Our co-creator and co-host explains the importance of The Redemption Podcast:

You know that I’m a teacher at InsideOUT Writers and a novelist focused on redeeming my protagonists, but there is another reason why I am so passionate about Restorative Justice and the story we tell on The Redemption Podcast. That reason is Reggie Hodge. 

It’s a name I have never publicly written about before. I attended high school with him. He introduced me to hip-hop after seeking out that quiet kid sitting alone at the corner cafeteria table who he befriended and encouraged. I never understood why. Yet, there he was, every day, offering to play one-on-one after he finished basketball practice. I wonder why he reached out. Certainly, he was busy enough and had his own group of friends. Then college arrived and we went our separate ways. Not long after, I would learn he was gunned down in an alley for all of $40.

This is a podcast about change and I believe certain types of change come from loss. It’s the subject of this podcast, a man by the name of Jason Clark, who led me to reflect on my own—not to languish in it, but to learn and empower myself from it. Just as he did while spending 23 years, 5 months locked up for murder.

This is a podcast about objectivity. I believe Reggie would not want me to live with anger or spite in my heart. I believe he would oppose revenge as a response. He would want me to listen, to learn and apply that insight to understand what would cause someone to do something as final as taking someone’s life. Because it wasn’t about the $40. No, that was just the result of some species of failure—whether systemic, parental or something deeper I am continuing to learn about. Just as he sought me out, I am sure Reggie would want me to seek out forgiveness, or at the very least, to open myself to all sides of a story whether I agreed or not.

This is a podcast about one man’s quest—to redeem, and to honor. His victim, his past, his present, and finally, himself.  I believe Reggie wouldn’t want it any other way.