"Day in and day out, Susan is always there, welcoming women returning home from prison, providing them with as much support and guidance as possible, and walking with them into the courthouse. Over and over again. Like Harriet Tubman, who famously helped to build the underground railroad for runaway slaves who yearned to be free and reunite with their loved ones, Susan has committed her life to helping those held captive today make a genuine break for freedom, attempt to rebuild their lives and families, and hopefully begin to heal from the trauma of it all.

 

I don’t think I understood the full extent of the trauma experienced by people who churn through America’s prisons until I began taking the time to listen to their stories. Research suggests that people rarely change their minds or form a new worldview based on facts or data alone; it is through stories (and the values systems embedded within them) that we come to reinterpret the world and develop empathy and compassion for others. Susan Burton’s life story—filled with trauma, struggle, and true heroism—is precisely the kind of story that has the potential to change the way we view our world. It is impossible to read her story and not feel challenged to reconsider basic assumptions about our criminal injustice system, as well as the conscious and subconscious beliefs we hold about the living, breathing human beings we, as a nation, have condemned and discarded. In today’s political environment we are constantly encouraged—through the media, politicians, and government bureaucracies—to view certain groups of people defined by race and class as undeserving of care and concern, especially the drug addicts, criminals, and so-called illegals who are trapped in prisons, detention centers, and ghettos across the United States."