A Knock at Midnight(72)

Except there was no list.



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THE DAY AFTER Sharanda’s Washington Post article hit the newsstands, President Obama made history yet again by being the first sitting president of the United States to visit a federal prison. As he toured El Reno Federal Correction Institution in Oklahoma, he expressly made the case against mandatory minimum sentences and predatory drug laws, and as he peered into the nine-by-ten cells where three men lived—cells no doubt spruced up for the presidential visit—he lamented overcrowding and other inhumane prison conditions. After meeting with six men in prison for drug offenses, he told reporters, “These are young people who made mistakes that aren’t that different from the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made. There but for the grace of God.”

    Like the video issued with forty-six sentence commutations earlier that week, President Obama’s prison visit telegraphed that here, truly, was a man in whom we could place our hope and our confidence. Here was our Black prince, our savior. Those expectations may have been unfair, but I cannot say that I was immune. Perhaps he had been biding his time, building the bipartisan coalition that was now working on the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act that would, if passed, overturn many of the system failures of the era of mass incarceration. Those of us on the ground hoped he would start granting commutations monthly, weekly even, in the numbers the Department of Justice had promised.

But he didn’t. Weeks stretched to months. Sharanda’s media coverage and external support continued to swell, but in regard to clemency, the White House was utterly silent. We tried to celebrate small victories, each time the media highlighted Sharanda’s case, and of course the release of those who had received clemency from Obama in July. But in truth, the war of attrition continued to wear away at us. Sometimes it felt as if the walls were closing in.

At least I had the distraction, if you could call it that, of my day job. At the same time, as a result of the network I’d built over the years and the recent rash of publicity, I was becoming more active in the movement to change our nation’s sentencing laws. One evening in late October, I was getting ready to speak on a panel addressing the crisis of mass incarceration. Mike and his sons would be in the audience; since his release, Mike always came through to support me whenever he could. I loved seeing his huge smile light up the crowd at these events, and seeing him with both of his sons always lifted my spirits.

    My phone rang as I was getting ready, and I figured it was Mike confirming plans for dinner after the panel. But it was Clenesha’s number.

“I can’t do it, Brittany! I can’t.” Clenesha sounded terrified.

My heart leapt to my throat. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“How am I supposed to do this without my mom?”

I had no idea what she was talking about. “Do what? What are you talking about? Clenesha, slow down. Breathe.”

“I’m pregnant,” she said. Then I could hear her crying openly on the other line. I took a deep breath. I had never heard Clenesha break down this way. It was impossible to hear the level of distress in her voice and not feel the same.

“It’s okay! Everything is going to be okay. We’ll get through this.” I wanted to soothe her, to ease her pain, to greet her news with the joy a new life deserved. But like Clenesha, I was also thinking of Sharanda.

“I’m happy for a baby,” she said, fighting back sobs. “I want the baby. But I can’t do it without my mom. How can they make me do this without my mom?”

For Clenesha, Sharanda’s incarceration had been like a sudden death. The night before the guilty verdict, Sharanda had painted polka dots on Clenesha’s nails the same color as her own so that they could be “twins.” She dropped her off at school as usual, told her she’d pick her up that day after school. And that was the last time Clenesha saw her mother free. They spoke on the phone for ten minutes every single day, but the trauma of her mom’s sudden disappearance never left.

Sharanda’s spitting image, Clenesha was more introverted than her mother, but she hid her pain just as well. I had been surprised by how open she’d been in the Washington Post video. They had filmed her in the living room of her first home, holding a card Sharanda had made for her high school graduation. “It’s like everything in my life is on hold,” Clenesha had said, looking slightly away from the camera, her feline eyes wet with tears. “If I want to move to Canada or something, I can’t leave her. I can’t even have a baby if I was in love. I can’t go through a birth without my mother. That’s crazy to me.”

    Now, only a few months later, she was facing that very prospect, and her usually stoic exterior crumbled.

“Come by my house tomorrow, okay?” I said. “Let’s talk all of this out. I’m always here for you.”

“I can’t do this, Brittany. I can’t. Not by myself. Not without her.”

“Everything is going to be all right,” I said. “I promise. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Don’t worry.”

Hearing Clenesha’s voice level out a little was a relief. But not five minutes after I hung up the phone, it rang again. This time it was Sharanda, sounding equally distraught.

“Did Clenesha call you? She’s not going to make it without me, Brittany. How’s she supposed to know what she’s doing? I have to be there. I’m not gonna be there. What are we going to do?” In all my years of knowing her I had never heard Sharanda sound like this.