By George Morris
The Advocate
Despite its personal significance — the date he walked out of prison eight years ago — Ashanti Witherspoon let June 18 pass without much fanfare.
“I just say a prayer of thanks to God that I was allowed to be released,” Witherspoon said of such milestones. “I don’t celebrate so much, but you always give God thanks.”
That he would be alive today seemed iffy when, in 1972, a policeman’s bullet went through the roof of his mouth into his head, where it remains today. That he would be anywhere other than Louisiana State Penitentiary was unlikely until a documentary about Angola thrust him into the public eye. Its doors rarely open for long-term inmates, but, after 27 years, they did for him.
By all accounts, he’s making the most of his freedom.
Witherspoon, 57, has been back to prison, but only to visit, counsel or encourage inmates, not as one of their ranks. He crisscrosses Louisiana trying to create new chapters of Toastmasters, the public-speaking organization that he first joined at Angola. He does motivational speaking, and he is on the ministry staff at Miracle Place Church in Baker.
“There’s a difference between pretending to be a rehabilitated person and actually being who you pretend to be,” said 1st Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Bob Downing. “He’s got a positive mental attitude. He works constantly, and he’s always upbeat. He went from being an angry, young black radical to turning that energy into something positive.”
Downing’s involvement with Toastmasters groups in Louisiana prisons, including at Angola, introduced him to Witherspoon. The inmate was serving a 75-year sentence after an armed robbery in Shreveport in which he shot a police officer. Witherspoon said he spent the first five or six years in prison blaming everyone else for his problems before turning his life over to Jesus Christ.
The change that followed — Witherspoon became a leader among inmates, and was chosen to participate in groups that left Angola to speak or teach CPR classes — was featured in “The Farm,” a 1998 documentary about the prison that caused many to support his parole. He had been turned down multiple times before “The Farm,” but released in 1999.
Witherspoon’s frequent journeys outside Angola gave him tastes of the outside world that other inmates only dreamed of, but it felt quite different to be on his own.
“One of the first challenges that I had was staying out after dark,” Witherspoon said. “There was an excitement about being out after dark, about being in the street, but there was also something in the back of my mind. If I was out and it was after dark, if I was by myself, there was a certain fear or apprehension that was inside. Am I going to get set up? Is somebody going to say, ‘He looks like somebody who robbed me?’ These were natural fears that I had to deal with initially.”
Witherspoon adapted to the absence of prison’s imposed structure by creating his own. He took a job as community outreach director at O’Brien House, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, and filled his other hours by joining organizations similar to those he experienced in Angola. He joined the board of directors of Innocence Project of New Orleans, and also became a senior justice fellow for Soros Foundation, which helps ex-offenders in transition back to society.
At Downing’s invitation, Witherspoon joined Downtown Toastmasters after his release.
“As soon as they get out, if you’re somebody important in a prison ... when you get out of prison, you’re nobody,” Downing said. “It’s kind of like being a retired judge. It’s kind of depressing. Nobody buys you drinks and lunch anymore. So, it’s important when a guy gets out of prison that you keep him going.”
Witherspoon left O’Brien House, started a Web site design business and threw himself into Toastmasters. He has become governor of Toastmasters’ District A, which covers all of Louisiana and parts of Texas and Mississippi. Witherspoon said he is trying to start 40 new chapters in the district and rebuild chapters that stopped functioning after the 2005 hurricanes.
One of those chapters is at Miracle Place Church. Anyone familiar with Witherspoon would not be surprised that he, Toastmasters and a church came together. Miracle Place became a natural fit.
The Rev. Ricky Sinclair, pastor of Miracle Place, makes no secret of his own youthful brushes with the law — three drug-related imprisonments in the 1980s before his Christian conversion. He had heard of Witherspoon, but they didn’t meet until 2003. In less than a year, Sinclair asked Witherspoon to join his staff, and he agreed.
“I’m always looking for movers and shakers, self-motivators, leaders. Those are the people I look for to build my team,” Sinclair said. “He was an outgoing person, and he was a people person. He’s a PR person. He’s a public relations guy. He’s outspoken, outgoing. He has the right temperament, right personality, right attitude. I just felt real good about the way that he dealt with people.
“That’s what struck me about Ashanti. Then, as I got to know him and realize he was a real man of God and a very loyal person, served God faithfully for many, many years, and everybody I talked to about him said he was a solid person, that’s when I said, hey, this is somebody I want on my team.”
Witherspoon’s duties are various - editing video of worship services for television broadcast, occasional preaching, following up on visitors, supervising “care pastors” who tend to the needs of congregants, any number of duties that come up.
He continues to speak in prisons or to troubled youths. To get their attention, he removes the plate covering the bullet hole in his mouth.
“He’s like a Las Vegas showman,” Downing said. “He went with me to Jetson juvenile prison for a seminar I was doing for Prison Fellowship, and I’m a judge, but they don’t care. The kids are kind of goofing off, doing stuff. But when Ashanti gets up there and says, ‘I was shot in a shootout with the police when I was high on LSD,’ the room gets quiet. All the eyes are on him like little frogs in a headlight. Then, when he takes the plate out and shows the bullet hole, he has a real impact.”
Not just with the inmates. Evelyn Dumas met Witherspoon when she started speaking to youth offenders and other at-risk youth about how the 1998 murder of her son, Cecil Wayne Augustus Jr., affected her family and friends. Witherspoon spoke at some of these events, and they became friends. Dumas now works as a special programs provider for the Louisiana Department of Juvenile Services.
“His testimony really touched my life and made me want to reach out to other people because of that impact that he had being able to turn his life around,” Dumas said. “Watching Ashanti allowed me to see I could give something back, because here was a man who lost so many years of his life, but yet he still is able to impact other people’s lives.”
Witherspoon hopes more inmates get that opportunity.
“I believe there are a lot more men and women in prison who, if they got released, would come out and do the same thing or similar things that I would do,” he said. “I would like to see society look at them — parole boards, pardon boards, governors and court system — really look into their lives.
“I’m not such a rare species that I’m the only one who can come out and do it. ... There’s a wide variety of offenders who are still in prison who have changed, who are Christians and who can come out here in society and, I believe, can make a serious difference because they feel that they have a debt to pay. Not only have they paid it in there, but they want to do something in the lives of the people.”
Copyright 2007 Capital City Press