MR. DAVID DAWUD LEE: ODE TO A SOUL WHO TRANSCENDED BOUNDARIES

            The devasting news of David Dawud Lee’s death evokes a tsunami of emotions.  Mr. Lee, a wrongfully and unjustly convicted, wrongfully and unjustly sentenced, and wrongfully and unjustly incarcerated United States citizen died just days before the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons would review his commutation application and decide whether to grant him a public hearing for commutation at a Merit Review Session  convened on Friday, 23 February 2024.   The many souls who were fortunate enough to come within Mr. Lee’s orbit were frantically hoping that Mr. Lee would move one step closer to freedom – freedom as a living and breathing United States citizen who would out of prison .   We envisioned Mr. Lee being granted a  public hearing for commutation.  We envisioned Mr. Lee receiving a unanimous vote in favor of commutation from the Pennsylvania Board Of Pardons.  We envisioned celebrating and supporting Mr.. Lee’s reintegration into society.

  

       We had remained hopeful, in spite of the fact that on 3 June 2022, during  its Merit Review Session, the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons voted 3-2 against granting a public hearing to Mr. David Dawud Lee, a prolific author, philanthropist, Mentor, Father, and “inside-out" Criminal Justice Reform Thought Leader.  Six months later, on 13 October 2022, Mr. Lee was again denied a pathway to a much deserved and overdue freedom when the Pennsylvania Board Of Pardons failed to reverse its decision made in June 2022 that denied Mr.. Lee a public hearing.

          

              Mr. Lee envisioned “moving forward” and “finally making it home”, and at the same time expressed the heart wrenching sentiment that his journey had been long and painful and that he had “more than enough” in his electronic mail communication to me of 8 February 2024:

 

Inbox

From: Lee, David

Date Received: 02/08/2024 08:58 AM CST

Subject:  PLEASANT GREETINGS!

Mrs. Sears it is a great pleasure to hear from you, and thank you for the very positive and thoughtful card! Yes the card came at a good moment. I also want to share that I will be up for a Merit Review Hearing scheduled for 2,23,24. I am pray to move forward and finally make it home! It has been a long and painful journey behind bars, and I have had more than enough. Once again thank you!!! Dawud

            Mr. Lee’s wrongful and unjust conviction, wrongful and unjust life without parole sentence, and wrongful and unjust life without parole incarceration was a horrifically long and painful journey.  Mr. Lee’s horrifically long and painful journey has ended, but not in the matter that we had fought for,, hoped for, and prayed for.  Mr. Lee is not walking out of prison.  He will never walk out of prison.  Mr. Lee laboriously took his last and dying breath in a cold, dank, desolate, hellish, and unforgiving place – prison

 

       So, who is Mr. David Dawud Lee?  Mr. Lee transcended his difficult set of circumstances to become  a proactive parent and a positive influence in his daughter’s intellectual, psychological, emotional, and spiritual development.  I marveled at the manner in which Mr. Lee fulfilled his commitment  to shepherd his daughter’s arduous journey from childhood to adulthood.  Mr. Lee was one of many Incarcerated Fathers throughout the United States who helped me resurrect the vision -- IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD® -- and perpetuate the legacy of my late mentor L.T. Henry, who envisioned Fathers transcending the boundaries of geography, language, culture, economics, ethnicity, and religion for the purpose of working together as a collective to address and resolve unique challenges and issues which made it difficult for them to positively shape the minds and souls of their children; move their families forward; and sustain nurturing and fully functioning family units. In 2000, Mr. Lee was kind enough to present me with a soulful essay on Fatherhood that continues to resonate with me entitled, “A Spiritual Force”.     Years later in 2018, when I was asked to write a chapter focusing on incarcerated African American Fathers for a  Fatherhood research book project – Engaging And Working With African American Fathers:  Strategies And Lessons Learned (www.routledge.com) -- created  by nationally recognized Fatherhood Practitioner Latrice S. Rollins, Ph.D. (https://www.latricerollins.com) and published in December 2020, I immediately thought of Mr. Lee.   With Mr. Lee’s permission, I included an excerpt from “A Spiritual Force” penned by Mr. Lee that appears in Chapter 5:  "Engaging In Working With African American Fathers In Prison:  The Fathers And Children Together Experience Initiative" (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/ edit/10.4324/97804292783895/ engaging-working-african-american-fathers-prison-diane-aisha-sears).  Through “A Spiritual Force,” excerpted below, Mr. Lee powerfully articulates the unique challenges and issues that confront  Incarcerated Fathers – particularly – Incarcerated African American Fathers – who innovatively work to positively shape the minds and souls of their children.   

 

“After thirteen staggering years after being hostilely extracted from my community and my beautiful daughter’s life, I am still striving mentally to adjust to the psychologically scarring reality of me not having a presence in this precocious young life I have watched emerge through the gateway of a moist, dark maternal gateway into this chaotic world.  There have been countless nights of tossing and turning in some uncomfortable state-owned bed pondering or guessing what steps she might be taking while I waste away inside the swiftly growing ‘Prison Industrial Complex’.  Is her cultural, historical, technological, spiritual character and basic development being undertaken in a nurturing environment?  Are there problems at school, or the local neighborhood occurring that would require the attention of a caring father?  . . . I have sent home books and a weighty sum of mail with the hopes of conveying an undying love, nevertheless our relationship is still an uncertain odyssey in which we struggle to learn more about each other and the  socioeconomic dynamics surrounding our unceremonious separation.” 

 

Mr. Lee has provided practitioners, professionals, researchers, students, and policymakers in the fields of social work, public health, law, Criminal Justice, Restorative Justice, Prison Reform,  Fatherhood, and education, many of whom are providing or will provide in the future, resources and services to African American Fathers who are reading or have read Engaging And Working With African American Fathers:  Strategies And Lessons Learned (www. routledge.com),  with a powerful lens to view the unique challenges and issues that Incarcerated African American Fathers are addressing on a daily basis – under the most difficult and untenable set of circumstances.  Consequently, he has moved Incarcerated African American Fathers into the National and Global Dialogues on Fatherhood and placed Incarcerated African American Fathers at the national Fatherhood policymaking table.

 

             He cared deeply about all children as demonstrated by his financial contributions to the Kaupas Camp (see “Incarcerated Men Join Giving Circles To Redefine Themselves”’ published by the Federal News Network at https://federalnewsnetwork.com/ businessnews/2021/12/incarcerated-men-join-giving-circles-to-redefine-themselves/).  Mr. Lee’s financial contributions along with those of his colleagues at SCI Coal Township who are members of a philanthropic organization, Lifeline, which Mr. Lee co-founded, has sent each year, for approximately one (1) month, nearly sixty (60) youths who reside in and/or near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania to the Kaupas Camp at Bucknell University.   The young souls, who are the beneficiaries of the philanthropy of Mr. Lee and his colleagues, spend time at Bucknell University learning about, inter alia, ecology and music.  They participate in clinics in a variety of sports that include basketball and field hockey, all of which are managed by athletic coaches at Bucknell University.   When reached for comment about  his and his colleagues’ philanthropy, Mr. Lee modestly stated:  “If we have an opportunity to send a child to camp, to experience something that I never experienced in my lifetime, that is a wonderful thing.”   

 

          Under Mr. Lee’s leadership, Lifelines Project (https://lifelines-project.org), an organization he co-founded,  developed and implemented a successful mentoring program,  “Dare To Care” which has a fifteen (15) week curriculum for incarcerated souls at SCI Coal  Township.  A prolific journalist, Mr. Lee is the co-author of a recently released book, “WEology:  Transformative Justice In Practice.”  His thought provoking essays educate and inspire his readers.  

 

           Mr. Lee was truly a Soul who transcended boundaries.  He is a Sou who will never walk out of prison, despite our fighting for his right to walk out of prison as a freedom . . .  despite our fervent hopes and prayers that he would “finally make it home”.  On 8 February 2024, fifteen days before the Pennsylvania Board Of Pardons was scheduled to review Mr. Lee’s commutation application and vote to grant him a commutation public hearing, Mr. Lee gutwrenchingly declared:  “I have had more than enough”.

 

       When does  “more than enough” become “more than enough” for us?