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Time English Language 2 Action
00:04
On October 4, 1997,
00:08
I walked into a room unlike any room I'd ever entered before.
00:14
People were standing up, sharing their stories.
00:20
A wave of relief washed over me.
00:26
I got a cup of coffee
00:29
and just took everything in.
00:33
At that point,
00:35
I was at the lowest point in my life.
00:39
I was out of ideas,
00:42
and I didn't know how I was going to make it out of the condition I was in.
00:48
Before that date, my life had not been easy.
00:52
When I was 25 years old, I gave birth to a son.
00:57
We called him K.K.
01:02
The next thing that happened changed my life forever.
01:06
He was struck by a car.
01:09
That is the day I lost him.
01:12
At only five years old,
01:15
he was gone.
01:19
His laughter, his love, his energy
01:24
were all taken from me.
01:31
My life became a downward spiral.
01:37
I began to drink.
01:39
Drinking led to substance use.
01:43
For the substance use, I was imprisoned.
01:50
Every time I left prison,
01:52
I swore I wouldn't go back.
01:55
But I did. Over and over and over again.
02:02
I remember one day, standing in front of a judge
02:05
and asking that judge, "Is there any help for me?"
02:11
And the judge sentenced me to prison one more time.
02:18
No one cared.
02:20
No one was listening.
02:23
But when I walked into that room in 1997,
02:28
I was ready to be heard.
02:30
In the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous,
02:34
they listened.
02:38
I took a deep breath and stood up,
02:42
and said, "Look what drugs and alcohol have done to me."
02:48
The immediate compassion,
02:51
empathy and love
02:53
that rolled off these complete strangers
02:57
was enough to put a sizable dent
03:00
in my pain, my shame,
03:04
my guilt and all that sorrow.
03:09
I kept talking,
03:12
and they kept listening.
03:15
I shared all the thoughts
03:18
I had spent decades trying to silence.
03:23
As they listened, I began to heal.
03:27
Listening saved my life, and it opened a door.
03:33
I got sober in Santa Monica,
03:36
an affluent part of Los Angeles.
03:40
And I noticed something there.
03:43
People in Santa Monica
03:46
weren’t going to prison for substance use,
03:50
for alcoholism.
03:53
And I thought,
03:56
why didn't that judge give me a paper and say,
03:59
"Miss Burton,
04:02
go to AA.”
04:06
Was I not worth a piece of paper?
04:09
Was I not worth direction toward a solution?
04:15
So as I got stronger in my recovery,
04:18
I thought about women just like me,
04:22
cycling in and out of prison,
04:26
looking for safety and not finding it.
04:30
So I got a job.
04:33
A minimum wage job.
04:37
And I saved $13,000.
04:41
And I took $3,000 of it and put down on a house.
04:47
And I bought some furniture.
04:50
Every morning I’d wake up,
04:51
and I'd go down to the Greyhound bus station
04:54
where women leaving prison were dropped off.
04:57
And I knew that station well
05:00
because I had been dropped off there so many times myself.
05:05
And as they got off the bus carrying a trash bag of belongings
05:09
and hope in their hearts,
05:12
I would walk up to them and I'd say, "Girl, I have a house.
05:17
And if you want to come live there,
05:20
it's a safe place to be.
05:22
You can come live there."
05:25
And before long there were 11 of us living in that house.
05:30
We cooked together.
05:32
We went to meetings together.
05:35
We shared resources.
05:38
We laughed together.
05:40
We cried together.
05:42
But most of all, we healed together.
05:47
Before long, people saw what I was doing, and they joined me.
05:52
And we created a team.
05:55
Today, there [are] 12 houses across Los Angeles.
06:00
(Applause)
06:03
Thank you.
06:07
What we built was a house of women helping women.
06:13
Each house is staffed to support its residents
06:19
who pay rent,
06:21
do chores,
06:23
buy groceries
06:25
and learn to be accountable, responsible members of the community.
06:31
We help them find jobs,
06:34
learn financial literacy
06:37
and help them with any legal issues.
06:41
As a result, thousands of women have come back to the community
06:46
and hundreds of mothers have been reunited with their children.
06:53
In 2017, I published my memoir,
06:57
"Becoming Ms. Burton:
06:59
From Prison to Recovery
07:01
to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women."
07:05
In order to tell my story, I held book talks all over the nation,
07:11
behind prison walls.
07:14
There I would listen to women.
07:18
They were pleading for a place to go after they were released.
07:23
They were sitting with tears streaming down their faces,
07:27
wanting to rebuild their lives,
07:30
be reunited with their children,
07:33
find a job in their community [and]
07:37
break free from the criminal justice system.
07:41
Every year in this country,
07:45
around two million women are released from prisons and jails.