Starting Monday, June 17th, Ebenezer Baptist Church, kicked off their two day Ending Mass Incarceration Conference. Lead by Pastor Raphael Warnock, the conference includes record expungement clinics, panel discussions and a strategy sessions. The platform is used to give people in the community a first-hand look at what it is to be incarcerated.
This conference has gotten the attention of celebrities all over the country, including Chris Tucker and Atlanta’s very own rapper T.I. Ebenezer said T.I. will be participating in helping to bail out of jail dozens of poor and working-class citizens in the Atlanta area.
Ever since Ava Duvernay’s When They See Us series debuted on Netflix, it has been sparking a movement that should have begun a very long time ago. The Central Park Five a.k.a the Exonerated Five will also be joining forces with T.I. Yusef Salaam released a statement to The Root, emphasizing on how important the conference is to prison reform.
“This conference is very important in ending mass incarceration and the systemic issues around black and brown people. Since the film, When They See Us, has come out, a lot is being done to expose the trauma of being black in America; of being stigmatized in America, and I want to use my platform to expose the ugly reality, especially as it pertains to young people, so that there will never again be a Central Park Five, there will never again be a Kalief Browder, and we finally change this system for good.”
