© 2023 | Texas After Violence Project
Prior to returning to Texas After Violence Project as its executive director in 2016, Gabriel was a capital post-conviction investigator for the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, criminal justice research associate at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, and project coordinator of the Guantánamo Bay Oral History Project at the Columbia Center for Oral History Research. Gabriel is the recipient of the 2018 Pushcart Prize for nonfiction. His writings have appeared in Texas Monthly, Texas Observer, Oxford American, Scalawag, Cultural Dynamics: Insurgent Scholarship on Culture, Politics, and Power, and Kula: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies.
Gabriel was named the 2023 University of California Regents Fellow in Information Studies.
Gabriel is currently advising on the creation of a digital archive for government records related to the Trump Administration’s Family Separation and Detention policies. Gabriel is also working with Shift Collective to evaluate the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Recordings at Risk grant program. Gabriel also currently serves on the Advisory Team for We Here’s Dream-Shaping Our Community project and the Advisory Board for the Community-Centered Archives Practice: Transforming Education, Archives, and Community History (C-CAP TEACH) project at UC Irvine.
Previously Gabriel served as a consultant for the Ford Foundation Reclaiming the Border Narrative initiative, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Oral History Project, the UCLA Archiving the Age of Mass Incarceration project, Shift Collective’s Historypin research exploring decentralized digital storage for community archives, and as a Fellowship Mentor for Fanny Garcia’s Separated, a project documenting the lived experiences of parents separated from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border under the “zero tolerance” policy in 2018.
Julieta aims to love transformative justice into practice.
They come to abolition from lived experiences as a queer GNC immigrant in a mixed-status family and hold deep gratitude for all their abolitionist teachers and dreamers.
They hold a B.A. in Women and Gender Studies and Race, Indigeneity, and Migration from UT Austin. During their time in Austin, were involved in grassroots organizing, mutual aid, and nonprofit work focused on immigrant and housing justice, building relationships with folks directly impacted by policing and detention/incarceration. Queerness and migration shape Julieta’s freedom dreams to reimagine justice and accountability in community and to build networks of collective care.
They enjoy cooking and eating, learning languages, spending time with kiddos, outdoor adventures, yoga, and art appreciation. They are (finally!) learning to play the drums and feel most themselves when they’re singing, dancing, and by the ocean <3.
If interested in connecting with Julieta, email them at julieta@texasafterviolence.org.
Raquel is a graduate student at the University of North Texas pursuing a degree in Archival Studies and Imaging Technology. After working with vulnerable populations during her nursing career, she wishes to advocate for those impacted by mass incarceration and institutional violence and assist them in sharing their experiences. As a child, Raquel thoughtfully listened to her mother’s stories about her home country, and attributes these stories as a foundation of her identity. Raquel views storytelling as an important tool for reflection and social development. Raquel wishes to facilitate others to tell and share their stories to ultimately elicit change and reform the prison system.
Mandi Jai Zapata, a resilient 33-year-old, has over a challenging seven-year period of incarceration. Despite the hardships, Mandi is a devoted mother of two, fueled by an unwavering hope and a compassionate heart for people. With a profound belief in the power of shared stories, Mandi aspires to empower others to express their narratives, fostering wisdom and personal growth within the community.
Rob Lilly is a true student of life, dedicated to making the world a more just place. Having overcome significant obstacles in his 53 years, he now uses his experience to push for criminal justice reform. Rob’s work is grounded in the abolition framework, as taught by Angela Davis. He earned his degree from Abilene Christian University in 2015 and currently serves as a Criminal Justice/Participatory Defense Organizer at Grassroots Leadership.
My name is Cyrus L Gray III. I’m a 29 year old black man from Houston, TX. In 2018 I (along with my childhood friend DeVont Amerson) was wrongfully arrested and accused of a capital murder that occurred in San Marcos, Texas, in 2015. I spent 5 years incarcerated pretrial, with NO BOND, until I was finally taken to trial. A trial that lasted nearly 3 weeks only to end in a mistrial. Several months after that I was finally given a bond and was able to get out of jail awaiting a second trial date . Since then my case has been dismissed and I have been a free man for nearly a month now. Prior to my arrest in 2018, I worked as a Physical Therapy Technician, had my own business in Personal Training, worked as a sales associate for a tailored suit and tie company out of Dallas, managed local artists in the Houston area, and was working on a clothing brand.
Since my arrest in March of 2018 I’ve advocated as much as possible for myself and others in Hays County Jail and have been able to work alongside MANO AMIGA in such advocacy. I’ve worked with the Austin Justice Coalition, Texas After Violence Project (TAVP), The Fair Defense Project, VERA Institute of justice, The Innocence Project and Professor Mathew Clair of Stanford University. I’ve spoken multiple times at Hays County Commissioners Court hearings and at the Capital in front of the Criminal Justice Committee and the Jail Standards Committee. I have published pieces with the Inquest forum of Harvard Law School, TAVP & the Innocence Project, as well as in local news platforms. In regards to the importance of affordable bonds and a much needed change in the criminal legal system. My advocacy has included but is not limited to the creation of multiple Zines outlining the disparities in justice within our criminal legal system and communities at large. Now that my case has been resolved I am excited to continue my advocacy and am looking forward to enrolling in law school to have an opportunity to be apart of the good difference.
Susannah Sheffer is a clinical mental health counselor and a writer and researcher focusing on the impact of the death penalty. She designed the first training series dedicated to working in clinical settings with family members of individuals who have been sentenced to death and has been an invited expert on this topic in a range of national and international forums, including a United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights high level side event in 2016. Previously, Susannah worked with Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights and directed that organization’s No Silence, No Shame project, which focused on the traumatic impact of losing a family member to state execution. She is also the author of the 2013 book Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys, based on interviews with 20 attorneys who had lost at least one client to execution.
Jessie has a background in nonprofit education from Houston and has been living in Austin since 2005. After receiving bachelor’s degrees in French and Studio Art from UT Austin, she worked in local school fundraising and events, school web design and development, and medical device support for international pediatric transport teams. During the pandemic, Jessie volunteered for StrongerTogether ATX and area resource centers to assess community needs. She is currently raising two fun children, completing a master’s in mental health counseling, and has been assisting Susannah with the Access to Treatment initiative since the summer of 2023. She is thankful for the opportunity to be involved in the work that TAVP does to uplift an underrecognized and underserved population.
Milad Taghehchian is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Financial Planner (CFP) with a proven track record of excellence in the financial industry. With over 20 years of experience, he has demonstrated expertise in tax, estate, investment management, real estate, and wealth management.
Throughout his career, Milad has served a diverse clientele, ranging from individuals and families to businesses and corporations. His commitment to personalized service and attention to detail has earned him a reputation as a trusted wealth manager, empowering clients to achieve their financial goals and optimize their financial well-being.
Milad’s proficiency enables him to provide comprehensive solutions that align with his clients’ unique needs and circumstances. He stays at the forefront of industry trends, ensuring he can offer the most relevant and innovative financial advice.
Beyond his professional accomplishments, Milad is known for his approachable demeanor and dedication to building long-lasting client relationships based on trust and integrity.
Jennifer Toon is a passionate prison abolitionist. As a formerly incarcerated woman, her experience with the criminal legal system began at age 15 when she was adjudicated under Texas determinate sentencing laws. Her conviction started a long journey through 27 years of criminal justice involvement. Jennifer has been published in The Texas Observer, The Marshall Project, The Guardian and is also the co-host of On the Rec Yard: Women’s Prison Podcast. As the Project Director for Lioness and Steering Committee Member for the Statewide Leadership Council, Jennifer aspires to use her lived experience to bring attention to the often-forgotten voices of other system-impacted women, youth, and people with disabilities. She lives in Austin, Texas with her cat Taylor, who embodies the mischievous energy of Taylor Swift.
Jasmarie is a lover of stories and the people who tell them. She believes community archiving gives people the autonomy to reclaim their own experiences and combat erasure, making it one of the many tools for liberation and abolition. She started working with Texas After Violence Project as an intern in 2022 upon graduating from the University of Texas at Austin. As an undergrad she worked with various social justice initiatives such as the UC Collaborative to Promote Immigrant and Student Equity and Latin American Working Group, and even conducted an independent oral history project in her island of Puerto Rico. She also currently volunteers with the Austin History Center Association. Jasmarie spends most of her free time performing musical numbers at home, laughing at a comedy show, swimming, or choosing her next sitcom to binge.
Murphy joined Texas After Violence in 2020 after years of teaching creative writing at Travis County Correctional Complex and serving as executive director of Freehand Arts Project. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where she majored in Plan II Honors, English Honors, and History, Murphy moved to New York as a member of New York City Teaching Fellows and taught AP Literature and Composition and creative writing classes at a Title-1 high school in Hell’s Kitchen. She returned to Austin and began organizing writing classes at the county jail in addition to poetry workshops from visiting poets, Eileen Myles, Ebony Stewart, Morgan Parker, and Derrick Brown. Having taught nearly every age, from PreK to the elderly, Murphy believes in community storytelling, narrative power, and memory as transformative, abolitionist tools for both the personal and political. She recently graduated from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas and continues to pursue social justice in state and local carceral systems.
Hannah joined Texas After Violence in February of 2022 after being introduced to us while studying Archival Science as a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles.
As the daughter of an incarcerated father and someone who believes deeply in the affective, testimonial power of personal materials, she is interested in personal archiving, posthumous rights in records, and archival methods that can be used to subvert the tactics of surveillance and silencing that occur through state-maintained archives.
Hannah’s research focuses on how personal artifacts and works of creative expressions generated by the incarcerated can be protected in instances of in-custody death and the subsequent death review and psychological autopsy processes that ensue; her archival practice is concerned with how to care for these materials once they are retrieved.
Aside from her work as an archivist and researcher, Hannah loves never-ending sentences, Burt’s Bees chapstick (not sponsored), walking around looking at flowers and plants, and sending her friends unsolicited playlists.
Walden is a life-long Austinite with a passion for mission-driven fundraising and community organizing. Since graduating from The University of Texas, Walden has worked with many diverse nonprofits in ATX such as Austin Pets Alive! and Equality Texas as a fundraising professional and consultant. They believe in the power of storytelling as a humanity’s longest-lived resource for change. Outside of work, you can find them as a board member with Salvage Vanguard Theatre or in the YA section of your local independent bookstore.
Dr. Celeste Henery is a cultural anthropologist working at the intersections of race, gender, and health; specifically, what it means to feel well, individually and collectively, in these troubling times. Celeste’s broader research interests include black ecologies, feminisms, and diaspora studies. She currently works as a Research Associate in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her writing on black life across the diaspora has been published in various academic journals and appears on the blog Black Perspectives. In addition to her academic endeavors, Celeste works as a mitigation specialist and guides others to creatively navigate their projects and lives.
Hollis Hammonds is an Austin-based artist and a Professor of Art at St. Edward’s University. Her dystopian drawings and found-object installations have been widely exhibited throughout the US. Built on threads of personal memory tied to the public collective consciousness, her work reflects the evidence of war, natural disasters, environmental degradation, and violence in America. Her recent collaboration with poet Sasha West has resulted in a new body of work related to climate change and climate grief. Hammonds is the author of Drawing Structure: Conceptual and Observational Techniques, and has had her creative work featured in multiple publications. She has been an artist in residence at McColl Center for Art + Innovation, Vermont Studio Center, and Atlantic Center for the Arts, and is the Chair of the Department of Visual Studies at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas.
Mark Menjívar is a San Antonio based artist and Associate Professor in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University. His art practice primarily consists of creating participatory projects while being rooted in photography, oral history, archives, and social action. He attended McLennan Community College, holds a BA in Social Work from Baylor University and an MFA in Social Practice from Portland State University.
Juania Sueños is a cursi Chicanx. She is bad at writing bios, but excellent at finding peculiar objects on sidewalks. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Texas State & other boring credentials given to her by institutions. She is a translator of Spanish works. She co-founded & is an editor at the publication & non-profit, Infrarrealista Review. Her work has appeared in Acentos Review, Sybil Journal, The Skinkbeat Review, Porter House Review, New York Quarterly, Nat.Brut, & other lovely places. She was the 2019 recipient of the Editorial Fellowship from the Center for the Study of the Southwest. She is 2023 Writer in Residence at the Texas After Violence Project. Juania is currently working on a novel based on her family in hopes of highlighting the West’s impacts on Mexico. When she is not cuddling her chihuahua, Chan (after Jackie Chan) she is playing with her son, Arti. She is a migratory bird from Zacatecas, Mexico
Lee Greenwood-Rollins is the mother of Joseph Nichols, who was executed on March 7th, 2007. She shared her story with the Texas After Violence Project and discusses Joseph’s life, his friends, his giving character, and the injustices they suffered at the hands of the Texas criminal legal system. Lee is an accountant and works with TAVP as a part of their Community Advisory Council.
Ayshea Khan is a community archivist living in Austin, TX with a passion for activating community stories to facilitate social change. By day, she serves as the Asian Pacific American Community Archivist at the Austin History Center, Austin Public Library. She is also a longtime volunteer and collaborator with SAADA and is proud to serve as their current Board President. Ayshea holds a B.S. in Cinema & Photography from Ithaca College and she received her MSIS in 2016 from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a Certified Archivist, a 2021-2023 RBS-Mellon Cultural Heritage Fellow, and currently serves in leadership positions with the Society of Southwest Archivists and Asian Pacific American Library Association.
Maggie Luna is a Policy Analyst and the Community Outreach Coordinator at the Texas Center for Justice and Equity, which she joined in early 2020 as a Hogg Foundation Peer Policy Fellow.Her passion for justice policy is fueled by her own lived experience with system involvement and substance use, including incarceration at state and county levels in Texas. J A graduate of the Smart Justice Speakers Bureau at Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law, Maggie coordinates the Statewide Leadership Council, which TCJE launched to elevate the voices of system-impacted people in local and state policy reform. Maggie also holds a Re-Entry Peer Specialist Certification.
Rachel E. Winston is an archivist and curator based out of Austin, TX, where her work centers the documentation and representation of the Black Diaspora within cultural institutions. She is the founding Black Diaspora Archivist at The University of Texas at Austin and leads the university’s effort to build a special collection documenting the Black experience across the Americas and Caribbean.
Faylita Hicks is a queer Afro-Latinx activist, writer, and interdisciplinary artist. Born in South Central California and raised in Central Texas, they use their intersectional experiences to advocate for the rights of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ people. They are the author of HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry. They are the Editor-in-Chief of Black Femme Collective and a new voting member of the Recording Academy. Faylita is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from Black Mountain Institute, the Tony-Award winning Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Civil Rights Corps, The Dots Between, Jack Jones Literary Arts, Lambda Literary, Texas After Violence Project, Tin House, and the Right of Return USA.
Their poetry, essays, and digital art have been published in or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Ecotone, Kenyon Review, Longreads, Poetry, Slate, Texas Observer, Yale Review, amongst others. Their personal account of their time in pretrial incarceration in Hays County is featured in the ITVS Independent Lens 2019 documentary, “45 Days in a Texas Jail,” and the Brave New Films 2021 documentary narrated by Mahershala Ali, “Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem.” Faylita received a BA in English from Texas State University-San Marcos and an MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada University. You can listen to their 2021 spoken word album, A New Name for My Love, here. To learn more about Faylita, you can visit their website, and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
A native of Detroit Michigan, Lovinah Igbani-Perkins has spent most of her life in Houston and considers herself a true Houstonian. After going to prison for the second time, it was behind bars in TDC, where she came to know her purpose in life. She works full time as an Alcohol & Drug Counselor for a non-profit, working with Houston’s homeless population. Lovinah is an advocate for those in prison and believes prison reform is long overdue. Having just completed her master’s degree, she recently accepted a new position with Houston Recovery Center as an Assistant Program Manager.
Noor is a lifelong community organizer, dedicated to creating and practicing strategies for resistance, survival, accountability, and joy. They are a disabled queer and trans activist, educator, artist, and sex worker of South Asian descent, co-founder and co-director of Cicada Collective, a QTPOC-centered reproductive justice organization, and a leader of Sex Workers’ Outreach Project in Austin. Noor began volunteering at Inside Books Project in 2014 with a focus on providing information access to incarcerated queer and trans sex workers, and they are thrilled and honored to transition into their new role as Archival Coordinator. Driven by community-oriented visions of transformative justice and prison abolition, they hope to curate collections that uplift the experiences of incarcerated people at the intersections of marginalized identities.
Jorge writes:
“My life is marked by institutional boundaries – school, the military, and incarceration. I’ve struggle to transcend those boundaries through my writing, to make sense of my place in this world and my path through it.
My father was mixed Creole and Spanish, and my indigenous mother crossed the Rio Bravo to escape an abusive husband at 15. I grew up in the Texas Panhandle until my father lost his job as a farm foreman, and we pursued the crops for three years, along with waves of other displaced families. Restless, I left school at 17, enrolled in the Army and found myself in a 52-ton tank in Germany, trying desperately to fit in with the Vietnam vets rotating over to Europe. Fitting in with them meant adopting a cynical, seen-it-all attitude and ingesting copious amounts of illicit drugs. Lucky to get out with an honorable discharge, I drifted back to South Texas, found myself in jail for DWI, and was tossed out of a 12-man tank with my pants around my ankles in 1977, blood leaking from my body after being sexually abused. Two weeks later I walked into a Beeville fast food joint with my father’s 30.06 and began my descent into self-destructiveness and predation.
I paroled from prison for the last time in 2008, having spent 27 of 32 years in Texas cages. I wrote my way sane while incarcerated, publishing poetry and essays in dozens of journals, opinion pieces for newspapers across the country, and a book where I tried to explain to Texas families seeking answers about prison and spurned by prison officials. I decided after my release that I would do all I could to ensure other human beings didn’t face the same dehumanization as I and others had, and I’ve tried – as an organizer, a policy analyst, a writer, and as a human. I’ve not always succeeded, but I listen well and I chronicle the stories and pain I see, and it is my honor to share those with TAVP and those who support its mission.
For those who seek more details, I am the SW Region Director for Policy and Advocacy at LatinoJustice PRLDEF. I’ve worked at the Prison Policy Initiative, the Center for Community Change, Grassroots Leadership, and at the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. I hope I have not left too negative a legacy at any of those places, as I learned from them all.
Raquel is a graduate student at the University of North Texas pursuing a degree in Archival Studies and Imaging Technology.
After working with vulnerable populations during her nursing career, she wishes to advocate for those impacted by mass incarceration and institutional violence and assist them in sharing their experiences.
As a child, Raquel thoughtfully listened to her mother’s stories about her home country, and attributes these stories as a foundation of her identity. Raquel views storytelling as an important tool for reflection and social development. Raquel wishes to facilitate others to tell their stories to ultimately elicit change and reform the prison system.
Savannah Washington joined Texas After Violence in 2022. As Operations Coordinator, Savannah uses her experience in nonprofit and organizational administration to provide administrative support across programs and projects and to ensure that TAVP is running smoothly in its day-to-day operations. Growing up in the rural South as one of several children, she developed a love of adventure and a lot of valuable survival skills. A native of Killeen, Savannah has witnessed firsthand the racial and economic injustice of the criminal legal system, which informs her commitment to working toward an end to state-sanctioned violence. She is dedicated to public service and enjoys volunteering, especially with children. In her free time, Savannah enjoys dancing and theater. She is currently based in Houston.
Alexa Garza’s passion for advocacy is rooted in her personal experience of incarceration and the stigma she faced in her community upon release. In 1999, she was 19 years old and sentenced to 20 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). On the day she entered the criminal justice system, she promised herself that she would never look back or waste a moment of time. It is a promise she continues to keep. Alexa has a B.A. in business administration from Tarleton State University and is certified as a braille transcriber through the Library of Congress.
Alexa hopes to use storytelling to change the narrative about system involvement. She also hopes that lending her unique perspective as a formerly incarcerated woman of color will help elevate the often neglected voices of other currently and formerly incarcerated women of color and shine a light on the kinds of roadblocks they encounter and the dearth of support they receive.
Jane began at Texas After Violence as a volunteer in 2016, when she processed and digitized a collection of historical records about the death penalty in Texas during the era of the electric chair. At TAVP, her work includes running the oral history interview program and managing TAVP’s growing archive. Her interests include community memory, narrative storytelling, and anti-oppression memory work documenting legacies of violence in the American south. She has presented at the Oral History Association, Texas Conference on Digital Libraries, Texas Inmates Family Association, and led workshops on conducting trauma oral histories and multimedia storytelling. She has a BA in literature from Bard College and an MSIS from the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin.
Jim Kuhn is an Associate Director at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. Jim has over thirty years of experience in archives, rare books, and special collections librarianship, including work in administration, grant writing, digital preservation, metadata management and cataloging, and support for oral history projects.
Walter C. Long, an attorney practicing appellate law in Austin, Texas, founded the Texas After Violence Project in 2007 hoping it might help foster dialogue between Texans on all sides of the death penalty debate about the human needs revealed in the stories collected by the project, so that Texans might move beyond polarized discussions and seek together a less violent future. With strong interests in human rights and restorative justice, Walter has found that his most rewarding work as an attorney has been past years of litigation on the juvenile death penalty issue and more recent law/psychology public policy advocacy for recognition of the death penalty as a trauma-inducing system and a public health concern. In addition to continuing to conduct litigation, Walter completed a master’s degree in 2014 in counseling psychology. He also has degrees from the University of Texas at Austin in history, literature, and law, and an MA in religion from a Presbyterian seminary. He has published articles on ethics, psychology, religion, literature, refugee policy, and capital punishment.
Loren Lynch in a media fundraising professional, currently working as Director of Development at The Trace. Previously she served as the interim publisher at the Texas Observer, after four years of directing their development programs and assisting with overall publication strategy. Prior to the Observer, Loren was at The Nation, where she fundraised and managed special revenue programs and events. She holds bachelor’s degrees in English and philosophy, and a MA in international affairs with a focus on media and culture from The New School in New York City.
A. Naomi Paik is an assistant professor of Asian American studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her book, Rightlessness: Testimony and Redress in U.S. Prison Camps since World War II (UNC Press, 2016; winner of the Best Book in History Award, 2017, Association for Asian American Studies; finalist for the John Hope Franklin Prize for best book in American Studies, American Studies Association, 2017), reads testimonial narratives of subjects rendered rightless by the U.S. state through their imprisonment in camps. She has published articles in Social Text, Radical History Review, Cultural Dynamics, and Race & Class and has forthcoming pieces in Humanity, e-misferica, and the edited collection, Guantánamo and the Empire of Freedom. A board member of Radical History Review, she is co-editing three special issues of the journal—on “Militarism and Capitalism,” “Radical Histories of Sanctuary,” and “Policing, Justice, and the Radical Imagination.” She is also developing a new project on sanctuary and another on military outsourcing. Her research and teaching interests include comparative ethnic studies; U.S. imperialism; U.S. militarism; social and cultural approaches to legal studies; transnational and women of color feminisms; carceral spaces; and labor, race, and migration.
Sam Benavides is a recent college graduate of Texas State University, where she earned her degree in Public Administration and Political Communication. She is from Laredo, Texas, and is the Communications Director for Mano Amiga in San Marcos, Texas, where she is committed to centering the voices of directly impacted individuals in Mano Amiga’s groundbreaking legal reform advocacy efforts. She previously worked with MOVE Texas, a statewide nonpartisan nonprofit organization that works to build power in underrepresented youth communities. It was through her work with MOVE that she met the Mano Amiga team, and formally joined the organization in the summer of 2020. You can view Sam’s interview about her work and her personal experiences with Texas After Violence here.
