What I’ve Learned
Desmond Meade 54, Orlando President of Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, MacArthur Fellow AS TOLD TO SCOTT POWERS
BELIEVE IN REDEMPTION Desmond Meade was born in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, and grew up in Miami. After high school, he joined the Army. He got into drugs and was dishonorably discharged. By the mid-1990s, he was a lost young man, living with his mom, working as a cook, and smoking crack cocaine. MOM’S HOUSE My mom, she’d been a waitress for as long as I could remember. When she was thinking about getting a house, she took a second job as a housekeeper. So she would travel over to Miami Beach to be a housekeeper for some wealthy people. She did that so I could have a roof over my head. It was me and my brother. And by the time she got the house, my sister was there for a little bit. I didn’t really appreciate what it meant to my mom until she had her stroke. I went to see her in the hospital. I felt that the last thing she wanted me to see was her being in the state she was in. I saw she did take pride to know she was the champion for me, she was the protector. And then, being in that debilitated state after the stroke, I think it really hurt her. And it hurt me. When I was in the military I used to pray to God to let me die before my mother. That was one of my biggest fears. When she did pass away, exactly what I thought would happen happened: I wasn’t able to handle it. It was very painful for me. And I just dove even deeper into drugs.
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INFLUENCE Winter 2022