Part 3

Incarcerated Veterans Assistance Organization

Jason Higgins: I'm really curious about this moment because as you know, I've written a book about the history of incarcerated veterans, and what you're talking about is really the first time incarcerated veterans organized together, and forced the VA to recognize disability benefits for incarcerated veterans that had not been done before you, and this other group.

Ari Sesu Merretazon: That's right.

Jason Higgins: How did that happen? How did you reach out to the VA? Was there a representative who visited the prison? Tell me about the process.

Ari Sesu Merretazon: It's a process. Lorton Reformatory had this thing. We developed this thing about inmates' self-care programs. It's part of rehab. And a lot of people's going out of the prison for singing songs as inmate choirs, and would have gone out, there's a group called Inner Voices I think, maybe do all these type of plays, and whatnot that was going in, and out of prison, I said, hey come on. If they don't go in, and out of the prison, we definitely should go in and out of prison. We ended up using the leverage of our veteran status to bring in, where everybody could participate, the Federal City College. We set up a basic campus at Lorton Reformatory where anybody could participate, and enroll in the college. We did that based on the fact that the law said that, if I have benefits, that becomes your property, and that as a veteran, you're entitled to all of these things which is free education, and stuff like that. It was on us veterans to make the contact with those higher education institutions, those apprenticeship training programs, those work release programs, and develop a relationship where we could do through engaging in education, and in a better frame of mind, and be back into our communities as a contributor instead of a predator. Let me put it that way.

Jason Higgins: Sure. Just to get the specific dates. What years were you incarcerated?

Ari Sesu Merretazon: From 1969-1976.

Incarcerated Veterans Organizing for Disability Rights

Jason Higgins: This is at the same time that the Department of Justice does its first study trying to identify how many incarcerated veterans are imprisoned.

Ari Sesu Merretazon: What year was that you found? 

Jason Higgins: They started the study in 1979 and then they published it in 1981.

Ari Sesu Merretazon: You know what? That was because of the work we was doing in law reformatory. We raised a lot of hell. We got a lot of coverage in the Washington Post newspaper before we actually begin to make that happen for better than in prison. Once we able to get apprenticeship training programs inside the institutions, higher education inside the institutions, then we had the foundation to apply for our benefits. You see? That was the first thing first, is develop the relationship with the higher education institutions and the various types of apprenticeship programs that was out there and apply for our benefits for that type of training.

Jason Higgins: Absolutely. It was unprecedented. Whenever you actually got your disability benefits, was it full 100 percent or was it a reduced amount out of that total? I think today it's 10 percent.

Ari Sesu Merretazon: Let me tell you how it happened. I didn't apply for my benefits with veteran benefits until 2010. That was long after I was out of prison, long after I've been in the parole, long after I finished walking down 25 years on unsupervised parole. When I came out of prison, I was part of the staff of the Vietnam Veterans of America. I think we had offices over 18th and K Street somewhere. I was handling the incarcerated veterans part because that's the resources I connected with in my inside, outside approach in developing the organization. I had US congressmen as my outside coordinators. Ron Dellum, Bill Lawson who was part of the president's staff. The president at that time was Jimmy Carter. Bill Lawson, the president staff came to visit me in prison because he thought it was such a unique thing to be involved in and he wanted to make sure it gets as much exposure as possible through his responsibilities at the White House. We made it happen that way. It's just my conceptualizing that concept of inside, outside. The inmates going to deal with the issues on the inside. Our community and representatives going to deal with make sure it happen from the outside in terms of setting up the structure for veterans to receive their benefits and we were successful in that.

Invitation to the White House

Ari Sesu Merretazon: That effort carried my work to the White House of Jimmy Carter, I was acknowledged at White House by Jimmy Carter and Bill Lawson. I hope Bill Lawson have opportunity to see this video because he was my outside corner, he was a major piece. I don't think we could have done it without some real good, strong outside resources and that was happening. He was working in Jimmy Carter's White House and the Ronald Dellums United States congressman from Berkeley, California.

Jason Higgins: You met Carter while you were incarcerated?

Ari Sesu Merretazon: Yes. Exactly.

Jason Higgins: Can you talk about that. What was that day like? Like how long did you interact with the president?

Ari Sesu Merretazon: News got out that veterans were organizing in law reformatory. That hit the Washington Post and all overlap that type of stuff. Those who was concerned or had some responsibilities for veterans in terms of resource access, they make contact with us from that point. They come down and visit and want talk to us whatnot because veterans were going in and out of prison as well, because they will tend to fail to see the college. We had a satellite campus inside the prison. We had laid the foundation. Men who wanted to do other types of things, your programs and what not that serve the community, they would come to us and say, look how you develop the program? Can you help us out? I lay it out for them, they go get approval from the administration and then they got their program going out and like, what is it? Like inner voices and that was a very notable group. They did all types of skits and stuff like that about men in prison or what not so they became very popular in DC. I'm glad I had the opportunity in being involved with them and setting the foundation of how to engage the system based on our willingness to give back to the system even while incarcerated,

Locating Incarcerated Veterans

Jason Higgins: Do you recall much about testifying before the Senate. . .

Ari Sesu Merretazon: Well, at first, we had to convince the Senate that if the issue worthy of a hearing to be held. We did our work around the demographics of veterans in prison. We had a relationship with the Congress Ron Dellums. He was our outside coordinator, believe that. We had a Congress person who understood what was going on, who was committed to assisting Blacks in prison. . . .US Congressman Ronald Dellums from Berkeley and I think he's from Berkeley, California, or Oakland; one of the two. Through his law just of being a US congressman and a very popular one that we were able to move in and out of prison pretty good. People from the President's office came down to visit us. That gave us a lot more protection around and freedom around to move within the administrative processes and procedures of the prison.

Jason Higgins: You were on the ground actually doing the research and finding out how many incarcerated veterans were in person? . . . How long did that take?

Ari Sesu Merretazon: Well, first, I started with the prison I was in. I was incarcerated. All we had to do is get the data on that. Then push that. As it's pushing that forward we found out that almost every prison in the United States, they had like 20-25 percent Vietnam veterans. That talks about the readjustment issues from coming home from war back to society. When Senator Alan Cranston called the hearing on readjustment problems with Vietnam veterans, I was in the forefront of testifying for the issues of the incarcerated veterans. After that, the federal government put in place what we call the Vietnam vet centers so that veterans can go and talk to each other and share their experiences of readjustment experience with each other. I think there's about 14 was put online around that time, 1980. That shows the furthest city I could find. I've bounced South. I chose Little Rock, Arkansas out of all the options of cities that the veterans would be established. I chose Little Rock, Arkansas. I didn't want to go to DC. I didn't want to stay in DC, I didn't want to stay in Philadelphia. I didn't want to stay into the major cities because they have so much more resources. I felt that based on my experience inside of prison with veterans and being a veteran, that the worst conditions of veteran exist in the Southern prison, Angola, Arkansas State Prison. Those types of things. Parchman, in Mississippi, Prison Farm.

We use the administration of the lord reformatory to engage administrators of those institutions. Instead of set it up as an example of what they could do was debated in their prison. We went that route and we were very successful. In fact, even here in Philadelphia. The veterans out at--I can't think of the name of this prison out in Philadelphia. [Eastern State Penitentiary] I can't recall the name of the prison here, but anyhow, I set up the Incarcerated Veterans Assistance Organization there.

Experiences in Little Rock Vet Center

Jason Higgins: Talk about your experiences and your time in Little Rock, Arkansas. Were you also involved with veterans and education at the time?

Ari Sesu Merretazon: Yes, absolutely, because I went to Little Rock initially in 1987, the Vietnam Vets Center. There with announcing the opening of the vet center, all the veterans came out of the neighborhoods and trying to get help that they knew they didn't have opportunity to receive, and so we had a nice clientele there in Little Rock. Of course, we serve the central part of the state. In fact, any veteran could come to Little Rock, to the vet center, and receive services. All that person had to do was be a resident of the state of Arkansas.

Jason Higgins: What was that like for you working with the vet center?

Ari Sesu Merretazon: It was rough because the first 90 days were very, very rough because I had a team leader who happened to be a psychiatrist. That's all he did it while he was in the army, and I didn't see any real understanding of appreciation for combat soldiers, but nevertheless, he looked at them as dependents as opposed to we all being veterans and helping each other.

I made my name serving veterans in prison, incarcerated veterans. I went there with expectations that I could continue to work with veterans in prison. He would not allow me to do it, and we struggled. He refused to allow me to go into the prisons and assist veterans, in which I hadn't made a very significant name and reputation of doing, and brought the whole issue of incarcerated veterans to the national spotlight. He refused to allow me to [LAUGHTER] deal with veterans in prison. That didn't go too well, so I ended up challenging that, and he terminated me, and subsequently engaged some legal matters, and we settled that matter. But then I went back to legal services.

Full Interview Part 3