Before the clock even hit 4 p.m., people were scrambling to find seats and spilling out into the hallway of the Bill Bordy Theater, trying to catch a glimpse of “Massissippi.”
The film was created, directed and produced, by recent EPI alum Mac Hudson. The panel event was presented by EPI, Inthrive Film Festival, and Inquest. The intention was to record the oral histories of three formerly incarcerated Black Bostonians and chronicle their time in the Massachusetts Department of Correction.
When talking about the film, Hudson first explained the name “Massissippi.”
“It is enriched with such a historical context … We have a way of thinking of Massachusetts as very liberal … the reality of it is there is a lot of institutional racism practiced,” said Hudson “It’s the status quo every day … this is very real, it’s still happening to Black and brown folks.”
Hudson explained how many associate institutional racism, specifically with the implications of slave labor within carceral systems, with the U.S. South. However, Hudson says the same racist practices we associate with the South are just as prevalent in the North—namely, Massachusetts.
For instance, Hudson pointed toward John Boone, the first Black prison commissioner in Massachusetts, who helped combat institutional racism. The white guards who worked under him not only disobeyed him, but hurled racist insults at him and even paid off inmates to sabotage him.
“We kind of inherited that struggle [Boone] encountered, and we’re still [fighting] that struggle every day,” Hudson said.
The film follows three individuals who experienced this racism first hand and who now work to make change. The first introduced was Omar Abdur-Rahim who spent 48 years in the carceral system. He currently helps youth leaving prison reintegrate into society.
The next person featured, Stacey Borden, was in and out of prison for 30 years and now works in public service.
Lastly, Gregory Davis, who spent years in and out of prison for decades, discussed how the prison industrial system feeds off cyclical recidivism. When he began his sentence, it was intended to be five years but extended by decades due to recidivism as a result of shock and lack of support. Even if you leave, Davis says, within a couple months “you’ll be back.”
Davis added that he forged a friendship with Boone when he first began working in the prison.
“When we were alone, he became a human. A brother. Going through the same kind of racism that I was,” Davis said.
The panel, moderated by former EPI student Dwayne Cruthird, was attended by Hudson, Addur-Rahim, Davis, and Borden. All four panelists have an extensive history of community organizing, advocating against discrimination, and supporting those looking to reintegrate into society or recover from drug addiction.
“It’s time for us to take accountability and not rely on the system to hold us accountable,” Borden said. She said she recognized she had a problem and she needed care, rehabilitation, and an education.
“I get emotional when I look at the film,” Davis said. “Who’s right, who’s wrong? The system is wrong,” he finished.
The film begins with Abdur-Rahim telling the story of what he perceives was the beginning of him entering the prison-industrial complex. He used heroin at 12 years old for the first time, drugs ushered him into a life of crime, later leading him to be an accomplice for first degree murder in an armed robbery that ended fatally. He ended up at Walpole Maximum Security Prison, which announced plans to close in 2022.
He recounted the day of his sentencing, saying, “I passed my mother and when I looked at her face, my knees buckled,” Abdur-Rahim said on the day of his sentencing.
All three individuals grew up in low-income neighborhoods in Boston with little familial support and easy access to drugs. Borden lived a childhood toiled by depression, poverty, trauma, and neglect. She spiraled into drug addiction and eventually, the criminal legal system. Davis also struggled in childhood. These struggles were further complicated when the individuals ended up in the carceral system, where recidivism is high, and rehabilitation is not prioritized.
This was exemplified in the 1988 presidential election, wherein Massachusetts Gov.Michael Dukakis ran against Republican George H.W. Bush. During the election, an incarcerated individual named Willie Horton was released under a Dukakis furlough policy. He then travelled to Maryland and murdered a young boy. Abdur-Rahim recounted how this campaign undermined the initiatives of prison reform and rehabilitation Dukakis had been working towards in Massachusetts such as the furlough system.
This policy failure turned into a media frenzy that was ultimately reductive and harmful to incarcerated people at the time and long after, said Abdur-Rahim.
The result was a parole board in disarray and an unforgiving new policy for those wishing to be paroled or furloughed like Abdur-Rahim. He sought commutation for his life-with-no-parole sentence under Dukakis’ policies. His commutation was eventually denied, and after years of fighting with the parole board, from 1987 to 2020, he was finally granted medical parole following a cancer diagnosis. The fact that he was only granted parole after a Stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis, and not by merit, left him “with no words.”
Despite being told he only had 18 months to live, he sat before the EPI session’s audience five years later. This fact was met by raucous applause and tear-laden eyes in the audience.
“I’m living in the miracle of my life,” he said to the crowd.
Part of Abdur-Rahim’s journey in recovery and reintegration has been propelled by his deep faith in Islam.
Faith, whether religious or otherwise, is a central theme of “Massissippi,” according to all three panelists.
“Either you can do the time, or you can let the time do you,” Davis said. Part of this is to focus on “deconditioning the mind,” by way of helping other inmates do this, or doing this work on one’s own self.
The panel, moderated by former EPI student Dwayne Cruthird, was attended by Hudson, Addur-Rahim, Davis, and Borden. All four panelists have an extensive history of community organizing, advocating against discrimination, and being a resource of support for those looking to reintegrate into society or recover from drug addiction post-incarceration.
Davis, once freed, founded Metro Boston Alive, spreading awareness about substance abuse and giving hope to those in recovery or wishing to rehabilitate.
In the film’s closing, Borden said, “when I get out of here, I’m coming back.”
She became a licensed clinician, opened up a re-entry home in Dorchester, and now works with formerly incarcerated people, providing them resources to reintegrate into society. She focuses much of her work on re-entry for formerly incarcerated women in particular, a demographic often overlooked and undermined. She focuses her care and activism specifically on women who experienced sexual violence, like herself.
“Nobody ever talks about us,” Borden says. “We often talk about men … [women are] buried in prisons … people are trying to survive trauma … we can’t get women out as fast as we should be.”
While all four panelists have dedicated their lives to prison reform and helping others rehabilitate, they say their lived experience is not without pain.
“You gotta struggle for change,” Davis said.