January 2, 2024 • 45 mins
In 1996, Alice decided to “bloom where you’re planted”—in prison. After receiving an unexpected life sentence, she got to work serving her fellow prisoners by helping them with vocational training, organizing plays, the very first Special Olympics events in a prison, and even loving some as they died as a hospice volunteer. And once she got pardoned, Alice’s service has only accelerated.
Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premium
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I walked on a compound I'd just gotten there, and
this lady in this wheelchair looks at me. I guess
I'm looking around loss And she said, what's your name?
I told her and she said, Alice Bloom, where your planted?
God knows where you are?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
A woman in prison in a wheelchair.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Sir wheelchair said And she said, God knows where you are.
And that stuck with me, and I just kept walking around.
I kept thinking, God, you do know where I am.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
Inner City Memphis. And the last part it accidentally won
an Oscar for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated.
I believe our country's problems will never be solved by
(00:54):
a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big
words that nobody ever uses on CNN, and but rather
an army of normal folks, US just you and me
deciding hey, I can help. That's what Alice Marie Johnson,
the voice we just heard, has done, and she did
it while serving time in prison of all places. After
(01:16):
receiving a pardon, her service of those in prison didn't stop.
It's actually accelerated. I can't wait for you to meet
Alice right after these brief messages from our Genneral sponsors. Today,
(01:53):
Alice lives only thirty minutes from me in a place
called Olive Branch, Mississippi. It's just across the Tennessee, Misssippi
date line. And she grew up in Mississippi as well.
Now here's something that is a dying breed, Candidly, you
grew up the child of a sharecropper.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yes, my father was a sharecropper and my mother was
the cook. And we were the ones who were in
the fields picking cotton. We the children, the children.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, how old were.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
You from the time I could put a sack on
my back? I think I had a pillowcase was my
first cotton sack. I probably was about three four when
they put me out there.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I've seen so many paintings, candidly, and old photographs of
as far as I could see a field of three
to four foot tall, yes, cotton plants and all those
white cotton buzzs, and then what you see scattered among
that field and the foreground and the background as far
(02:55):
as you can see. Our people bent over those bushes
picking cotton, throwing it in a bag. What were ours?
What was that like?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Sign up to sundown? They'd awaken us and we load
up in the back of the truck and or we'd
walk to the fields, depending upon how close they were.
We'd load up and we'd hit the fields. And one
of the prettiest siice that you could see as a
one who picked cotton was a pretty feel that had
(03:31):
big bowls of cotton, not the little scraunchy ones that
were easy. Yeah, those were easy, but the others would
stick your hands, so we'd walked to come back home
with cut hands.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Really, yes, So what does a sharecropper do when the
crops picked after the harvest is completed? What does a
sharecropper do?
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Well? My father also he took care of the cows
and all of the livestop, so his job was not
only to be a sharecropper, but also for the people
whose place we lived on. He took care of the farm,
the barns, everything else. My mother she cook, so we
would in the wintertime. Of course, during the summer we
(04:14):
had big gardens. We had to put things up for winter.
It was a different kind of life. So you're a
farm hand, yes, a farm hand.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
But how did the pay work? People are so far
removed from this reality that is only two generations apart.
I think a lot of people don't even understand how
it worked. But my understanding is you provided a place
to live on the property, but you're not paid much
(04:45):
and candidly, most of what you make you end up
spending at the company store. Absolutely well, tell us how
that works.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Okay, we would get credit at the store and whatever
my parents made doing the sea of picking cotton, and
it was very very little sense, and we really didn't
see the money too much. We had a little stipend
to get closed. My mother would make clothes, but we
(05:12):
would run a bill up at the general store that
the person who's placed, because that's what we called it,
their place that we lived on, and they would pay
the bill and whatever was left after the crop came in,
which we didn't really ever just know how much was left.
It was, Oh, they did, they did. That's why we
(05:33):
had to see. Where this started was in Cockrum, Mississippi,
when I was five years old. I hate to use
this word escape, but We escaped from that lifestyle because
every year we were told my father he had this
dream to go up north, that was a promised land,
that we were going to make enough and bring a
(05:54):
big enough crop in this year, that we're going to
go Indiana. We're going to move from down here were
other relatives. Some had gone to Chicago, you know, Indiana,
Gary and Anna and other places, and.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
They were chasing good paying they.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Were tracing factory jobs, and that was the promised land
to us. But this particular year, the year I turned five,
we were told we had one of the best crops.
We were told that there was no money left over,
and we thought we had my older siblings we had
really worked hard, and so my mother, who was a
(06:30):
great cook, she devised a plan to sell food out
of the back of the trunk of their car at
places where the property owner wouldn't know what we were doing.
So she would go to the black baseball players games
and she would sell all of this food. And they
started saving money. And in Olive Branch they had seen
(06:53):
a piece of land. It wasn't the two acres, and
they bought that land. Out of the money. My mother
was hustled and make it on the side, and they
bought a gym Walter home which.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Is which is a mobile home.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
It's yes, well it's it's a prefabricated but it's not mobile.
It's not a mobile home. It's it's just pre Yes.
So after we finished working, after my father would finish
working in the barn at night, they would slip away
and go and hang sheep rock and just prepared and
was buying little pieces of furniture. So I can remember
(07:29):
in the middle of the night, I was awaken my cousins.
The lights were off. When I saw the movie Roots.
I said, they stole that from us, because in the
middle of the night they covered my mouth because I
talked a lot and they didn't want me to make
any noise. And I was placed in the car and
everybody else was quiet. We had the lights off, and
(07:51):
they were pushing our car and the trucks everything down
the road with the furniture in it. And as we
got closer and closer and we got out of earshot,
it was some hooping and hollering going on Bill because
we had escaped. Okay, so we were in Olive Branch.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Now this is nineteen sixty one, two three yes, uh huh,
all right, which is the Jim Crow air of the South. Yes,
but your parents. I don't even know how to say this,
but just to say it, I mean that only almost
feels like a slave escaping.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
It did, it did.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
But so share When you think of sharecropping, what's the
difference in that and slavery?
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Really it's not that much of a difference. Really, it's
not that far removed, because you really someone else is
providing for you, supposedly, but you're working their crops, working
their farm, You're doing everything.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And you're never getting anything your own.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
No how the house is, the house is not ours.
We were living on their place. The clothes on our
back were ores, the little pieces of furniture were ours.
We lived in a cinder block house and one time
there was fourteen of us there and all in that
little bitty house. So moving to Olive Branch, having our
(09:14):
bedroom and it was like we were going to a mansion.
It felt like that. And we were never to return
to that. But we still had cousins who had cotton fields.
We still worked, so we were still picking cotton. I
will say they would loan us out, the children out
to the cousins and we bring the crops in, but
this time we're doing it for our family. So my mother,
(09:38):
she was an excellent cook. She worked at the school
at one time that I attended as a cook. She
would work for the Lions Club, the Jayc's. Everyonebody knew
that Sally Bowen had some of the best food anywhere.
Her dream was to own a restaurant, which she eventually did.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
She have a coole.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Oh, she cooked every lord adversity.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
For those who have never had oxtail prepared in the
South properly with the messo greenes and corn bread, you're
missing something.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Oh and don't we get turkey nicks. Oh with the
little graveyard.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Delicious light gravy, not the dark graus.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Oh, yes, the light gravy. You can don't.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Most people listen us don't know nothing about that.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
We need to pick some some real story.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Do they need to come on down home, Come.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
On down some Southern hospitality.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
So I have to ask you something before we get
to what happened after that in your life. Well, here's
the spoiler alert. You will talk later about a thirty
thousand foot view work that you do which is humanizing
(10:50):
those who are current society doesn't always necessarily humanize. We're
not even going to talk about that now, we're going
to get to that. But when I hear that that's
what your life's mission is now, and I hear just
about what you saw and went through with your siblings
and the life that your mother and father had to
(11:13):
lead to literally escape, I'm just gonna I can't help it.
I'm just unfiltered. I'm gonna say it. How do how
does that reality affect the way you view the way
(11:36):
you fit in society?
Speaker 1 (11:40):
For me, my family, my parents' life of survival, perseverance,
their faith, the hope that they gave us, and I
had a very unique family. We were a family of faith.
But my mother didn't see color. She was an avocate.
She was a woman ahead of her time. She would
(12:03):
fight for the poor whites and the blacks in our town.
She only had an eighth grade education, but often you
would see my mother show up in court and she
would convince the judge to basically give this person into
her care, and she'd get them on the right track.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I think it's fair. I think it's worth noting that
I know white families whose grandparents were sharecroppers, so there
were poor whites.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Oh for sure. For sure. For shere my mother befriended everyone.
One of the lessons I learned from her was she
was such a gentle woman. When different candidates ran for office,
she would write a note to the opposing party leader
and wish them luck and give them blessings that she
(12:51):
hoped they do well, and for them to remember who
they are there for the community. All that come from
I don't know, but I'm telling you this is a
house I grew up in. We lived up on a
hill a little bit. Everyone had to sing or play
an instrument, so on Sundays you would hear my sister
playing the piano, and people were drawn to our house
(13:14):
to sing on Sundays. My mother always cooked more than
enough food just in case a stranger dropped by who
didn't have anything. So I grew up living watching this.
She was a strong community leader. In fact, I became
just so radicalized during the Civil rights movement because I
(13:34):
used to eavedrop on the conversations when she would have
them with her friends. They would talk about things that
were going on in this day and at our dinner table.
My mother knew that education was key, so My siblings
are our college educated and I was the one that
got married real, real young, but I still managed to
(13:55):
take classes and graduate on time. But they really learned
the value of education and making sure that their children
had a good start in life. But I can say
that they modeled the behavior for us. I think it's
so important that my father was present in the house,
(14:15):
in our home, and I've said this, and I knew
the Lord's prayer before I knew my ABC's because he
truly was a praying man. So I'm very thankful for
the foundation that I had. Even though some things in
my life took me in a different direction, that foundation
was still there, and I had seen faith lived out.
(14:40):
I've seen it walked out. I've seen it in cotton fields.
I seen it when times were hard and we didn't
have anything but a song, we break out into a
song to lift ourselves up. I've lived through tragedy. I've
lived through tragedy in the community of terrible things that
happened while I was growing up. But through all of that,
(15:05):
I still my mother told me, I know we're going
to get to that, But she told me when I
went to prison, don't ever forget who you are. Don't
ever forget who you are, that even though you're going
to that place, you don't have to be like everyone else.
It was basically, don't conform or don't go along to
get along. Remember your boglin.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I wish I could have met your mama.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I wish you could have too. She would have fed
you so good.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Oh I would have eaten so good to look at me. Yeah,
you know, I would have liked it so Honestly, You've
got a mother and father at home, you've got siblings
going to college. Clearly a lot of love, clearly a
lot of direction. Not wealthy by any means, for sure,
(15:52):
but you're getting You're getting by You had the initiative,
that your family had the initiative and gumption to get
away from sharecropping and save up money and buy a home.
And that doesn't sound like the track of a person
that ends up in college, in prison. And so let's
get to how that unfolded. I know, you got married
(16:15):
at fifteen and had a child, but you managed to
continue to get your education and you ended up going
to work for this little bitty company now called Fedax.
But for everybody, Olive Branch is literally a suburb of Memphis.
It's one of the northernmost cities in Mississippi. And when
(16:37):
you go from Olive Branch to Memphis, you really don't
notice any difference.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You don't know anything different. In fact, I lived I
lived in Memphis almost twenty years. It was in Memphis
from Memphis that I would go to prison.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
So there it is so Olive Branch Memphis very similar.
And there's this new idea which is packages getting to somebody.
If you remember the phrase absolutely positively overnight.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Federal social service profit yep.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
And this guy named Fred Smith had this Kakamamy idea
that you could build a hub and bring all the
packages into one hub, distribute them and ship them out
the next day and get any package anywhere absolutely positively
overnight and founded in Memphis. Still world headquarters are still
(17:30):
here in Memphis. Are probably most important employer in Memphis.
And you were employee number one hundred and sixty six
at this fledgling company called FedEx. Tell me how that
went well.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
As I was getting my education, I married it as
we discussed at fifteen, but I knew that my husband
was not going to allow me to go to college.
So my senior year I went to saw your secretary
of college unbeknownst to him, and I could type really
really fast, and I was a good writer.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
You must had to type fist so he didn't know.
He didn't get out, thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I could type. Let me tell you something. I could
type ninety five words a minute with no errors.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Lord have mer that's fast.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yes. So that would lead me into many good jobs.
And plus I had very good work ethics, so I
would quickly be recognized as a good employee. So when
I got the job at FedEx, it was because I
was working at the Memphis Urban League. By this time,
I have five children. Me and my husband I married,
(18:36):
is going crazy because he still thinks he's single. Yeah,
that's a whole nother thy Yeah, we won't get it.
We'll get into that. We're won't get into that. He's
now brother in Christ even though we're divorced. But I
got the job at the Urban League. And Jim Perkins,
who was the senior VP over personnel at FedEx.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
He was one of the first few at fed X,
and he was on the board of directors for the
Urban League and his mentee was killed in a car
accident Greg, and when I came in. Because the way
that I deal with pain and anything else is I write.
I love to write poetry. So I wrote a poem
(19:25):
about how it felt walking into the office that morning
and Greg is gone, and someone showed it, took it
to the board meeting. Jim Perkins saw it and asked
who wrote this? And I came in. He had tears
in his eyes because this was his was like a
son to him, and he asked me if he could
(19:48):
send it to his mother. And he said, you work,
you you work? You like working here? Yes, I love it?
He said, what you like to work for fed X?
It was Federal Express at time. And I talked to
them about my skills, and I went to personnel and
I set that type right on fire, and they hired men.
(20:09):
This secretary of pool, I wasn't in there six months.
I was recognized for my I'd always had these this
idea that if I wasn't at least thirty minutes early
for work, I'm late. And so I always showed up early,
and I'm the first one and last one to leave
if they need someone. And so my work ethics were recognized,
(20:31):
and in no time I was a manager. I was
a manager first in computer ops. That was a miracle
in itself because I didn't know anything about computers. But
I was a great motivator and people person, and between
all of the technical people, they were missing a people person.
(20:53):
But it didn't take me long to learn about computers
and how to recognize problems because my mind was like
a sponge, and because things my children were my life
and my job, and they were my family, you know,
plus my faith. So I learned everything that I could,
and then I promoted again, and then I started training
(21:14):
people for management, and then I got a divorce after
nighteen years of my life kind of fell apart.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But
first I hope you'll subscribe to the podcast so that
you get the newest episodes in your library every week.
And please consider signing up to join the Army at
Normalfolks dot us because together we can change the country.
And you'll also receive weekly email updates about the Army.
(21:51):
We'll be right back. So you were at faed Ax
(22:12):
how long them?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Ten years?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Ten years? And you go from the secretary pool up
to flying around the country training folks at different places
and some fat Acts, which is phenomenal. You're the daughter
of a sharecropper and you end up a mid level
manager at fat Axe.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yes, you had arrived. I had arrived, so I thought.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
And you get a divorce and now you're a divorce
mom of five.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah, my husband disappears, no help, and for the first
time in my life, I'm seeing life differently. Casinos come,
dog track is here, excitement and otherwise dull life. I
got in over my head bill and before I knew it,
(23:06):
I didn't have a job, my house was about to
be fore closed. I'm about to file bankruptcy, and life
is going crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So you were gambling at it?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I was gambling. I't really it was. I didn't even
realize I was a gambling attic until the money started
going to casinos and dog tracks and not to pay bills.
It was exciting. That's why I don't. It's very few
games I even play now.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
So when I read that, and I'm gonna tell you something,
I love to play poker. I love to sit down
and play poker, play poker friends. I used to. I
played poker in Vegas sometimes. If I could ever get
two weeks of my life where I didn't have everything
to go. I would love to go play in the world.
She there's a poker because I really enjoy playing and
(24:00):
in poker terms and poker, I love it. And you know,
like anything like drinking or alcohol or whatever, gambling and
playing poker is no different. You know, you've got to
have a limit, you got to keep it and then
you can't let it overcome you. But as I was
reading your story, I wondered, and I couldn't help, but wonder,
(24:26):
did you like maybe a little financial literacy at that time?
Speaker 1 (24:31):
But sure, well my circumstance, I will say, before then,
I had good credit, I paid my bills. I didn't
have a lot of money left over because by this
time I have a daughter that's in college, yourself and
some more in the pipeline. It's going to be going soon.
(24:51):
But I had no financial help from their father, so
I'm really footing everything by myself. But the the gambling
gave me an out. It put me into another whole
world that I'd never seen before. But now you know,
I look back on it, and I was going further
in deeper down. You know, once you start losing, you
(25:15):
try to win a jackpot while you losing a jackpot.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I was winning the very thing that I was called chasing.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yes. So then once I was in so deep, I
couldn't find my way out, and my finances are going
absolutely crazy, I have nobody to turn to. And plus
it was a matter of pride to because my siblings
are all extremely successful, my parents are upstanding, and I
(25:42):
just didn't want to be seen as a failure. That
was pride. I think if I had talked to somebody
about what I was really going through, and at times
I wonder if I even had a breakdown, because I
was no longer thinking I was spiraling. I was spiraling there.
The more I looked at the whole listening to some
of my situation, the more I was going further in.
(26:05):
And so when an offer came to me to be
what it's called a telephone mule, I'm like, I don't
know anything about drugs. This offer came. Do you know,
I don't know anyone. The person who I was seeing
said what did you tell him? As I told him no,
and he says to me, I said you know someone?
He said, yeah, you're looking at him and it's someone
(26:27):
that I started dating. And I don't blame him because
I made that bad decision.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Most people don't know. Unfortunately, I do know what a
telephone mule is because I've been around some folks who
have lived that life. Let's let's explain to our listeners
before we go any further, exactly what a telephone.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You tell us a telephone mule means. I was the
perfect person. I never thought of criminal ideas before in
my life.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Clean.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, so I'm the perfect person. If someone comes to town,
they're given my number, they don't tell me who they are.
They just tell me this is the number with the
cold to tell them to call. And I passed the
number and I go back to bed. They don't know me,
and somehow in my own head, and I'm not even
(27:20):
trying to pretend to be innocent, I knew what I
did was wrong, but I helped my conscience by saying,
I'm not a drug seller. That's not who I am.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
So what would happen is somebody comes to Memphis or
any city, any country, because a telephone mule is.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
The operator for this, it's operation, it's the operator for them.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
They don't know they're sent by a cartel or someone
above them to take these drugs somewhere. That's all they're told.
And they're given the amount of money because they're a mule.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
They're mule too, all right.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
And so when they load up and bring drugs and
they get to wherever they're supposed to do, they're told
call this number. And when they call that number, they
don't know who they're talking to. It's you on their line.
You don't know who you're talking.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
To, which keeps everyone safe. Who's really the leader, who's
really doing it?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
They're breaking chain of customs.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
That's exactly what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
So you have a number that you know this person's
gonna call me when they call.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Give them another correct not even give them a number.
Another number just passed at one time. I didn't pass
two numbers. It's just the initial contact and then I
guess they go to and follow out and that's it.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Now they getting contact with whoever they're delivering.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
That's correct, So and you're out sounds nothing. The first
time I got one thousand dollars, I literally kept my
life so that we bought food, and after that I
felt terrible about it. Then my son got killed in
a car in a scooter accident, and that's when everything
(28:55):
in my life completely went crazy.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
You were already hanging over about them.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I was hanging on by a thread. Here I am
with my youngest son, he's twelve. His brother's driving a scooter.
They get hit a by another teenager, and I'm in
the crazy I'm in the twilight zone for real. I
don't even have money to bury my son. It's whatever.
(29:21):
I'm sitting in a dark house most of the time
in grief. This goes on, and in the course of time,
the person who was coming in got busted and he
had my phone number, and that's when the house of
cars fell down. There's so many different things involved in
this whole thing. I didn't really know about conspiracy. I'm
(29:45):
thinking my family. I don't have any money. In fact,
when I was arrested there was nothing to be seized,
but the people who testified against me had cars, seeds,
home seised money, seeds. I've got five hundred dollars in
the It goes through. But you know, to get past
all of that, I learned about conspiracy. I was found
(30:09):
guilty of attempted possession because I didn't have drugs, and
I was offered three years, went to tryal and.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
When you were offered three years, probably that's is that
federal time.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Federal.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
So you're offered three years and your life's in a tornado.
You spent ten years in Federacs, got this great job,
a gambling addiction later, a divorce, later, hooked up with
a pretty bad dude. That sounds like later, the death
(30:46):
of a son. Later. Now you're faced with do I
say okay and go to prison for three years and
you don't even have money for I guess you're getting
a quarter point and an attorney. No.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
My family, they gathered, they had a meeting. My mother
was just tore up. She had no idea that I
was involved in something like this. No one in my
family knew. I mean no one in my family had
You didn't I didn't grow up in Plus, none of
my siblings have ever had a run in with the law.
And from all appearances, I've never had not just appearances,
(31:21):
the truth, I've never had been criminally minded. My children,
you better not steal nothing. I came to Memphis. I
had an opportunity to be on welfare and everything, but
I didn't want my children to see that as an example.
So I took that little low paying job because I
didn't want to take money from the government. I didn't
(31:42):
want to get a check in the mail. I don't
want free stuff. I want to work for what I get.
So I'm used to working and working hard, and this
is totally I don't even know what I'm doing. Ignorance
of the law is no excuse for breaking the law.
So I put myself in a position to even come
(32:04):
in contact with the law because if I had not
did something that was wrong, I wouldn't have had to
worry about that.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
We'll be right back. I said this to John Ponder,
who I know, you know, and he now uses it.
There's a vernacular related to the judicial system that people
(32:40):
will say, I caught a charge.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I caught a charge, all right.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Well, John was talking in an interview I did with
him months ago, and he was talking about catching a
charge or this guy caught a charge. He may have
been speaking of himself catching charge, and I interrupted. I said, John,
I got to talk to you about something. He said,
all right, and I said, I'd never heard the phrase
I caught a charge before. I was in my early thirties.
(33:06):
I was at an asses and a kid was talking
about house cousin got busted and caught a charge. And
I said, he what he said? He caught a charge?
I said, dude, you catch a colt, you catch the flu.
That's something that happens to you earn a charge. And
John started laughing. And now John no longer uses the
(33:27):
terminology or caught a charge, You earn a charge. But
the reason I'm saying this is because it's refreshing. You
want to tell your story, because you need to tell
your story to explain everything about your life and what
you're doing now. But you don't tell your story. And
I've never heard you or seen you write and tell
(33:50):
your story and then somehow allow yourself to be a
victim of it or use it as an excuse. You
freely admit that you earned this problem with the law
because of your own actions, and instead of trying to
point and blame somebody else and everything else. And you know,
(34:11):
I think that gives what you're doing now even more validity. Bill.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I just don't want anyone to look at me as
a victim. The sentence was too long, I will say that,
but that's a broken judicial system. It was way too
much for what I did, and never having been in
trouble when I looked at people who were getting the
same sentence as I received. There were murderers, yeah, and
(34:39):
so from that standpoint, but I really exposed myself to
get any sentence by the thing that I myself did.
Nor do I want any child or my children to
make excuses for wrong actions.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
It's so refreshing, and I commend you so much for that,
because somebody who had been through what you've been through,
you could almost justify and understand. While they would not
accept total responsibility for their actions, but you do. It's
one of the reasons why I think you're so inspiring.
So you're offered three years and you're giving advice not
(35:18):
to take it to me.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Attorney tells me, don't do it. Don't take it. He said,
they have nothing on you. He said that they gave
me a ten thousand dollars bond, that others a bond,
a very low bond. The ones who testified against me couldn't.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Get a bond. They were held without bail.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
That they couldn't get a buck.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Because they were really the ones doing the stuff.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
The cops knew it, and they had long histories to Oh,
they had sheets, they had rap sheets. I had nothing.
He said, we can beat this. He said, where's the beef,
Where is the beef, where's the drugs? Where's the money?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
But you had no money and no drugs. So I
go to try which again you earned that you did that.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
That was wrong, that was absolutely wrong because I was
a part of it. I was a part of this
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
But you weren't running any cartels.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Oh for sure, for sure, absolutely not. So we go
to trial and it looks like we're winning.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Honestly, six you're feeling good about it.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I'm feeling pretty good. He's feeling good about it. Then
we get the note that the jury is hung and
they're crying and they're arguing, and then they send a
note out asking what is Can they explain conspiracy? I
didn't have conspiracy explained to me either, So that was explained.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Explain it to us.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
A conspiracy means that you have responsible for every action
that's committed doing the furtherance.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Of the crime, every action, not even your.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Every action, everything you helped show the.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Mule, the cartels, the folks selling her on the street,
the guy delivering her to the dude on the corner.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
The candle, especially if you go to trial, you're gonna
get what's called the trial penalty.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
So as a conspirator, you're associated with every everything. If
I drop a buddy of mine off at a convenience
store and he goes in and robs and shoots somebody
and kills them because he rode with me, could I
be brought up on the spirits and watch it. I
(37:32):
could serve time for murder.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
You would, you? She would?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
And so that's the place you found yourself.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, you're involved in a conspiracy. You're going to be
called the getaway driver, and you're going to receive the
same charge.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
What if I don't even know that guy's got a
gun and he's going to.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Steal charge your cold conspiratory real.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Somebody rides with me, I have no idea he's got
a gun, and he says, let me go in here
and get a cold beer. And while he's in there,
he tries to rob the place, shoot somebody. Get to
my or because I delivered him, I could be brought
up on conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
They're not going to believe that you didn't know. Prove it,
prove it, prove that you didn't know.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
So they looked at you and said prove that all
you did was answer numbers.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Absolutely, prove it. These people say, how can you how can.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
You prove a false negative? How can you disprove a
false negative?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I'm in it. They have my number, so and I guess.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Somebody called you to give you numbers. So you had
two sets of numbers.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Absolutely, I'm tired.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I'm so you're dead in the middle of it.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
I don't know. I'm dead on a rival that I
should have been fighting. But that was part of my
journey that I now know that I had to take.
And I can tell you this, looking you in your eyes,
that God did not put me in prison. He used
(38:58):
me in prison.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
So you turned down. Three years, you go to trial,
You're feeling good about it. The note comes back about conspiracy.
They find you guilty.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
In your sentence to life plus twenty five years without parole.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
And federal times so people know they're inding parole. Right.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
That's why it was without parole because there is no parole,
and a life sentence in the federal system is called
an unexecuted sentence of death because it is executed when
you die.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Was this at the time of mandatory sentencing und charges?
So the judge sentenced you to what was mandated by law.
The judge had no The judge couldn't have said, they
find you guilty. I do too, but I believe you
were really lightly involved. I'm going to give you three years.
The judge has a set of mandatory sentencing guidelines that
(39:59):
he has to give, and they have to give it
to you.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
The only time that I had a choice was to
take a plea.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Before the started, and when you decided not take the
plea and not take the three years, and you go to.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Trial even while the jury was deliberating. I was offered
eight years, and I'm like.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
You offered me three two months ago.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Right, Maybe I could have negotiated at that point.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Did your attorney not tell you, never, you don't take
this three years, you could be looking at life.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Never. I never even knew that a life sentence was
on the table.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
So the second form of a literacy that I think
plagues people mis financial literacy, but I think judicial and
absolutely judicial and civic illiteracy is the reason many of
our jails are full. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1 (40:52):
I would, even with some of the work that I'm
doing now with talking to young people and really educating them, too,
not just the education part, but really a change of
mindset when you do things. I'm not saying I was
a child, but I had the same knowledge as a
young person doing something absolutely idiotic. They are doing things
(41:17):
now not realizing that this is going to cost them
their life, and I.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Want people to hear me. I wish this was video.
I am sitting across the table from a beautiful woman
who is dressed beautifully, has a beautiful smile, has a
bright eyes, fingernails are done, has a heart lock it
(41:45):
around her neck. Don't sensationalize or stereotype people have been
to prison because I promise you, somebody came across you.
They'd never see that. And I got to imagine that
the woman at FedEx that grew up the daughter of
(42:07):
sharecroppers never envisioned that there was trauma in your life.
You fell in a hole, you made a mistake, and
a screwed up mandatory sentencing based on drugs because of
the War on drugs and really poor advice from attorney.
(42:28):
You're going to jail for the rest of your life,
and after you die, I guess you get to serve
another twenty five years because that's a sentence you're gone,
your family's gone, your life's gone. It's over. You're going
to jail and you will never see that outside of
the walls.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Right, that's what they say it. And you were how
old forty one?
Speaker 2 (42:52):
I I just can't imagine at that moment, just that
moment despair that you must have felt.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
It was unbelievable, especially when they took me back to
my jail cell and I heard that door slam. It's real,
it was real. And honestly, it was my foundation of
faith really that caused me when I fell on my knees,
(43:29):
when I fell down, because I know in who I believe,
and I prayed and I asked God to show me
my purpose in this because I didn't. I couldn't. There
was nothing else.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Could you find a purpose?
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Show me something, show me something, show me something. This
has to count for something. And so right then I
just made a viow that I'm never going to give
up my faith or my hope and and I've got
to live life. I'm not going to allow anyone to
take my life. I'm in this situation. I'm not dead,
(44:09):
I'm still healthy, and it's got to be something in here.
But I guess when I hit federal ground in saw
where were you in prison?
Speaker 2 (44:18):
First?
Speaker 1 (44:19):
In California, I was sitting fifteen.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
I sent you all the way to California, fifteen.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Hundred miles away from my kids. Well that was very
nice something, Yeah, that was extremely nice, lovely. Yeah, it
was Dublin FCI Doublin. It was in Pleasanton, California, up
in the mountains. And I walked on that compound, ID
just gotten there in this lady in this wheelchair looks
(44:43):
at me. I guess I'm looking around lost And she said,
what's your name? I told her and she said, Alice Bloom,
where you're planted? God knows where you are.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
A woman in prison in a wheelchair and a.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Wheelchair said that. She said, God knows where you are.
And that stuck with me and I just kept walking around.
I kept thinking, God, you do know where I am.
And when I said that, you might think I'm kidding.
I did a skip?
Speaker 2 (45:09):
You did a what a skip? Did you really?
Speaker 1 (45:11):
I did a skip? I did a skip because they said, God,
you know where I am.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
And that concludes part one of my conversations with Alice
Marie Johnson, and you do not want to miss part two.
That's now available, as we dive into how Alice actually
did bloom in prison. Frankly, I expect you'll be as
shocked as I was hearing about all the extraordinary things
(45:42):
that she did in prison. I'll see in Part ten.
I walked on a compound I'd just gotten there, and
this lady in this wheelchair looks at me. I guess
I'm looking around loss And she said, what's your name?
I told her and she said, Alice Bloom, where your planted?
God knows where you are?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
A woman in prison in a wheelchair.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Sir wheelchair said And she said, God knows where you are.
And that stuck with me, and I just kept walking around.
I kept thinking, God, you do know where I am.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
Inner City Memphis. And the last part it accidentally won
an Oscar for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated.
I believe our country's problems will never be solved by
(00:54):
a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big
words that nobody ever uses on CNN, and but rather
an army of normal folks, US just you and me
deciding hey, I can help. That's what Alice Marie Johnson,
the voice we just heard, has done, and she did
it while serving time in prison of all places. After
(01:16):
receiving a pardon, her service of those in prison didn't stop.
It's actually accelerated. I can't wait for you to meet
Alice right after these brief messages from our Genneral sponsors. Today,
(01:53):
Alice lives only thirty minutes from me in a place
called Olive Branch, Mississippi. It's just across the Tennessee, Misssippi
date line. And she grew up in Mississippi as well.
Now here's something that is a dying breed, Candidly, you
grew up the child of a sharecropper.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yes, my father was a sharecropper and my mother was
the cook. And we were the ones who were in
the fields picking cotton. We the children, the children.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, how old were.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
You from the time I could put a sack on
my back? I think I had a pillowcase was my
first cotton sack. I probably was about three four when
they put me out there.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I've seen so many paintings, candidly, and old photographs of
as far as I could see a field of three
to four foot tall, yes, cotton plants and all those
white cotton buzzs, and then what you see scattered among
that field and the foreground and the background as far
(02:55):
as you can see. Our people bent over those bushes
picking cotton, throwing it in a bag. What were ours?
What was that like?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Sign up to sundown? They'd awaken us and we load
up in the back of the truck and or we'd
walk to the fields, depending upon how close they were.
We'd load up and we'd hit the fields. And one
of the prettiest siice that you could see as a
one who picked cotton was a pretty feel that had
(03:31):
big bowls of cotton, not the little scraunchy ones that
were easy. Yeah, those were easy, but the others would
stick your hands, so we'd walked to come back home
with cut hands.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Really, yes, So what does a sharecropper do when the
crops picked after the harvest is completed? What does a
sharecropper do?
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Well? My father also he took care of the cows
and all of the livestop, so his job was not
only to be a sharecropper, but also for the people
whose place we lived on. He took care of the farm,
the barns, everything else. My mother she cook, so we
would in the wintertime. Of course, during the summer we
(04:14):
had big gardens. We had to put things up for winter.
It was a different kind of life. So you're a
farm hand, yes, a farm hand.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
But how did the pay work? People are so far
removed from this reality that is only two generations apart.
I think a lot of people don't even understand how
it worked. But my understanding is you provided a place
to live on the property, but you're not paid much
(04:45):
and candidly, most of what you make you end up
spending at the company store. Absolutely well, tell us how
that works.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Okay, we would get credit at the store and whatever
my parents made doing the sea of picking cotton, and
it was very very little sense, and we really didn't
see the money too much. We had a little stipend
to get closed. My mother would make clothes, but we
(05:12):
would run a bill up at the general store that
the person who's placed, because that's what we called it,
their place that we lived on, and they would pay
the bill and whatever was left after the crop came in,
which we didn't really ever just know how much was left.
It was, Oh, they did, they did. That's why we
(05:33):
had to see. Where this started was in Cockrum, Mississippi,
when I was five years old. I hate to use
this word escape, but We escaped from that lifestyle because
every year we were told my father he had this
dream to go up north, that was a promised land,
that we were going to make enough and bring a
(05:54):
big enough crop in this year, that we're going to
go Indiana. We're going to move from down here were
other relatives. Some had gone to Chicago, you know, Indiana,
Gary and Anna and other places, and.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
They were chasing good paying they.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Were tracing factory jobs, and that was the promised land
to us. But this particular year, the year I turned five,
we were told we had one of the best crops.
We were told that there was no money left over,
and we thought we had my older siblings we had
really worked hard, and so my mother, who was a
(06:30):
great cook, she devised a plan to sell food out
of the back of the trunk of their car at
places where the property owner wouldn't know what we were doing.
So she would go to the black baseball players games
and she would sell all of this food. And they
started saving money. And in Olive Branch they had seen
(06:53):
a piece of land. It wasn't the two acres, and
they bought that land. Out of the money. My mother
was hustled and make it on the side, and they
bought a gym Walter home which.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Is which is a mobile home.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
It's yes, well it's it's a prefabricated but it's not mobile.
It's not a mobile home. It's it's just pre Yes.
So after we finished working, after my father would finish
working in the barn at night, they would slip away
and go and hang sheep rock and just prepared and
was buying little pieces of furniture. So I can remember
(07:29):
in the middle of the night, I was awaken my cousins.
The lights were off. When I saw the movie Roots.
I said, they stole that from us, because in the
middle of the night they covered my mouth because I
talked a lot and they didn't want me to make
any noise. And I was placed in the car and
everybody else was quiet. We had the lights off, and
(07:51):
they were pushing our car and the trucks everything down
the road with the furniture in it. And as we
got closer and closer and we got out of earshot,
it was some hooping and hollering going on Bill because
we had escaped. Okay, so we were in Olive Branch.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Now this is nineteen sixty one, two three yes, uh huh,
all right, which is the Jim Crow air of the South. Yes,
but your parents. I don't even know how to say this,
but just to say it, I mean that only almost
feels like a slave escaping.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
It did, it did.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
But so share When you think of sharecropping, what's the
difference in that and slavery?
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Really it's not that much of a difference. Really, it's
not that far removed, because you really someone else is
providing for you, supposedly, but you're working their crops, working
their farm, You're doing everything.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And you're never getting anything your own.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
No how the house is, the house is not ours.
We were living on their place. The clothes on our
back were ores, the little pieces of furniture were ours.
We lived in a cinder block house and one time
there was fourteen of us there and all in that
little bitty house. So moving to Olive Branch, having our
(09:14):
bedroom and it was like we were going to a mansion.
It felt like that. And we were never to return
to that. But we still had cousins who had cotton fields.
We still worked, so we were still picking cotton. I
will say they would loan us out, the children out
to the cousins and we bring the crops in, but
this time we're doing it for our family. So my mother,
(09:38):
she was an excellent cook. She worked at the school
at one time that I attended as a cook. She
would work for the Lions Club, the Jayc's. Everyonebody knew
that Sally Bowen had some of the best food anywhere.
Her dream was to own a restaurant, which she eventually did.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
She have a coole.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Oh, she cooked every lord adversity.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
For those who have never had oxtail prepared in the
South properly with the messo greenes and corn bread, you're
missing something.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Oh and don't we get turkey nicks. Oh with the
little graveyard.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Delicious light gravy, not the dark graus.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Oh, yes, the light gravy. You can don't.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Most people listen us don't know nothing about that.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
We need to pick some some real story.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Do they need to come on down home, Come.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
On down some Southern hospitality.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
So I have to ask you something before we get
to what happened after that in your life. Well, here's
the spoiler alert. You will talk later about a thirty
thousand foot view work that you do which is humanizing
(10:50):
those who are current society doesn't always necessarily humanize. We're
not even going to talk about that now, we're going
to get to that. But when I hear that that's
what your life's mission is now, and I hear just
about what you saw and went through with your siblings
and the life that your mother and father had to
(11:13):
lead to literally escape, I'm just gonna I can't help it.
I'm just unfiltered. I'm gonna say it. How do how
does that reality affect the way you view the way
(11:36):
you fit in society?
Speaker 1 (11:40):
For me, my family, my parents' life of survival, perseverance,
their faith, the hope that they gave us, and I
had a very unique family. We were a family of faith.
But my mother didn't see color. She was an avocate.
She was a woman ahead of her time. She would
(12:03):
fight for the poor whites and the blacks in our town.
She only had an eighth grade education, but often you
would see my mother show up in court and she
would convince the judge to basically give this person into
her care, and she'd get them on the right track.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I think it's fair. I think it's worth noting that
I know white families whose grandparents were sharecroppers, so there
were poor whites.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Oh for sure. For sure. For shere my mother befriended everyone.
One of the lessons I learned from her was she
was such a gentle woman. When different candidates ran for office,
she would write a note to the opposing party leader
and wish them luck and give them blessings that she
(12:51):
hoped they do well, and for them to remember who
they are there for the community. All that come from
I don't know, but I'm telling you this is a
house I grew up in. We lived up on a
hill a little bit. Everyone had to sing or play
an instrument, so on Sundays you would hear my sister
playing the piano, and people were drawn to our house
(13:14):
to sing on Sundays. My mother always cooked more than
enough food just in case a stranger dropped by who
didn't have anything. So I grew up living watching this.
She was a strong community leader. In fact, I became
just so radicalized during the Civil rights movement because I
(13:34):
used to eavedrop on the conversations when she would have
them with her friends. They would talk about things that
were going on in this day and at our dinner table.
My mother knew that education was key, so My siblings
are our college educated and I was the one that
got married real, real young, but I still managed to
(13:55):
take classes and graduate on time. But they really learned
the value of education and making sure that their children
had a good start in life. But I can say
that they modeled the behavior for us. I think it's
so important that my father was present in the house,
(14:15):
in our home, and I've said this, and I knew
the Lord's prayer before I knew my ABC's because he
truly was a praying man. So I'm very thankful for
the foundation that I had. Even though some things in
my life took me in a different direction, that foundation
was still there, and I had seen faith lived out.
(14:40):
I've seen it walked out. I've seen it in cotton fields.
I seen it when times were hard and we didn't
have anything but a song, we break out into a
song to lift ourselves up. I've lived through tragedy. I've
lived through tragedy in the community of terrible things that
happened while I was growing up. But through all of that,
(15:05):
I still my mother told me, I know we're going
to get to that, But she told me when I
went to prison, don't ever forget who you are. Don't
ever forget who you are, that even though you're going
to that place, you don't have to be like everyone else.
It was basically, don't conform or don't go along to
get along. Remember your boglin.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I wish I could have met your mama.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I wish you could have too. She would have fed
you so good.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Oh I would have eaten so good to look at me. Yeah,
you know, I would have liked it so Honestly, You've
got a mother and father at home, you've got siblings
going to college. Clearly a lot of love, clearly a
lot of direction. Not wealthy by any means, for sure,
(15:52):
but you're getting You're getting by You had the initiative,
that your family had the initiative and gumption to get
away from sharecropping and save up money and buy a home.
And that doesn't sound like the track of a person
that ends up in college, in prison. And so let's
get to how that unfolded. I know, you got married
(16:15):
at fifteen and had a child, but you managed to
continue to get your education and you ended up going
to work for this little bitty company now called Fedax.
But for everybody, Olive Branch is literally a suburb of Memphis.
It's one of the northernmost cities in Mississippi. And when
(16:37):
you go from Olive Branch to Memphis, you really don't
notice any difference.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You don't know anything different. In fact, I lived I
lived in Memphis almost twenty years. It was in Memphis
from Memphis that I would go to prison.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
So there it is so Olive Branch Memphis very similar.
And there's this new idea which is packages getting to somebody.
If you remember the phrase absolutely positively overnight.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Federal social service profit yep.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
And this guy named Fred Smith had this Kakamamy idea
that you could build a hub and bring all the
packages into one hub, distribute them and ship them out
the next day and get any package anywhere absolutely positively
overnight and founded in Memphis. Still world headquarters are still
(17:30):
here in Memphis. Are probably most important employer in Memphis.
And you were employee number one hundred and sixty six
at this fledgling company called FedEx. Tell me how that
went well.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
As I was getting my education, I married it as
we discussed at fifteen, but I knew that my husband
was not going to allow me to go to college.
So my senior year I went to saw your secretary
of college unbeknownst to him, and I could type really
really fast, and I was a good writer.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
You must had to type fist so he didn't know.
He didn't get out, thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I could type. Let me tell you something. I could
type ninety five words a minute with no errors.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Lord have mer that's fast.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yes. So that would lead me into many good jobs.
And plus I had very good work ethics, so I
would quickly be recognized as a good employee. So when
I got the job at FedEx, it was because I
was working at the Memphis Urban League. By this time,
I have five children. Me and my husband I married,
(18:36):
is going crazy because he still thinks he's single. Yeah,
that's a whole nother thy Yeah, we won't get it.
We'll get into that. We're won't get into that. He's
now brother in Christ even though we're divorced. But I
got the job at the Urban League. And Jim Perkins,
who was the senior VP over personnel at FedEx.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
He was one of the first few at fed X,
and he was on the board of directors for the
Urban League and his mentee was killed in a car
accident Greg, and when I came in. Because the way
that I deal with pain and anything else is I write.
I love to write poetry. So I wrote a poem
(19:25):
about how it felt walking into the office that morning
and Greg is gone, and someone showed it, took it
to the board meeting. Jim Perkins saw it and asked
who wrote this? And I came in. He had tears
in his eyes because this was his was like a
son to him, and he asked me if he could
(19:48):
send it to his mother. And he said, you work,
you you work? You like working here? Yes, I love it?
He said, what you like to work for fed X?
It was Federal Express at time. And I talked to
them about my skills, and I went to personnel and
I set that type right on fire, and they hired men.
(20:09):
This secretary of pool, I wasn't in there six months.
I was recognized for my I'd always had these this
idea that if I wasn't at least thirty minutes early
for work, I'm late. And so I always showed up early,
and I'm the first one and last one to leave
if they need someone. And so my work ethics were recognized,
(20:31):
and in no time I was a manager. I was
a manager first in computer ops. That was a miracle
in itself because I didn't know anything about computers. But
I was a great motivator and people person, and between
all of the technical people, they were missing a people person.
(20:53):
But it didn't take me long to learn about computers
and how to recognize problems because my mind was like
a sponge, and because things my children were my life
and my job, and they were my family, you know,
plus my faith. So I learned everything that I could,
and then I promoted again, and then I started training
(21:14):
people for management, and then I got a divorce after
nighteen years of my life kind of fell apart.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But
first I hope you'll subscribe to the podcast so that
you get the newest episodes in your library every week.
And please consider signing up to join the Army at
Normalfolks dot us because together we can change the country.
And you'll also receive weekly email updates about the Army.
(21:51):
We'll be right back. So you were at faed Ax
(22:12):
how long them?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Ten years?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Ten years? And you go from the secretary pool up
to flying around the country training folks at different places
and some fat Acts, which is phenomenal. You're the daughter
of a sharecropper and you end up a mid level
manager at fat Axe.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yes, you had arrived. I had arrived, so I thought.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
And you get a divorce and now you're a divorce
mom of five.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah, my husband disappears, no help, and for the first
time in my life, I'm seeing life differently. Casinos come,
dog track is here, excitement and otherwise dull life. I
got in over my head bill and before I knew it,
(23:06):
I didn't have a job, my house was about to
be fore closed. I'm about to file bankruptcy, and life
is going crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So you were gambling at it?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I was gambling. I't really it was. I didn't even
realize I was a gambling attic until the money started
going to casinos and dog tracks and not to pay bills.
It was exciting. That's why I don't. It's very few
games I even play now.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
So when I read that, and I'm gonna tell you something,
I love to play poker. I love to sit down
and play poker, play poker friends. I used to. I
played poker in Vegas sometimes. If I could ever get
two weeks of my life where I didn't have everything
to go. I would love to go play in the world.
She there's a poker because I really enjoy playing and
(24:00):
in poker terms and poker, I love it. And you know,
like anything like drinking or alcohol or whatever, gambling and
playing poker is no different. You know, you've got to
have a limit, you got to keep it and then
you can't let it overcome you. But as I was
reading your story, I wondered, and I couldn't help, but wonder,
(24:26):
did you like maybe a little financial literacy at that time?
Speaker 1 (24:31):
But sure, well my circumstance, I will say, before then,
I had good credit, I paid my bills. I didn't
have a lot of money left over because by this
time I have a daughter that's in college, yourself and
some more in the pipeline. It's going to be going soon.
(24:51):
But I had no financial help from their father, so
I'm really footing everything by myself. But the the gambling
gave me an out. It put me into another whole
world that I'd never seen before. But now you know,
I look back on it, and I was going further
in deeper down. You know, once you start losing, you
(25:15):
try to win a jackpot while you losing a jackpot.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I was winning the very thing that I was called chasing.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yes. So then once I was in so deep, I
couldn't find my way out, and my finances are going
absolutely crazy, I have nobody to turn to. And plus
it was a matter of pride to because my siblings
are all extremely successful, my parents are upstanding, and I
(25:42):
just didn't want to be seen as a failure. That
was pride. I think if I had talked to somebody
about what I was really going through, and at times
I wonder if I even had a breakdown, because I
was no longer thinking I was spiraling. I was spiraling there.
The more I looked at the whole listening to some
of my situation, the more I was going further in.
(26:05):
And so when an offer came to me to be
what it's called a telephone mule, I'm like, I don't
know anything about drugs. This offer came. Do you know,
I don't know anyone. The person who I was seeing
said what did you tell him? As I told him no,
and he says to me, I said you know someone?
He said, yeah, you're looking at him and it's someone
(26:27):
that I started dating. And I don't blame him because
I made that bad decision.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Most people don't know. Unfortunately, I do know what a
telephone mule is because I've been around some folks who
have lived that life. Let's let's explain to our listeners
before we go any further, exactly what a telephone.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You tell us a telephone mule means. I was the
perfect person. I never thought of criminal ideas before in
my life.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Clean.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, so I'm the perfect person. If someone comes to town,
they're given my number, they don't tell me who they are.
They just tell me this is the number with the
cold to tell them to call. And I passed the
number and I go back to bed. They don't know me,
and somehow in my own head, and I'm not even
(27:20):
trying to pretend to be innocent, I knew what I
did was wrong, but I helped my conscience by saying,
I'm not a drug seller. That's not who I am.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
So what would happen is somebody comes to Memphis or
any city, any country, because a telephone mule is.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
The operator for this, it's operation, it's the operator for them.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
They don't know they're sent by a cartel or someone
above them to take these drugs somewhere. That's all they're told.
And they're given the amount of money because they're a mule.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
They're mule too, all right.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
And so when they load up and bring drugs and
they get to wherever they're supposed to do, they're told
call this number. And when they call that number, they
don't know who they're talking to. It's you on their line.
You don't know who you're talking.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
To, which keeps everyone safe. Who's really the leader, who's
really doing it?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
They're breaking chain of customs.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
That's exactly what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
So you have a number that you know this person's
gonna call me when they call.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Give them another correct not even give them a number.
Another number just passed at one time. I didn't pass
two numbers. It's just the initial contact and then I
guess they go to and follow out and that's it.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Now they getting contact with whoever they're delivering.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
That's correct, So and you're out sounds nothing. The first
time I got one thousand dollars, I literally kept my
life so that we bought food, and after that I
felt terrible about it. Then my son got killed in
a car in a scooter accident, and that's when everything
(28:55):
in my life completely went crazy.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
You were already hanging over about them.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I was hanging on by a thread. Here I am
with my youngest son, he's twelve. His brother's driving a scooter.
They get hit a by another teenager, and I'm in
the crazy I'm in the twilight zone for real. I
don't even have money to bury my son. It's whatever.
(29:21):
I'm sitting in a dark house most of the time
in grief. This goes on, and in the course of time,
the person who was coming in got busted and he
had my phone number, and that's when the house of
cars fell down. There's so many different things involved in
this whole thing. I didn't really know about conspiracy. I'm
(29:45):
thinking my family. I don't have any money. In fact,
when I was arrested there was nothing to be seized,
but the people who testified against me had cars, seeds,
home seised money, seeds. I've got five hundred dollars in
the It goes through. But you know, to get past
all of that, I learned about conspiracy. I was found
(30:09):
guilty of attempted possession because I didn't have drugs, and
I was offered three years, went to tryal and.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
When you were offered three years, probably that's is that
federal time.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Federal.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
So you're offered three years and your life's in a tornado.
You spent ten years in Federacs, got this great job,
a gambling addiction later, a divorce, later, hooked up with
a pretty bad dude. That sounds like later, the death
(30:46):
of a son. Later. Now you're faced with do I
say okay and go to prison for three years and
you don't even have money for I guess you're getting
a quarter point and an attorney. No.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
My family, they gathered, they had a meeting. My mother
was just tore up. She had no idea that I
was involved in something like this. No one in my
family knew. I mean no one in my family had
You didn't I didn't grow up in Plus, none of
my siblings have ever had a run in with the law.
And from all appearances, I've never had not just appearances,
(31:21):
the truth, I've never had been criminally minded. My children,
you better not steal nothing. I came to Memphis. I
had an opportunity to be on welfare and everything, but
I didn't want my children to see that as an example.
So I took that little low paying job because I
didn't want to take money from the government. I didn't
(31:42):
want to get a check in the mail. I don't
want free stuff. I want to work for what I get.
So I'm used to working and working hard, and this
is totally I don't even know what I'm doing. Ignorance
of the law is no excuse for breaking the law.
So I put myself in a position to even come
(32:04):
in contact with the law because if I had not
did something that was wrong, I wouldn't have had to
worry about that.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
We'll be right back. I said this to John Ponder,
who I know, you know, and he now uses it.
There's a vernacular related to the judicial system that people
(32:40):
will say, I caught a charge.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I caught a charge, all right.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Well, John was talking in an interview I did with
him months ago, and he was talking about catching a
charge or this guy caught a charge. He may have
been speaking of himself catching charge, and I interrupted. I said, John,
I got to talk to you about something. He said,
all right, and I said, I'd never heard the phrase
I caught a charge before. I was in my early thirties.
(33:06):
I was at an asses and a kid was talking
about house cousin got busted and caught a charge. And
I said, he what he said? He caught a charge?
I said, dude, you catch a colt, you catch the flu.
That's something that happens to you earn a charge. And
John started laughing. And now John no longer uses the
(33:27):
terminology or caught a charge, You earn a charge. But
the reason I'm saying this is because it's refreshing. You
want to tell your story, because you need to tell
your story to explain everything about your life and what
you're doing now. But you don't tell your story. And
I've never heard you or seen you write and tell
(33:50):
your story and then somehow allow yourself to be a
victim of it or use it as an excuse. You
freely admit that you earned this problem with the law
because of your own actions, and instead of trying to
point and blame somebody else and everything else. And you know,
(34:11):
I think that gives what you're doing now even more validity. Bill.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I just don't want anyone to look at me as
a victim. The sentence was too long, I will say that,
but that's a broken judicial system. It was way too
much for what I did, and never having been in
trouble when I looked at people who were getting the
same sentence as I received. There were murderers, yeah, and
(34:39):
so from that standpoint, but I really exposed myself to
get any sentence by the thing that I myself did.
Nor do I want any child or my children to
make excuses for wrong actions.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
It's so refreshing, and I commend you so much for that,
because somebody who had been through what you've been through,
you could almost justify and understand. While they would not
accept total responsibility for their actions, but you do. It's
one of the reasons why I think you're so inspiring.
So you're offered three years and you're giving advice not
(35:18):
to take it to me.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Attorney tells me, don't do it. Don't take it. He said,
they have nothing on you. He said that they gave
me a ten thousand dollars bond, that others a bond,
a very low bond. The ones who testified against me couldn't.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Get a bond. They were held without bail.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
That they couldn't get a buck.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Because they were really the ones doing the stuff.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
The cops knew it, and they had long histories to Oh,
they had sheets, they had rap sheets. I had nothing.
He said, we can beat this. He said, where's the beef,
Where is the beef, where's the drugs? Where's the money?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
But you had no money and no drugs. So I
go to try which again you earned that you did that.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
That was wrong, that was absolutely wrong because I was
a part of it. I was a part of this
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
But you weren't running any cartels.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Oh for sure, for sure, absolutely not. So we go
to trial and it looks like we're winning.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Honestly, six you're feeling good about it.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I'm feeling pretty good. He's feeling good about it. Then
we get the note that the jury is hung and
they're crying and they're arguing, and then they send a
note out asking what is Can they explain conspiracy? I
didn't have conspiracy explained to me either, So that was explained.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Explain it to us.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
A conspiracy means that you have responsible for every action
that's committed doing the furtherance.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Of the crime, every action, not even your.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Every action, everything you helped show the.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Mule, the cartels, the folks selling her on the street,
the guy delivering her to the dude on the corner.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
The candle, especially if you go to trial, you're gonna
get what's called the trial penalty.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
So as a conspirator, you're associated with every everything. If
I drop a buddy of mine off at a convenience
store and he goes in and robs and shoots somebody
and kills them because he rode with me, could I
be brought up on the spirits and watch it. I
(37:32):
could serve time for murder.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
You would, you? She would?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
And so that's the place you found yourself.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, you're involved in a conspiracy. You're going to be
called the getaway driver, and you're going to receive the
same charge.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
What if I don't even know that guy's got a
gun and he's going to.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Steal charge your cold conspiratory real.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Somebody rides with me, I have no idea he's got
a gun, and he says, let me go in here
and get a cold beer. And while he's in there,
he tries to rob the place, shoot somebody. Get to
my or because I delivered him, I could be brought
up on conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
They're not going to believe that you didn't know. Prove it,
prove it, prove that you didn't know.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
So they looked at you and said prove that all
you did was answer numbers.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Absolutely, prove it. These people say, how can you how can.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
You prove a false negative? How can you disprove a
false negative?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I'm in it. They have my number, so and I guess.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Somebody called you to give you numbers. So you had
two sets of numbers.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Absolutely, I'm tired.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I'm so you're dead in the middle of it.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
I don't know. I'm dead on a rival that I
should have been fighting. But that was part of my
journey that I now know that I had to take.
And I can tell you this, looking you in your eyes,
that God did not put me in prison. He used
(38:58):
me in prison.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
So you turned down. Three years, you go to trial,
You're feeling good about it. The note comes back about conspiracy.
They find you guilty.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
In your sentence to life plus twenty five years without parole.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
And federal times so people know they're inding parole. Right.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
That's why it was without parole because there is no parole,
and a life sentence in the federal system is called
an unexecuted sentence of death because it is executed when
you die.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Was this at the time of mandatory sentencing und charges?
So the judge sentenced you to what was mandated by law.
The judge had no The judge couldn't have said, they
find you guilty. I do too, but I believe you
were really lightly involved. I'm going to give you three years.
The judge has a set of mandatory sentencing guidelines that
(39:59):
he has to give, and they have to give it
to you.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
The only time that I had a choice was to
take a plea.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Before the started, and when you decided not take the
plea and not take the three years, and you go to.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Trial even while the jury was deliberating. I was offered
eight years, and I'm like.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
You offered me three two months ago.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Right, Maybe I could have negotiated at that point.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Did your attorney not tell you, never, you don't take
this three years, you could be looking at life.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Never. I never even knew that a life sentence was
on the table.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
So the second form of a literacy that I think
plagues people mis financial literacy, but I think judicial and
absolutely judicial and civic illiteracy is the reason many of
our jails are full. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1 (40:52):
I would, even with some of the work that I'm
doing now with talking to young people and really educating them, too,
not just the education part, but really a change of
mindset when you do things. I'm not saying I was
a child, but I had the same knowledge as a
young person doing something absolutely idiotic. They are doing things
(41:17):
now not realizing that this is going to cost them
their life, and I.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Want people to hear me. I wish this was video.
I am sitting across the table from a beautiful woman
who is dressed beautifully, has a beautiful smile, has a
bright eyes, fingernails are done, has a heart lock it
(41:45):
around her neck. Don't sensationalize or stereotype people have been
to prison because I promise you, somebody came across you.
They'd never see that. And I got to imagine that
the woman at FedEx that grew up the daughter of
(42:07):
sharecroppers never envisioned that there was trauma in your life.
You fell in a hole, you made a mistake, and
a screwed up mandatory sentencing based on drugs because of
the War on drugs and really poor advice from attorney.
(42:28):
You're going to jail for the rest of your life,
and after you die, I guess you get to serve
another twenty five years because that's a sentence you're gone,
your family's gone, your life's gone. It's over. You're going
to jail and you will never see that outside of
the walls.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Right, that's what they say it. And you were how
old forty one?
Speaker 2 (42:52):
I I just can't imagine at that moment, just that
moment despair that you must have felt.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
It was unbelievable, especially when they took me back to
my jail cell and I heard that door slam. It's real,
it was real. And honestly, it was my foundation of
faith really that caused me when I fell on my knees,
(43:29):
when I fell down, because I know in who I believe,
and I prayed and I asked God to show me
my purpose in this because I didn't. I couldn't. There
was nothing else.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Could you find a purpose?
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Show me something, show me something, show me something. This
has to count for something. And so right then I
just made a viow that I'm never going to give
up my faith or my hope and and I've got
to live life. I'm not going to allow anyone to
take my life. I'm in this situation. I'm not dead,
(44:09):
I'm still healthy, and it's got to be something in here.
But I guess when I hit federal ground in saw
where were you in prison?
Speaker 2 (44:18):
First?
Speaker 1 (44:19):
In California, I was sitting fifteen.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
I sent you all the way to California, fifteen.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Hundred miles away from my kids. Well that was very
nice something, Yeah, that was extremely nice, lovely. Yeah, it
was Dublin FCI Doublin. It was in Pleasanton, California, up
in the mountains. And I walked on that compound, ID
just gotten there in this lady in this wheelchair looks
(44:43):
at me. I guess I'm looking around lost And she said,
what's your name? I told her and she said, Alice Bloom,
where you're planted? God knows where you are.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
A woman in prison in a wheelchair and a.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Wheelchair said that. She said, God knows where you are.
And that stuck with me and I just kept walking around.
I kept thinking, God, you do know where I am.
And when I said that, you might think I'm kidding.
I did a skip?
Speaker 2 (45:09):
You did a what a skip? Did you really?
Speaker 1 (45:11):
I did a skip? I did a skip because they said, God,
you know where I am.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
And that concludes part one of my conversations with Alice
Marie Johnson, and you do not want to miss part two.
That's now available, as we dive into how Alice actually
did bloom in prison. Frankly, I expect you'll be as
shocked as I was hearing about all the extraordinary things
(45:42):
that she did in prison. I'll see in Part ten.
Host
Bill Courtney
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!