Bicycles and the winter vacation season have at all times been tied up collectively for me. They converse to like, freedom and the lack of it, disgrace — and revolutionary acts of philanthropy by previously incarcerated folks.
My earliest Christmas reminiscence stars a deep purple bike with a banana seat and cruiser-style handlebars. It was 1960, and I used to be 9 years previous. The bike was too wonderful for wrapping, towering over the opposite presents that sat lumpy and small beneath the shiny artificial tree. Any individual had bent the entrance wheel’s chrome forks down, giving it a low-rider slope that made me really feel like slightly man earlier than I even took the factor for a spin.
That bike meant so much, given how arduous my dad and mom had been working to do proper by me and my seven siblings. Practically 5 years earlier they’d moved us from a housing challenge in South San Francisco to a house in Belle Haven. This neighborhood on the peninsula was a part of the rising suburb of Menlo Park, but it surely certain as hell didn’t really feel prefer it. As a result of proper after the Nunn household moved in, the neighborhood turned from White to Black, virtually in a single day.
Actual property salesmen whispered within the ears of White owners {that a} “Negro” invasion was coming, in order that they higher promote instantly. In the meantime, the candy, zero-down cost offers they supplied to Black households like mine appeared too good to be true. And so they have been. These loans blew up when balloon funds got here due. By December 1960, we have been on our third home within the neighborhood. My father was working two jobs, scratching his manner ahead looking for the American dream. When us youngsters bought slightly older, my mom would be part of him within the low-wage workforce — caring for White youngsters and cleansing White properties.
The freeway hemmed Belle Haven in from the wealthy White neighborhoods to the west, turning our neighborhood into an invisible cage. However that Christmas I felt free. I had my first bike! I rode it with delight, popping wheelies only a few blocks from our home. That feeling lasted six days, ending once I heard a police siren behind me. Two cops bought out. The large one picked up the bike to search for a serial quantity. “It’s stolen,” he stated, not even taking a look at me. Then he tossed it within the trunk they usually have been gone.
On the gradual stroll dwelling, I puzzled it out. Perhaps my father or certainly one of my brothers had stolen it. Perhaps they’d purchased it from somebody who had. One factor I knew for certain: The bike wasn’t mine anymore. I used to be a Black child, and that made me a suspect. That shit feeling marked the start of my rage in opposition to legislation enforcement. And it performed on repeat. In my invisible cage, there was no presumption of innocence.
I had my subsequent memorable encounter with legislation enforcement two years later. There was one pedestrian bridge that crossed the Bayshore Freeway, and that’s the route I walked with my childhood finest good friend, Nate Harrington, to get to the park the place we performed our Little League baseball video games.
Sooner or later we have been crossing the extensive garden of an elementary college after we noticed a hunk of steel winking at us within the daylight. We pitched some rocks at it, baseball type. Then we took it with us, a cool chunk of junk.
We made it one block earlier than these sirens pulsed once more. My supposed crime this time: stealing public property. That piece of steel turned out to be a sprinkler. As a substitute of taking us to the station, the officers introduced us dwelling and let our fathers do the beating.
Nate and I have been so upset, we devised a fucked-up plan to run away that relied on the liberty solely a motorbike can present to a child. By this time, we every had one to name our personal, so we rode with out wanting again. About 14 miles to the north, we hunkered down in a public toilet, shivering within the chilly fog. We didn’t final lengthy after that.
Inside the invisible cage the place we grew up, it was the police, not college lecturers, who have been molding our future. They have been treating us like thugs after we have been simply being boys. The extra they outlined me and my pals as suspects and criminals who didn’t belong — even in our personal neighborhoods — the extra we accepted the id they imposed on us. We grew to become what they advised us we have been.
I stole a whole lot of bikes from the esteemed establishment of Stanford College, which was so shut however so out of attain for something aside from thieving. I pulled off some high-quality burglaries on that aspect of city, too. That’s as lofty as my notion of Black brilliance bought again then. Medication sophisticated the image — first weed after which heroin when it got here flooding in after the weed provide dried up.
I used to be 19 years previous once I took half in a theft that left the shop proprietor useless. Once I advised my father I wouldn’t snitch and quit the shooter, I noticed him weep for the primary time.
Once I entered the state jail system in early 1972 with a life sentence, I had a son and a daughter with two totally different moms. My youngsters wanted a father, however I hadn’t even began shaving but. There can be no household Christmas for me for a few years to come back.
I served my first two years in Deuel Vocational Establishment, a jail east of the Bay Space that was so violent within the Nineteen Seventies it was often known as Gladiator College. I bumped into loads of pals and acquaintances there, however what shocked me most was to listen to Nate — who was quiet and good — name out my identify. As a result of our faculties in Belle Haven had changed into the Black model of “Lord of the Flies,” I used to be barely literate. It was Nate who taught me methods to learn inside my new cage made from concrete and metal. He taught me methods to cause and methods to dream. I spent a whole lot of time within the gap, principally for allying myself with any Black revolutionary brother who might feed my mind. The guards would stoke racial tensions among the many principally Black, Mexican and White inhabitants, stand again as we beat and shanked one another, then lob tear gasoline and hearth bullets into the shitstorm they’d created.
After Gladiator College, I spent seven years at a spot that proved much more violent — San Quentin State Jail. Survival required me to sacrifice my humanity in methods I might spend many years processing and deeply regretting. However I used to be lucky to have my godsister Shirl Miles and my pen pal Kathy Labriola in my nook. They visited usually, providing me friendship and softness and serving to me protect a skinny thread of a lifeline to my interior self. They allowed me to replicate, and the winter vacation season was at all times important.
As I grew into my manhood, I acknowledged my father’s private sacrifice. His absence from my Little League and Pop Warner video games stung as a result of I wished to shine for him. However bouncing from cell to cell, I got here to know that his absence stemmed from the truth that he was working his ass off to maintain the lease paid and meals on the desk.
This realization turned the highlight again on me. I knew my duty was to deal with my very own youngsters and supply for them. Each Christmas was a reminder that I had failed in that duty.
I engaged in some dangerous hustles so I might cross some money to my mom through the holidays — to ensure my little woman had one thing she might name a present from her daddy. My son must wait. His mother and I have been on the outs once I was locked up.
The day I walked out the gates of San Quentin on parole — Oct. 22, 1981 — my plan was to eat a Winchell’s donut, drink a Henry Weinhard’s beer, smoke some weed and discover a candy sister to snuggle up with.
As a substitute, I wore holes in my prison-issued Naugahyde footwear looking for my son since I’d misplaced contact together with his mom. When I discovered him two days later, I had $10 in my pocket. I gave him $9. It was the least I might do after so a few years of absence and failed duty, and it wasn’t close to sufficient.
Since I bought out of jail, I’ve by no means held a job that wasn’t devoted to bettering the situations for human beings dwelling in and popping out of cages. I labored for half a dozen years as a paralegal for the nonprofit Jail Legislation Workplace, sitting face-to-face with brothers on dying row, recognizing how simply I might have been certainly one of them.
The trauma proved to be an excessive amount of. I gave in to crack habit within the late Nineteen Eighties. However I bought clear and helped construct Free At Final, a drug program in my neighborhood to assist repair the mess I helped make. Then, with a yr of sobriety beneath my belt, I used to be privileged to go to work for Authorized Providers for Prisoners with Kids, ultimately turning into the longtime govt director of the Oakland-based nonprofit. Collectively, we helped carry an finish to the shackling of incarcerated pregnant girls and to indefinite long-term solitary confinement in California prisons.
In 2003, a handful of different previously incarcerated folks had come on board as workers. In informal conferences, all of us agreed: We have been sick of others talking for us, utilizing our private expertise as garnish for his or her coverage work, nonetheless well-meaning. So a bunch of us bought collectively for a marathon planning session and created All of Us or None, a grassroots motion of previously incarcerated folks demanding restoration of our full civil and human rights — in our personal voices.
With our Ban the Field marketing campaign, we’ve efficiently pushed for legal guidelines and measures throughout the nation that remove questions on prison historical past from job purposes. Now we have additionally labored to re-enfranchise voters in jail or on felony parole to allow them to train their citizenship, sit on juries and affect our governance. Regardless of all these accomplishments, certainly one of issues I’m most pleased with is giving bicycles to youngsters with incarcerated dad and mom through the winter holidays.
The Large Bike Giveaway began small. In 1999, a prisoner inside San Quentin who’d been repairing used bikes let me know a brand new cargo had are available.
On the time, a number of the males I’d practiced political training with in jail had been gathering to determine methods to do good. We referred to as ourselves “Timers,” and our crew included neighborhood activist Robert Moody and former Black Panthers Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt and Arthur “Tha” League.
In 2000, the Timers bought with San Quentin officers and requested for the bikes so we might give them to youngsters whose dad and mom have been incarcerated. We targeted on a housing challenge in West Oakland, surveying the place to see what number of adults have been lacking as a result of they have been locked behind bars. Their youngsters have been the primary to get bikes, and we let the kids know the items have been from their dad and mom.
San Quentin helped steer bikes in our route for a number of years, however we knew we had an issue when the assistant warden requested me to inform the youngsters the bikes got here courtesy of the jail. For them, it was a clean PR transfer. For me, it was a nonstarter. As Addie Kitchen, a correctional officer I’d recognized for the reason that ’70s, walked me out, I stated, “These youngsters don’t must know that San Quentin loves them. I’m gonna inform them that their dad and mom love them.”
So, we parted methods with San Quentin and began scraping collectively the cash on our personal, lining up at midnight earlier than Black Friday gross sales with money burning holes in our pockets. By this time, All of Us or None was a rising motion. A few of us who gathered at these early conferences had been out of jail for months or weeks, even days. Others for many years. However we’d nonetheless ask everybody in attendance to surrender $50 to purchase a motorbike. Even chickenshit individuals who would promote you a loosie would attain of their pockets to make a donation. Others would say, “Hey, I can’t provide you with $50, can I assist put the bicycles collectively?” The reply was at all times sure.
Finally we modified the identify of the Large Bike Giveaway to the Neighborhood Giveback to emphasise how we have been collectively collaborating in philanthropy. The act of giving again isn’t one thing solely wealthy folks do.
12 months after yr, I’ve stood at microphones and requested a rising crew of volunteers, “What number of of y’all have stolen a motorbike?” Loads of arms go up. “Effectively,” I shout, “now’s your likelihood to present one again!”
Within the crowd are women and men who, like me, sat of their cells feeling inadequacy and disgrace of their failed duty. Doing proper for different folks’s kids helps fill the outlet.
As members of All of Us or None grew to become higher organizers, we additionally grew to become higher fundraisers. A military of previously incarcerated volunteers nonetheless distributes the bikes at our Neighborhood Giveaways, however we elevate the cash to get them from exterior donors. We purchase the bikes in bulk, together with a helmet for every baby.
The second Saturday of each December, we throw up an enormous tent, gentle up the barbecues and switch up the music. There’s face portray for the youngsters and items to pamper the moms and grandmothers. Artwork provides are arrange at a separate desk so youngsters could make thank-you playing cards for his or her family members inside. As a result of, as we inform them, these bikes are from them.
Lately we’re reaching out to the chaplains inside prisons — together with girls’s services — to ensure we get the phrase out. They supply purposes to anybody who has a child who wants a bicycle and may make it to the festivities. At our 2022 giveaway, a 9-year-old named Paris arrived together with her grandmother. Her daddy had been locked up since she was 2, and her grandmother advised me that belief between them was uncooked and delicate. I bought to see Paris’ eyes go extensive as her dad referred to as from California State Jail, Sacramento, and advised her, “I purchased you a motorbike. That’s why you’re there, to select your bike!” Listening to that little woman converse to her father, I knew I had hit the ball the appropriate manner.
This Dec. 14 marked our twenty fifth annual Neighborhood Giveback. We raised sufficient cash to present away 280 bicycles. And we did one thing slightly totally different. We despatched these bikes into San Quentin so prisoners there might assist put them collectively. We wished them to style a little bit of the enjoyment that comes with giving again.
I’m 73 now and semi-retired. Many individuals my age have been getting out of jail with nowhere to land the place they’re handled with dignity. Authorized Providers for Prisoners with Kids is constructing a house for a few of them within the unused parsonage of a West Oakland church, however too many are dying earlier than the factor is even executed.
As for the practically 20 million of us on the surface marked by felony convictions, too many are nonetheless thought-about suspects in our personal neighborhoods. Revolution is a gradual course of, and there have been setbacks. We maintain pushing. Within the meantime, we’ll be giving freely bikes within the identify of these nonetheless locked inside, knitting our communities again collectively.
Dorsey Nunn not too long ago retired as the chief director of Authorized Providers for Prisoners with Kids. His e book, “What Form of Chook Can’t Fly: A Memoir of Resilience and Resurrection,” was printed in April 2024 by Heyday Books. Co-authored by longtime journalist Lee Romney, it tracks Nunn’s private {and professional} story from boyhood to incarceration within the revolutionary Nineteen Seventies, the tough-on-crime jail explosion of the ’80s and ’90s, and the creation of All of Us or None, a nationwide motion of previously incarcerated folks demanding restoration of their full civil and human rights.
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