A day in the life of a formerly incarcerated organizer
By Philippe “Kells” Kelly, Ella Baker Center Organizer
When you’re in prison, the state strips you of all of your agency and your dignity. You feel completely powerless. From what you eat to what you wear to when you wake up and when you sleep, to being forced to work for almost no pay — your life is no longer your own when you’re behind bars.
So it’s still a shock to me, now as an organizer with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, that I’ve gone from feeling utterly powerless to accessing a seat of power in California and speaking directly with lawmakers about legislation that will impact incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.
I felt out of place the first time I went to the State Capitol in Sacramento. My typical attire is hoodies, jeans, and Jordans, but I had to don what felt like a costume of “appropriate attire” to fit in. Now, I’m used to this code switch and show up excited and ready to go.
Walking into the State Capitol–surrounded by trees, open lawns, and often construction–you first have to go through metal detectors before walking to the lobby where you usually run into legislative staff, legislators, and policymakers heading to legislative hearings where legislators consider several bills. Getting there early is a must since the hearing rooms fill up quickly with advocates and witnesses. Once the hearing rooms are full, you have to wait in the hallway for your bill to be called before lining up to speak in support or opposition. Outside the hearing rooms, you can also hear classes of young students excited to tour the Capitol and learn about the legislative process.
For our most recent lobby days in Sacramento, we met a week ahead of time to assign our roles, run through the day, and prepare our talking points on the bills we were pushing for — the Racial Justice Act for All (AB 2065), Judicial Review of Old Sentences (SB 94), Voting Options for Incarcerated Californians Expanded (AB 544), and the Parole Hearing Language Accessibility Act (AB 2310), among others.
We arrived in Sacramento at 8:45 AM, checked in with our team, and then split up into small groups to talk to legislators and their staff.
Lobbying is dope because you get the chance to talk to the legislators who have the power to get your bills passed. For me, the most exciting part is talking to legislators who oppose our bills or are on the fence about it because that challenges me to influence them to be on our side. I have to be on top of my game, telling my own story of incarceration and connecting my story to the bill I’m lobbying for like SB 474, for instance — which was passed last year to limit canteen markups in California prisons to no more than 35% for basic necessities like toothpaste, food, deodorant, and medication.
My goal is always to build relationships with politicians to help them see the people trapped in prisons and encourage those in power to join us in imagining and creating just alternatives to confinement.
During our recent lobby day, we had breaks but we were pushing and attending meetings most of the day, engaging in as many impactful conversations with legislators as we could. Another powerful part of the day was sitting in legislative hearings. We showed our support and solidarity for bills our coalition allies were sponsoring, and when our bills were up for debate our allies also stood with us. This is a way for us to build our collective strength. There is always some opposition to bills from police who want to put more people in cages rather than help us tear down a system that locks up Black and Brown men, women, and children with no opportunities for transformation. But our stories are stronger because we speak truth to power and come from a place of hope and justice instead of prejudice and fear.
I’ve been an organizer on the outside now for almost 2 years and I was organizing on the inside for over 5 years. But I learned to be an organizer while I was still incarcerated. I went into prison for the first time when I was 15 and was shuffled between facilities for decades. At San Quentin, I co-founded and organized the San Quentin Civil Engagement group and developed inside/outside organizing opportunities for incarcerated people to impact policy. At the same time, I was preparing to go before the parole board, mentoring other incarcerated folks, and trying to survive the day-to-day humiliations of incarceration. So, I wasn’t able to fully appreciate or celebrate how much we were accomplishing. Our inside organizing was instrumental in winning two bills — SB 483 and SB 136 — which repealed inhumane laws on the books that added 3-year and 1-year “enhancements” to sentencing.
In 2023, after returning home, I became an Outside Policy Fellow with the Ella Baker Center’s Inside Outside Policy Fellowship, a transformative program that normalizes working with currently incarcerated and formerly incarcerated organizers in movement spaces and paying these organizers for their labor. We know that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution.
In prison, there are so many different people from different backgrounds forced together under very stressful and dehumanizing conditions. I had to learn to meet people where they were instead of where I thought they should be. Being honest and authentic, I learned, is the best way to relate to people who come from different places and have different life experiences than you. I still use the skills I learned behind bars when I talk to legislators today.
My focus now is on justice for incarcerated youth. You have kids going into the system like I did at 14 or 15 and spending the rest of their teen years and much of their adult lives behind bars. We always aim to get people out of prison because we know prison doesn’t work. So we formed a coalition to free our children from prison because, at the time I was incarcerated, nothing like that existed.
Transformation does work. Liberation and empowerment work.
Locking people up and beating down and oppressing people who are already beaten down and oppressed is never going to work. But transformation does work. Liberation and empowerment work. I’ve taken the horrible experience of being incarcerated and transformed into an organizer. I want others to have the same opportunity. I want to bring young folks into this work and share everything that’s been given to me. I’ve learned from those who came before me, and now it’s time for the next generation to step up and carry the torch. Young people will have to keep this movement going.
Just like incarcerated people should lead the movement to transform the system that puts us behind bars instead of giving us opportunities, young people should have the agency to lead the youth justice movement against juvenile incarceration.
If you’re reading this now, I hope you can join us in this fight for liberation for all our people.
