Conscious Prisoner

Please show solidarity with the following campaigns by signing their petitions:

Help free incarcerated survivor Shirtorya Christian: https://chng.it/JBgQ2HfRRS

Help free incarcerated survivor Maddesyn George: https://www.change.org/p/freedom-for-incarcerated-survivor-maddesyn-george/

Help free Chrystul Kizer: https://www.change.org/p/drop-all-charges-against-incarcerated-trafficking-survivor-chrystul-kizer

I am currently prioritizing this petition to close several correctional centers in Virginia due to extreme heat conditions.

This is a support site for Uhuru B. Rowe, a prisoner in Virginia. Read this post below, and this post, to learn more about him and the system that has kept him in prison for over 27 years and counting. Uhuru has been granted a commutation of sentence and will be released in a few years. You can keep up-to-date on his campaign for clemency and struggle for liberation through the Justice for Uhuru instagram page and twitter.

There are several things you can do to support Uhuru. One of them is simply write him a letter. Prison is a lonely place and just knowing that you have people who are simply thinking of you can help.

You can email Uhuru at this email address: uhururowe76@gmail.com
You can support others sentenced by the judge who sentenced Uhuru by signing the change.org petition in support of creating a commission to review their sentences.

Quick facts:

Years incarcerated: 30 years, 10 months
Year released: 2025
Preferred pronouns: he/him
Gender/Sexuality: Cis het
Born and raised: Richmond, VA
Education: Diploma in Paralegal Studies from Stratford Career Institute (2022)
Favorite quote: “If you are deaf, dumb, and blind to what’s happening in the world, you’re under no obligation to do anything. But if you know what’s happening and you don’t do anything but sit on your ass, then you’re nothing but a punk.” — by Assata Shakur

Who Am I? My brief life story

Who am I? In order for you to know who I am, I’ll have to share with you who I was in the past so you can understand who I am in the present and who I hope to be in the future.

I was born and raised in the city of Richmond, Virginia, a city that was once the murder capital of the U.$. in the mid 1990s. I was the typical black youth born into a working class poor family that consisted of both parents and six siblings. I was the baby of the family. I was happy, playful, a practical jokester, and full of life.

My family had its ups and downs like any other black family trying to eke out an existence amid the residual effects of slavery and under the knee of anti-black racism. Before long, my happiness turned into sadness and my sadness eventually turned into depression and anger.

After the onset of mental illness in my mid teens due to a myriad of childhood traumas mostly resulting from abuse and rejection from my father, I became angry, suicidal, depressed, withdrawn and retreated into my own little world where I felt safe from harm and betrayal. This led to me being bullied in school because I appeared weak and “different.” Without knowledge of healthy coping mechanisms, I self-harmed, lashed out, and engaged in petty crime in my neighborhood.

Though my mother tried as best she could to raise me in the proper manner, I slowly adopted the stereotypical young black male image of “thug” and “gangster” which was made easy by the dearth of positive black male role models in my community and reinforced by racist portrayals of black men in corporate media and Hollywood movies.

By the time I was 17 years of age, I had been arrested several times, was committed to two inpatient adolescent treatment hospitals, dropped out of school in the 9th grade, and embraced the so-called “street life” full-time.

As my mental health and substance use issues increased, my propensity for committing more serious crimes increased which culminated on a fateful day in January 1995 when I participated in a robbery that regrettably resulted in two people being killed. Neither my life, nor the lives of the families of the victims, would ever be the same.

I was arrested and charged with six felonies, including robbery and two counts of murder. I accepted a blind plea to all six felonies and was sentenced to a total of 93 years without the possibility of parole. [Update: On January 14, 2022, former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam commuted (reduced) my sentence the day before he left office, changing the year I will be released from 2076 to 2025]

At barely 18 years old, I was thrown into an unpredictable and predatory penitentiary culture where I was confronted with three options: I could remain who I was, I could descend deeper into madness, or I could evolve into the New Man that the incomparable George Jackson often spoke of. After a long process of self-reflection, self-criticism, self-healing, self-care, self-discovery, trial and error and political education, I eventually chose the latter.

At the beginning I asked the rhetorical question, who am I. If you ask those who believe people are incapable of change, undeserving of second chances, and that a person’s worst decision should define them for the rest of their lives, they will undoubtedly tell you I am a thug, gangster, murderer, a threat to society or, to use Hillary Clinton’s description of young black boys, “a super predator that needed to brought to heal.”

But if you ask those who believe that people have the capacity to learn, grow, evolve, transcend hardships and impact lives against unspeakable odds, they will emphatically tell you I am a mentor, a role model, an inspiration, and an agent of change.

uhuru-graduation

“The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”

About Uhuru / Uhuru in his own words

Writings From Uhuru

Finally Free and Still Writing: A New Chapter of Conscious Prisoner

22 things I want for Christmas