Navigating Freedom

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AT NiGHT i FLY and A Year from Now...

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Navigating Freedom’s final episode takes you to two different desserts. We go to Navigating Freedom producer Spoon Jackson’s home and see where it all started and then take a trip to Banning CA where a two daughters hope for their father’s return. This episode is all about the power and destruction that a family can impart on its members. The tragedy and beautify of family.

 

Featuring: Abe Jackson, Spoon Jackson, D’Avion Walton, Demetrius Walton, Kevin Randon, Ronnie Randon

Producers: Damon Cooke, Lisa Strong, Spoon Jackson

Lead Producer: Matthew Schneeman

This podcast is made by The Uncuffed Project, a nor for profit that works to help reintegrate people leaving prison. To learn more about the Uncuffed Project go to https://www.theuncuffedproject.org/

One newly freed man told us, “Getting out isn’t the finish, but the starting line.” This week’s episodes are all about those starting lines. What it’s like to do forty years in prison while close enough to see the tourists of San Francisco? And what do you do when you get out? The crushing irony of finally getting the freedom you need, but when you get it your mind and body still act as if you’re locked up? We also hear what freedom feels like about doing over forty years and then getting exonerated. 

 

Featuring: Caesar McDowell, George ‘Rock’ Davis, Boston Woodard, Marvin Mutch

Producers: Damon Cooke, Lisa Strong, Spoon Jackson

Lead Producer: Matthew Schneeman

Three stories today all about science fiction writers in CA’s prisons. The sci-fi is a blast, but the stories behind those stories aren’t as fun. We also hear about one man’s temporary and odd decent into Scientology and get an honest, too honest perhaps?, review of Navigating Freedom producer Bryan Mazza’s book.

 

Carol Hunter, Virgil Jason Clark, Jeffrey Aims, Talib Jones, Bryan Mazza

 

Producers: Bryan Mazza, Spoon Jackson

Lead Producer: Matthew Schneeman

 

This podcast is made by The Uncuffed Project, a nor for profit that works to help reintegrate people leaving prison. To learn more about the Uncuffed Project go to https://www.theuncuffedproject.org/

This week’s episode is about how close you can come to descending into violence and darkness while incarcerated. This episode has three stories about three men overcoming the odds to make it out of prison and while the stories have a, generally, happy ending, getting out wasn’t inevitable. There are many people we didn’t interview for this show who went the other way.

 

Featuring: Chanthan Bun, John John Pisalem, and Andre Gadson

Producers: Damon Cooke, Lisa Strong

Lead Producer: Matthew Schneeman

Horn player from intro on instagram @Gettaent

This week’s episode is a collection of stories about gardening in, and out, of prison. If that sounds about as entertaining as watching the grass grow, well, not all of us have access to lush grass. Maybe watching grass grow is worth doing every now and then? But, fear not, this episode is about much more than just green thumbs behind bars. It’s about the food people in prison eat and how plants and life can help those who have harmed others and themselves heal. Also, an odd story about double entendres and Facebook censorship in Buffalo NY.

 

Kep Asake Tuinono, Jerry Madriz, Thomas Lee Gleason, Elizebeth Licota, Bruce Davis

 

Producers: Spoon Jackson, Damon Cooke

Lead Producer: Matthew Schneeman

Special thanks to Garden Rant, gardenrant.com

This episode is a bit of a departure from our normal format, just one main story that is Navigating Freedom’s take on true crime or conspiracy theory podcasts. We start with a wonderful man who did some time with less wonderful people, Charles Manson being one and then go to a larger story about a feuding friendship over an obsession and a 700plus page book on the ‘real’ zodiac killer.

 

Featuring: Boston Woodard, Bryan Mazza, Ken Gage, Ken Gage Jr, Paul Mazzie, Joe Gallo ,Marvin Mutch

 

Producer: Bryan Mazza

Lead Producer: Matthew Schneeman

 

This podcast is made by The Uncuffed Project, a nor for profit that works to help reintegrate people leaving prison. To learn more about the Uncuffed Project go to https://www.theuncuffedproject.org/

This week’s episode is a big one. There's a weird thing I've noticed, the worse the hurt, the greater the need to forgive. It's strange. In this episode you'll hear people forgive those who robbed them of their mobility and even family members and one a rather large story involving coincidences, a web of violence, and the ability to forgive that is as touching as it is tragic.

Featuring: Cotton Jones, Dennis DeMario, Sam Metcalfe, Raheem Thompson-Banila, Dorothy Thompson, Derrick Hallaway

Producers: Spoon Jackson, Damon Cooke, Lisa Strong

Lead Prioducer: Matthew Schneeman 

This podcast is made by The Uncuffed Project, a nor for profit that works to help reintegrate people leaving prison. To learn more about the Uncuffed Project go to https://www.theuncuffedproject.org/

Welcome to Navigating Freedom, a podcast about freedom. The show is made by journalist Matthew Schneeman on the outside with producers inside of Solano State Prison.

This episode starts with running. Some fellas in Solano State Prison are organizing a half marathon. What’s it like to train for a long distance race in a prison yard in 100 degree heat? We have stories about firefighting before prison and after. And an incredible story of how to host at wedding in prison, in spite of everything— dancing, real flowers, and certain clothing, being banned.

Produced by Bryan Mazza, Lisa Strong, Damon L Cooke

Lead Producer: Matthew Schneeman

Featuring: Joe Mantenin, Kyle Fletcher, Blaine and Christina Bowker.

This podcast is made by The Uncuffed Project, a nor for profit that works to help reintegrate people leaving prison. To learn more about the Uncuffed Project go to https://www.theuncuffedproject.org/

Welcome to Navigating Freedom, a podcast about freedom. The show is made by journalist Matthew Schneeman on the outside with producers inside of Solano State Prison.

This weeks episode is about animals. Rabbits on the yard, cats knocking coffee cups of tables, the pigeons and hawks flying over the fences and the people that live among them in Solano State Prison. A native man connects to his ancestors, a Tongan American has a barbecue on the yard, and I visit producer Spoon Jackson’s home in Barstow CA and look for lizards. Feature Sonny Wolf, Cotton Jones, Kep Asake Tuinono, SaraMarie Bottaro, and Spoon and Abe Jackson.

Producers: Spoon Jackson, Lisa Strong

Lead Producer: Matthew Schneeman

Special thanks to Abe Jackson for showing us Barstow

This podcast is made by The Uncuffed Project, a nor for profit that works to help reintegrate people leaving prison. To learn more about the Uncuffed Project go to https://www.theuncuffedproject.org/