The Guiding Rage Into Power Institute held their annual graduation in San Quentin’s Chapel B.
The Institute acknowledged three Tribal cohorts, which totaled 76 incarcerated people becoming life long peacemakers.
SQ resident Max Robinson acknowledged the opportunity of being able to express his personal gratefulness for the GRIP program.
“No matter what color, what culture or diversity, we are turning prison into a culture of love and compassion,” said Robinson. “The person who learns passes it on to the next person.”
Ross asked survivor Lindsey V. to speak to the audience. She said, in 2019 she was at the end of her rope, explaining to the audience she was attacked in front of her children.
Someone told her about the GRIP program, and she wanted to be a partner in the healing process. She told the crowd what “her and the men in the program did for each other was indescribable.”
Teddie Honey, the program’s director, told the crowd that in a tenyear span GRIP has helped 1,500 incarcerated people across 7 prisons; 750 of them have been found suitable for parole.
In the next part of the ceremony, the right of passage in becoming a peacemaker took place. Residents, guests and family members lined up on both sides of the Chapel’s aisle forming a makeshift tunnel.
All 76 of the graduates walked through the tunnel.
