Dejohn Huffman’s story begins in Brownsville’s Van Dyke Houses, where survival often meant the streets chose your path. While his siblings went into the military and law enforcement, Dejohn’s road led to his first prison sentence at just 16. By 20, he was facing two devastating moments the tragic loss of his son’s mother and a robbery-homicide he did not commit.

 Instead of letting those blows destroy him, Dejohn used them as fuel to transform his life. Today, he is the author of Raising My Inner Male: 12 Steps Toward Uncaged Freedom, a powerful guide for healing, conscious masculinity, and breaking destructive cycles.

 As Program Developer for Project Echo, a Cure Violence initiative, Dejohn builds programs for justice-impacted youth that focus on emotional, intellectual, and economic growth. He’s a proud Bard Prison Initiative alumnus with over 174 college credits, an Adjunct Lecturer at Parsons School of Design, and former Program Manager at Second Chance Studios.

From the system to the classroom, from the streets to national stages, Dejohn Huffman proves that survival stories can become success stories and that no matter where you start, you are the narrator of your own ending.