselves.
Um, we plan on putting together a curriculum together with the girls, the youth, youth empowerment specialists that we can actually put out to other kids and facilities other kids in schools and things of that nature. And the pins over here, are our youth sex trafficking awareness pins.
We're working to get January designated as youth sex trafficking awareness month.
So anyone who buys a pin tonight, or if you don't want to do it tonight, if you want to do it online, www.jfamfoundation.org. It'll also benefit the youth empowerment specialist and the glitter project.
Lee: I want to thank you again for the, your, your courage and your honoring us through your vulnerability and your sharing of your story tonight. Let's show one more thanks to Cyntoia Brown, author of Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System.
Lee Camp: You've been listening to Tokens: public theology, human flourishing, the good life.
Interested in helping create more stories like Cyntoia Brown's? Become a financial supporter of Lipscomb University's LIFE program, an initiative that brings transformative higher education to students in the Tennessee Prison System. Since 2007 the LIFE program enables incarcerated students like Cyntoia to earn associates, bachelors, and masters degrees. For more information visit www.tokensshow.com/life
If you would like to hear more about the American prison system, then check out our season 3 episode on the case of Pervis Payne, an inmate for 30 years on Tennessee's death row. And also check out our Season 1 interview with former Governor Bill Haslam, in which we discussed some of the substantial problems with the criminal justice system.
Got feedback? We'd love to hear from you. Email us text or attach a voice memo, and send to the address podcast@tokensshow.com. Or holler at me online on social media at LeeCCamp.
Our thanks to all the stellar team that makes this podcast possible. Executive producer and manager, Christie Bragg of Bragg Management. Co-producer Jacob Lewis of Great Feeling Studios. Associate producers Ashley Bayne, Leslie Thompson, Tom Anderson, and Brad Perry. Engineer Cariad Harmon. Music beds by Zach and Maggie White and Blue Dot Sessions. Live sound recording by Jeremy Bayne.
And special thanks to the folks at the Rabbit Room for the use of the beautiful Northwind Manor.
Thanks for listening, and peace be unto thee.
The Tokens podcast is a production of Tokens Media, LLC and Great Feeling Studios.
LEARN MORE