[Music]
I’m gonna talk to you today about why we
matter the question is really I mean do
i matter does my voice matter does my
place in the world really matter I mean
after all I’m just one person out of
billions and billions this tiny speck of
dust on this giant planet and do I
really matter when 1963 a man by the
name of Edward Lorenz attended the New
York Academy of Science and he had this
idea
his idea was had a butterfly in China
could move its wings and move molecules
of air and those molecules of air would
move other molecules of air and there
would be enough molecules of air that
were moved that it could create a
hurricane or a tornado in New Mexico and
of course he was left out and poor
Edward had to go home with his tail
between his legs and he was slightly
embarrassed but 30 years later it became
a law the law of sensitive dependence
upon initial conditions what that meant
was a single action could cause a
reaction on the other side of the world
far beyond this moment in this time and
it became part of the chaos theory now
I’m going to tell you that I’m not going
to talk to you about butterflies because
other than the fact that I really think
they’re pretty I don’t know anything
about butterflies and I’m not going to
talk to you about weather patterns
because I really really don’t know
anything about weather patterns at all
but I do want to talk to you about why
we matter and going to tell you a story
to illustrate why your first movement
matters part of the original part of the
chaos theory and to illustrate that I’m
going to tell you a story
in 1984 there’s a
girl she’s 22 years old she’s attending
a small college in a small town in North
Carolina now she’s doing all the right
things
okay she’s dating the right guy he’s in
med school she’s working two jobs
because she wants to be an independent
young woman and pay her own bills
she studied really really hard she’s
maintaining a 4.0 GPA and she’s doing so
well that she’s actually been invited to
attend another University for a master’s
program as a teaching assistant she’s
gonna graduate summa laude she’s
gonna be valedictorian of her class when
she graduates now it’s July of 1984
she’s going out with her boyfriend they
play tennis they go to dinner later that
evening she becomes violently sick and
she asked her boyfriend to please take
her home and he does and he’s very
polite about that her last memory of
that night is her boyfriend giving her
some aspirin as he leaves to go home
sometime around three o’clock in the
morning she hears a noise in her
apartment she lives alone she struggles
to wake up she’s trying to figure out if
the noise is actually real or not real
she feels something brush against her
arm she looks to the side of her bed she
sees the top of someone’s head she
thinks this might be her boyfriend but
she realizes there’s no way it could be
your boyfriend he never spent the night
with her she says who is it who’s there
and at that moment a strange man jumps
on her bed as she screams he straddles
her body puts a gloved hand across her
face and a knife to the left side of her
throat and he says shut up or I will
kill you now again in these moments
she’s struggling to try to figure out
what’s actually happening to her is this
a joke could this possibly have been a
break-in she startled him she offers him
her car her credit cards her cash please
she says don’t hurt me I won’t call the
police you don’t have to do this
and he says to her I don’t want your
money
and at that moment it becomes crystal
clear what’s getting ready to happen to
her she knows she know she’s gonna be
raped she knows this but she doesn’t
know though is will she die is this the
last face she’ll see before she leaves
this earth is this the last thing that
will touch her skin before she dies and
she wonders to herself how will it feel
when I die will it be fast will I not
know well it just be over with and I’ll
just be dead or let me slow will he beat
me well I die slowly well I feel it will
it be painful and then she starts
picturing her mother and her father and
she wants to tell them one more time
before she dies I love you thank you and
then something happens she realizes that
you know what I may die but it won’t be
on my back there’s a way to survive I’m
smart and I can figure this out and she
begins to formulate a plan and her plan
is this live remember everything about
this person as he’s raping you and then
help the police find him over the next
20 minutes as her body becomes a toilet
and she’s assaulted she begins to look
in his face and those moments and those
glimpses of light she begins to memorize
the shape of his eyes his voice his nose
his hairline everything about his face
because she will live and she will see
him rot in hell she pulls a blanket off
the edge of her bed at one point she
says please um I’m afraid of knives
please take the knife outside and if you
do that I’ll let you come
again and he believes her her plan is to
somehow get to the bathroom and escape
through the window when she gets to the
bathroom she realizes she can’t fit
through the window it’s too small
she’s got to rethink her plan she
remembers at that moment he said he had
come through my kitchen door I must get
to the kitchen door can I please get a
drink of water first please before we do
this and he says yeah I make me a drink
and we’ll have a party she makes her way
to the kitchen and she pulls her blanket
tight she’s making noise and she runs
it’s 3:30 in the morning it’s raining
the grass is slippery she doesn’t know
where she’s going to go he’s chasing her
through the dark her only plans to
somehow find light find safety maybe
somebody will discover me somebody will
saved my life she ends up in a carport
the family happens to be home as she’s
screaming and they let her in and she’s
quickly taken to the hospital where her
body now is a crime scene and the body
must be processed because the evidence
now is on her and in her and it’s got to
be collected and put into a ziploc bags
and it’s there she learns that he had
left her apartment and had raped another
woman down the street and she could hear
the woman crying down the hallway in the
emergency room and she hates him she
wants to kill him the police asked her
if you got a good look yes I did please
I want to help you and she begins to
help them come up with a description
which results in a composite sketch
which results in a suspect she’s caught
at the police station she’s able to pick
him out of a photographic lineup she’s
able to pick him out of a physical
lineup his name is Ronald cotton Ronald
cotton would be arrested he would be
tried in January of 1985 after two weeks
of court he would be found guilty of
first degree rape first free sex offense
first degree breaking and entering and
he would be sentenced to life in 54
years and then they would Pat her on the
head and they would say now you get to
put your life back together again you
can move on you can move forward but she
know
she can’t because her life is over so
your boyfriend doesn’t want to marry her
now because well she needs a lot of
support and her friends don’t really
want to hang out with her because she
cries a lot
and she can’t go to class the next day
because she couldn’t go to bed the night
before because she can hear him coming
up the steps she can feel him underneath
the bed he’s there every night and the
only way she can get through the days
and the night it’s with drugs and
alcohol and so she does and she consumes
so much drugs and so much alcohol that
by April of 1985 she’s almost dead she
struggles to recover she graduates she
gets a job she falls in love again
she’s married in 1988 in the fall of
1989 she is pregnant in the spring of
1990 she gives birth to triplets two
little girls and a baby boy these
rewards right this thing this task this
job she’s got a direction she’s got
purpose she matters until 1995 when she
gets a phone call from the investigator
from the crime and he says hey there’s
this thing called DNA have you heard of
it yes she says well Ronald cotton after
11 years says he’s innocent well we know
he’s not but your DNA your blood sample
from your rape kit is disintegrated
you’ll have to submit to a new blood
test to which she says take my blood run
the tests I’ve got five year-old
children I can’t do this again
she gives them the blood the test goes
to the lab three months later in her
kitchen they stand and they tell her
it’s not Ronald Cotton’s DNA as Bobby
pulls
a serial rapist who had terrorized the
city who had raped six more women who
had created a lot of harm and trauma and
she’s left with this and once again her
life is now tattered and shredded like
the aftermath of a hurricane and there’s
pieces of her everywhere and she’s
trying to pick up those pieces and make
sense of it so for the next two years
she becomes depressed and debilitated
and paralyzed with depression and fear
and anger and shame and guilt what do I
do with this she thinks and so she makes
a decision I need to meet Ronald cotton
and so in a small church a mile and a
half and where she had been raped 13
years before she waits for this man to
come into the room and she sees him and
she’s crying and she says mr. cotton if
I spent every second of every minute of
every hour of every day for the rest of
my life telling you I’m sorry could you
ever forgive me and he takes her hand
and he cries and he says I’m not angry
at you
I gave you years ago we were both
victims of the same person we were both
victims of the criminal justice system
now by now you’ve probably figured out
that girl was me that initial movement
changed my life it changed Ronald’s life
it changed detective Gordon’s life but
much like the aftermath of a hurricane
or tornado two things happen right we
either say forget it I can’t rebuild I
walk away or we put
we can back together again and we become
our better angels I had a decision to
make for the next 20 years I’d find
myself on stages much like this telling
my story bury myself and what I would
find in those 20 years is the stories of
the men and women who had been
wrongfully convicted the men who had
been walking to the store to get sweet
potatoes for their grandmother only to
be released to freedom 27 years later
the mothers who would be accused of
abusing their children and be separated
from their children only to come home
and their kids were grown the moms and
the dads who had lost years their lives
have been interrupted and they didn’t
make memories with their families
because their sons or daughters were
incarcerated for crimes they had never
forget who were children there were
siblings and I would collect these
stories I would collect stories from the
original survivors about what those
years had been like and who killed my
child and I kept waiting for the system
to fix itself I kept waiting for the
criminal justice system to claim
responsibility and it wasn’t happening
so in 2015 I took a leap of faith I
started the first national nonprofit
that addresses the aftermath of wrongful
convictions to everyone that gets harmed
from the crime survivor and their
families to the exonerees their families
to the police prosecutors judges jurors
everyone who gets impacted and to the
other crime survivors who were harmed
when we’ve left the true perpetrator on
the streets and the idea was fairly
simple I thought gosh if Ronald cotton
and I can engage in restorative justice
practices and we can become friends what
would it look like
if I brought these folks together what
would it look like if we sat in circles
and we leaned in and we shared our
stories and mothers got to hear the
stories of the siblings and the siblings
heard the stories of the crime survivors
and the children got to witness the
stories of the exonerees what would it
look like if we engaged in collective
resilience what would that be how would
it look if we began to unfold that grief
could we heal as a community and the
answer was yes we can we can laugh again
we can play games we can begin to bridge
the harm into healing and it became the
most amazing thing to witness people who
would walk in on a Friday and think to
themselves there’s no way I can sit in
space with someone who’s a crime
survivor after what happened to my son
and at the end of it what would happen
is we would become a family and we would
create a community of survivors so
here’s what I want to say to you Victor
Wooten who’s a famous phenomenal bass
player says everything that ever ever
forever vibrated is still vibrating and
everything that ever was still is so at
the end of the day do you matter the
answer is yes everything you do and
everything you say matters not just
today and not just to you but tomorrow
and forever and to those who come behind
you because at the end of the day and at
the end of our lives we are all here to
walk each other home thank you and God
bless
[Applause]
[Music]
I’m gonna talk to you today about why we
matter the question is really I mean do
i matter does my voice matter does my
place in the world really matter I mean
after all I’m just one person out of
billions and billions this tiny speck of
dust on this giant planet and do I
really matter when 1963 a man by the
name of Edward Lorenz attended the New
York Academy of Science and he had this
idea
his idea was had a butterfly in China
could move its wings and move molecules
of air and those molecules of air would
move other molecules of air and there
would be enough molecules of air that
were moved that it could create a
hurricane or a tornado in New Mexico and
of course he was left out and poor
Edward had to go home with his tail
between his legs and he was slightly
embarrassed but 30 years later it became
a law the law of sensitive dependence
upon initial conditions what that meant
was a single action could cause a
reaction on the other side of the world
far beyond this moment in this time and
it became part of the chaos theory now
I’m going to tell you that I’m not going
to talk to you about butterflies because
other than the fact that I really think
they’re pretty I don’t know anything
about butterflies and I’m not going to
talk to you about weather patterns
because I really really don’t know
anything about weather patterns at all
but I do want to talk to you about why
we matter and going to tell you a story
to illustrate why your first movement
matters part of the original part of the
chaos theory and to illustrate that I’m
going to tell you a story
in 1984 there’s a
girl she’s 22 years old she’s attending
a small college in a small town in North
Carolina now she’s doing all the right
things
okay she’s dating the right guy he’s in
med school she’s working two jobs
because she wants to be an independent
young woman and pay her own bills
she studied really really hard she’s
maintaining a 4.0 GPA and she’s doing so
well that she’s actually been invited to
attend another University for a master’s
program as a teaching assistant she’s
gonna graduate summa laude she’s
gonna be valedictorian of her class when
she graduates now it’s July of 1984
she’s going out with her boyfriend they
play tennis they go to dinner later that
evening she becomes violently sick and
she asked her boyfriend to please take
her home and he does and he’s very
polite about that her last memory of
that night is her boyfriend giving her
some aspirin as he leaves to go home
sometime around three o’clock in the
morning she hears a noise in her
apartment she lives alone she struggles
to wake up she’s trying to figure out if
the noise is actually real or not real
she feels something brush against her
arm she looks to the side of her bed she
sees the top of someone’s head she
thinks this might be her boyfriend but
she realizes there’s no way it could be
your boyfriend he never spent the night
with her she says who is it who’s there
and at that moment a strange man jumps
on her bed as she screams he straddles
her body puts a gloved hand across her
face and a knife to the left side of her
throat and he says shut up or I will
kill you now again in these moments
she’s struggling to try to figure out
what’s actually happening to her is this
a joke could this possibly have been a
break-in she startled him she offers him
her car her credit cards her cash please
she says don’t hurt me I won’t call the
police you don’t have to do this
and he says to her I don’t want your
money
and at that moment it becomes crystal
clear what’s getting ready to happen to
her she knows she know she’s gonna be
raped she knows this but she doesn’t
know though is will she die is this the
last face she’ll see before she leaves
this earth is this the last thing that
will touch her skin before she dies and
she wonders to herself how will it feel
when I die will it be fast will I not
know well it just be over with and I’ll
just be dead or let me slow will he beat
me well I die slowly well I feel it will
it be painful and then she starts
picturing her mother and her father and
she wants to tell them one more time
before she dies I love you thank you and
then something happens she realizes that
you know what I may die but it won’t be
on my back there’s a way to survive I’m
smart and I can figure this out and she
begins to formulate a plan and her plan
is this live remember everything about
this person as he’s raping you and then
help the police find him over the next
20 minutes as her body becomes a toilet
and she’s assaulted she begins to look
in his face and those moments and those
glimpses of light she begins to memorize
the shape of his eyes his voice his nose
his hairline everything about his face
because she will live and she will see
him rot in hell she pulls a blanket off
the edge of her bed at one point she
says please um I’m afraid of knives
please take the knife outside and if you
do that I’ll let you come
again and he believes her her plan is to
somehow get to the bathroom and escape
through the window when she gets to the
bathroom she realizes she can’t fit
through the window it’s too small
she’s got to rethink her plan she
remembers at that moment he said he had
come through my kitchen door I must get
to the kitchen door can I please get a
drink of water first please before we do
this and he says yeah I make me a drink
and we’ll have a party she makes her way
to the kitchen and she pulls her blanket
tight she’s making noise and she runs
it’s 3:30 in the morning it’s raining
the grass is slippery she doesn’t know
where she’s going to go he’s chasing her
through the dark her only plans to
somehow find light find safety maybe
somebody will discover me somebody will
saved my life she ends up in a carport
the family happens to be home as she’s
screaming and they let her in and she’s
quickly taken to the hospital where her
body now is a crime scene and the body
must be processed because the evidence
now is on her and in her and it’s got to
be collected and put into a ziploc bags
and it’s there she learns that he had
left her apartment and had raped another
woman down the street and she could hear
the woman crying down the hallway in the
emergency room and she hates him she
wants to kill him the police asked her
if you got a good look yes I did please
I want to help you and she begins to
help them come up with a description
which results in a composite sketch
which results in a suspect she’s caught
at the police station she’s able to pick
him out of a photographic lineup she’s
able to pick him out of a physical
lineup his name is Ronald cotton Ronald
cotton would be arrested he would be
tried in January of 1985 after two weeks
of court he would be found guilty of
first degree rape first free sex offense
first degree breaking and entering and
he would be sentenced to life in 54
years and then they would Pat her on the
head and they would say now you get to
put your life back together again you
can move on you can move forward but she
know
she can’t because her life is over so
your boyfriend doesn’t want to marry her
now because well she needs a lot of
support and her friends don’t really
want to hang out with her because she
cries a lot
and she can’t go to class the next day
because she couldn’t go to bed the night
before because she can hear him coming
up the steps she can feel him underneath
the bed he’s there every night and the
only way she can get through the days
and the night it’s with drugs and
alcohol and so she does and she consumes
so much drugs and so much alcohol that
by April of 1985 she’s almost dead she
struggles to recover she graduates she
gets a job she falls in love again
she’s married in 1988 in the fall of
1989 she is pregnant in the spring of
1990 she gives birth to triplets two
little girls and a baby boy these
rewards right this thing this task this
job she’s got a direction she’s got
purpose she matters until 1995 when she
gets a phone call from the investigator
from the crime and he says hey there’s
this thing called DNA have you heard of
it yes she says well Ronald cotton after
11 years says he’s innocent well we know
he’s not but your DNA your blood sample
from your rape kit is disintegrated
you’ll have to submit to a new blood
test to which she says take my blood run
the tests I’ve got five year-old
children I can’t do this again
she gives them the blood the test goes
to the lab three months later in her
kitchen they stand and they tell her
it’s not Ronald Cotton’s DNA as Bobby
pulls
a serial rapist who had terrorized the
city who had raped six more women who
had created a lot of harm and trauma and
she’s left with this and once again her
life is now tattered and shredded like
the aftermath of a hurricane and there’s
pieces of her everywhere and she’s
trying to pick up those pieces and make
sense of it so for the next two years
she becomes depressed and debilitated
and paralyzed with depression and fear
and anger and shame and guilt what do I
do with this she thinks and so she makes
a decision I need to meet Ronald cotton
and so in a small church a mile and a
half and where she had been raped 13
years before she waits for this man to
come into the room and she sees him and
she’s crying and she says mr. cotton if
I spent every second of every minute of
every hour of every day for the rest of
my life telling you I’m sorry could you
ever forgive me and he takes her hand
and he cries and he says I’m not angry
at you
I gave you years ago we were both
victims of the same person we were both
victims of the criminal justice system
now by now you’ve probably figured out
that girl was me that initial movement
changed my life it changed Ronald’s life
it changed detective Gordon’s life but
much like the aftermath of a hurricane
or tornado two things happen right we
either say forget it I can’t rebuild I
walk away or we put
we can back together again and we become
our better angels I had a decision to
make for the next 20 years I’d find
myself on stages much like this telling
my story bury myself and what I would
find in those 20 years is the stories of
the men and women who had been
wrongfully convicted the men who had
been walking to the store to get sweet
potatoes for their grandmother only to
be released to freedom 27 years later
the mothers who would be accused of
abusing their children and be separated
from their children only to come home
and their kids were grown the moms and
the dads who had lost years their lives
have been interrupted and they didn’t
make memories with their families
because their sons or daughters were
incarcerated for crimes they had never
forget who were children there were
siblings and I would collect these
stories I would collect stories from the
original survivors about what those
years had been like and who killed my
child and I kept waiting for the system
to fix itself I kept waiting for the
criminal justice system to claim
responsibility and it wasn’t happening
so in 2015 I took a leap of faith I
started the first national nonprofit
that addresses the aftermath of wrongful
convictions to everyone that gets harmed
from the crime survivor and their
families to the exonerees their families
to the police prosecutors judges jurors
everyone who gets impacted and to the
other crime survivors who were harmed
when we’ve left the true perpetrator on
the streets and the idea was fairly
simple I thought gosh if Ronald cotton
and I can engage in restorative justice
practices and we can become friends what
would it look like
if I brought these folks together what
would it look like if we sat in circles
and we leaned in and we shared our
stories and mothers got to hear the
stories of the siblings and the siblings
heard the stories of the crime survivors
and the children got to witness the
stories of the exonerees what would it
look like if we engaged in collective
resilience what would that be how would
it look if we began to unfold that grief
could we heal as a community and the
answer was yes we can we can laugh again
we can play games we can begin to bridge
the harm into healing and it became the
most amazing thing to witness people who
would walk in on a Friday and think to
themselves there’s no way I can sit in
space with someone who’s a crime
survivor after what happened to my son
and at the end of it what would happen
is we would become a family and we would
create a community of survivors so
here’s what I want to say to you Victor
Wooten who’s a famous phenomenal bass
player says everything that ever ever
forever vibrated is still vibrating and
everything that ever was still is so at
the end of the day do you matter the
answer is yes everything you do and
everything you say matters not just
today and not just to you but tomorrow
and forever and to those who come behind
you because at the end of the day and at
the end of our lives we are all here to
walk each other home thank you and God
bless
[Applause]
[Music]
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