No one who knows Ernest Morgan is surprised that he’s making a successful life in the free world. After all, during 24 years of incarceration – 13 in San Quentin — he founded and co-founded several self-help groups and participated in just about every other one.
“I knew adjusting would be tough, but it was tougher,” he said surrounded by his father, Ernest Morgan VII, and youngest brother, Lance, on a houseboat near where his father lives in Sausalito. (The younger Ernest is actually Ernest the eighth.)
Two years after being released from prison Morgan, 44, is finishing a degree in business management at San Francisco State University, working four jobs and quite happy with his life, appreciating even the smallest of freedoms.
“I told him it was not going to be easy,” said the senior Morgan. “You have to take time to readjust. Don’t expect to walk through the gate and everything will be easy. But, don’t get discouraged.”
“And he was right,” admitted his son. “It’s been great, but it hasn’t been a breeze. It was like having to start all over. You have to change the way you communicate from the way you communicated in prison. You can’t talk that way out here. You have to learn what to keep and what to let go of and relearn about the world you came from.
“The transition was hard. I was a new person, not the little boy I was when I went in, but it could have been a lot worse if I had not had family support.”
Being united with his family is a blessing, he said, causing him to walk a straight line.
In addition to attending school full time, he works part time for the Sausalito Cruising Club, the Prison University Project and Alliance for Change and as a lift driver. When he completes his degree, he hopes to go into business with Lance and his other brother, Louis.
After he was convicted of second-degree murder in 1998, he spent a few negative years at Pelican Bay Prison. His next stop was the Richard Donovan Correctional Facility, where he started participating in programs. He was transferred to San Quentin in 1998.
While in San Quentin, Morgan co-founded TRUST and Alliance for Change, was a facilitator and leader in SQUIRES and VOEG and participated in just about every self-help program San Quentin offers. He has no doubt that the programs helped him turn his life around and are what allows him to have a happy and successful life today.
Along with another parolee and co-founder of Alliance for Change, David Cowan, Morgan attended the 2012 Alliance for Change graduation. Whenever he can, he likes to spread the message to men coming out of prison: “Don’t be afraid to share your story when you come out. Share your insight gained from the time spent in prison. You might save younger men and women from getting into trouble – and maybe a few older people, too.”
To those still incarcerated he advises: take all of the self-help programs available to you.
Lance, who was born after his brother was incarcerated, says, “Anyone who spends time with my big brother becomes a better person.”
