The modern prison system’s origins in slavery can be seen in telltale signs throughout the system. The system of chattel slavery had no incentive to keep Black families together—in fact, separation was deliberately used to punish the enslaved. Today, the prison system mirrors this in its treatment of families of the incarcerated. Prisoners are denied the opportunity to be fully present parents by the nature of their condition, and further separation from family through visitation denial, relocation, and other means are used as a way to punish and torture inmates. Ernest Boykin, a father of seven, speaks on his personal experience as a formerly incarcerated parent—and everything he did to ensure that he would remain in his children’s lives despite the system’s efforts to deny him that right.
Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.
Today, we’ll be doing a series on Father’s Day. And more importantly, we’ll be doing a series on the impact the criminal injustice system has on incarcerated parents, or more importantly, on the family overall.
Joining me today is an extraordinary individual to talk about being a parent, being a Justice Impact parent. More importantly, being a upright, standup Black man. Ernest, welcome to Rattling the Bars.
Ernest Boykin:
Hey, I’m sorry I do call you Mr. Hopkins. But yeah, Mansa, thank you. You made me feel like I was on a Shannon Sharpe Show, man, with that introduction.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, we a little better than Shannon Sharpe. Plus, we not trying to get the ratings.
Ernest Boykin:
Exactly.
Mansa Musa:
We trying to get the story out, The Real News. But let’s talk about Father’s Day.
Now, in full disclosure, me and Ernest was in a program called Georgetown Pivot. That’s where I first met Ernest at.
We was either doing something about telling something about ourselves. We was going around; this was our first introduction to everybody coming on in that space together. We had seen each other when we was registered up at the school. But this was during the time of COVID, so we was on Zoom.
And when they got to you, this is what impressed me the most about everything that you said. But then once I got to know you, I really realized that you are an extraordinary individual.
Ernest Boykin:
Well, thank you.
Mansa Musa:
You might not present yourself like that all the time, but in terms of who you are as a person, I recognize that.
But this is what stuck out with me on something you said, when you talked about your children. I’m going to let you tell our audience, first of all, a little bit about yourself and some of the things that you’re doing. Then, we’ll get into that.
Ernest Boykin:
Okay. Well thanks, Mansa. Yeah. My name’s Ernest Boykin. I’m a father of seven. I have probably every age child that you could think of. No, I’m sorry. I have two in college. I have two under two years old right now, I have a couple in the middle, and I’m proud of them. They’re all the lights of my life.
When I was away, that’s what kept me grounded. Looking at their pictures or talking to them on the phone and things like that.
Currently I’m the part owner of a Straight Route Trucking. We’re a trucking company out of Washington, DC. We move cargo from point to point all across the United States of America. I started that with my life partner, Brisa, and we’ve been in business since 2022.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. Now let’s talk about your children. How much time did you serve prior to being released?
Ernest Boykin:
I served approximately six-and-a-half years.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, in the six-and-a-half years you had, how many children did you have when you left the street?
Ernest Boykin:
I had five children. And I’m not just talking about biological.
Mansa Musa:
I know, yeah. We talking about children.
Ernest Boykin:
Children, yeah, people that I was responsible for. Five individuals.
Mansa Musa:
All right. And in terms of when you got arrested and ultimately sentenced, who was responsible for taking care of your children?
Ernest Boykin:
Well, their mom; it fell all on their mom. It fell on my parents too, because my kids’ mom and I really weren’t getting along.
So during the school year, the court had awarded me custody and guardianship over the children, because I was sending my kids to private school. When the kids were living with their mom, she tried to put them in public school. But the court felt like they were getting a better education in private school. So they sided with me and let me control that.
Mansa Musa:
While you was incarcerated?
Ernest Boykin:
No, no, before I was in prison.
Mansa Musa:
Before you got in. Okay, go ahead.
Ernest Boykin:
Before I went to prison. So it was a situation where my parents kept them until school let out, and then they went with their mom. So my parents shared in some of the responsibility, and my kid’s mom. It was pretty much her responsibility to deal with all the children herself.
Mansa Musa:
Because this is important for our audience to understand that when a parent is incarcerated, the impact that incarceration has on the family. But more importantly, when the parent has children, men or women.
How did you maintain your relationship with your children, and then maintain that relationship? What type of impact can you say you had on them that you can look at today and say, “Because of this, they’re like this”?
Ernest Boykin:
Yes, it was very difficult to maintain that relationship. But the reason why I was able to do it was because I wanted to do it.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Ernest Boykin:
Anytime I tell myself I want to do something, I do it. And it didn’t matter that I was in prison versus being free.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Ernest Boykin:
I felt like I was still going to be a parent to my children. I didn’t feel like the walls could stop me from being a parent to my children. So where there was opportunities for me to talk to them on the phone multiple times a day, I would do that.
If I had to write them multiple times a day, or multiple times a week or once a day, whatever I felt was necessary at that time for me to keep a connection and bond with them, I did it.
Mansa Musa:
In that regard, because that’s the thing I’m going to flesh out. Because that’s the thing that I think that society in general don’t recognize how impactful that is.
I’ve been in spaces where I’ve seen men, biological children, or not biological children, would raise them from behind the door, behind the wall, behind the fence. And they come to them for all the advice. They come to them for guidance, they come to them from a direction.
How did that play out in your relationship with your children? How did your children respond to you in terms of, 1), being incarcerated, and 2), respond to you in terms of recognizing that regardless of your location, that is my father and I’m going to listen to what my father say? Or was they defying, like, “Well, you ain’t here, man. Why you going to tell me what to do?”
Ernest Boykin:
It is funny you say that because it does happen. If your kids’ mom shows you respect to the kids-
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Ernest Boykin:
… then it makes it easy for the kids to show respect to you. But if they see conflict between the kids’ mom and yourself, then the kids are forced to choose a side between parents.
And that’s where the difficulty comes in to parent your children: especially if you have girls and you’re a man, they’re going to naturally side with their mom.
And then also if you have boys, boys are going to feel protective of their mother, so they’re going to side with their mom. So you’re kind of in a lose-lose situation a lot of times. And you can’t get aggressive with them because if you get aggressive with your children while you’re away, it doesn’t hit home the same way you might think it would.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Ernest Boykin:
When you’re face-to-face with your child, you may have to discipline them by talking to them more stern or whatever you have to do to discipline your children. It does not hit the same over the phone, because they definitely know that you’re not there.
But it’s up to Mom or Grandma or Grandpa or uncles to reinforce things that you say. And say, “Hey, don’t forget your dad said that, or your dad said this. I’m going to tell your dad when your report card gets here.”
Or, “Yeah, your dad said that if you do good in school, he’s going to send you some money.” Things like that, it helps out a lot.
Mansa Musa:
And you know what? That right there, how much of a strain was that on you in terms of maintaining your mentality? Because we looking at prison and then okay, you trying to be a parent. This is the foremost thing on your mind: getting out so you can take care of your children.
But at the same time, you in the gladiator school. You in a joint where at any given day, like on lockdown: something that happen lockdown. How was you able to stay focused, and not get caught up in the environment because of frustration from not being able to hug, hold, or console your children in time of need?
Ernest Boykin:
I think I was, I mean, for lack of a better word, lucky. I just think that I was blessed, fortunate to get through that because I’ve seen people get hurt for less, for nothing.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
People just get beat up or abused by the staff or the officers for nothing.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Ernest Boykin:
So fortunately enough, the way that I maneuvered my way through it was just to mind my business, focus on me, and invest every minute of the day and to try to better myself. So that when I got another shot, because I knew I was going to get another shot.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Ernest Boykin:
It was all about when I would get another shot.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Ernest Boykin:
It was like, “Just be ready so that when I get my next shot, I can do everything that I need to do to win.”
Mansa Musa:
Right. Let’s unpack some of what you spoke about about the prison environment.
Why you think the system, the prison industrial complex, the new plantation, why you think they don’t encourage or they don’t promote or they don’t support building a family unit? Or aid and assisting the parents in maintaining some type of connection with their children? Why you think that’s not on the radar?
Because I know for a fact, and you know this yourself, every program that exists in the prison system, if it deal with anything relative to family, if it deal with anything relative to counseling, if it deal with anything relative to networking with society, prisoners came up with ideas in them laboratories, in them thinking tanks, and put them things into effect.
Why do you think this is not something that the Bureau of Prisons or any institution doesn’t try to perpetuate?
Ernest Boykin:
Yeah, it’s funny you asked that question. Because I remember these guys in the law library said that in the prison handbook, it says it’s the responsibility of the prison to maintain family ties.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Ernest Boykin:
It says that in the handbook. And we would use that line right there when they try to justify sending you far away from your family, or when they try to justify leaving you in the hole without phone calls or without visits and things like that.
Just like you said, man, the prison industrial complex is a direct reflection of slavery. If you’ve ever watched Roots or did any research about slavery, you’ve seen how families were split up and divided. That was a way that they used to discipline people, and they continue to do that through the BOP.
They split up families and send you far away to make it hard for your family to come visit you as a way to discipline you if they don’t like you. And that’s not right.
Also, anything that you can see on a slavery movie or documentary or anything, when you think about it, it’s kind of the same thing.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
You got people working for nothing.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Ernest Boykin:
If you in prison, you got people working for nothing.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Ernest Boykin:
You got people for years and years and years. They can’t leave this one little-
Mansa Musa:
Plot of land.
Ernest Boykin:
… spot of land.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Come on.
Ernest Boykin:
And you got people in prison doing the same thing, walking around in a circle.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Ernest Boykin:
All day long.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
You know?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, come on.
Ernest Boykin:
And then when you get mad for people for sticking up for themselves, you beat them. You give them diesel therapy.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
Or you [inaudible 00:14:17]
Mansa Musa:
Tell them about diesel, because our audience don’t know know diesel therapy.
Ernest Boykin:
Diesel therapy; I’ve been through it; is when they put you on that bus for weeks and weeks at a time. And you’re just eating out of a bag; you’re only eating bag lunches. You’re not getting a hot meal ever. Your mail doesn’t catch up with you.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s torture.
Ernest Boykin:
You can’t get a visit, you can’t use the phone. You waking up in a different city every day, and you’re sleeping in the hole of every jail every time you stop. It’s a lot.
Mansa Musa:
Let’s talk about this here. Okay, because we recognize that the prison industrial complex is the new form of slavery. 13th Amendment justifies that.
We recognize also that when it comes to family unification, and that’s not even on the radar when it comes to the prison industrial complex. Why why do you think this system right here as it exists now continue to stay in this space?
Like you say, 1), like in the District of Columbia, if you’re under federal jurisdiction, you might wind up in wherever United States territory. Wherever it’s United States territory, that’s where you could wind up at.
Ernest Boykin:
Mm-hmm.
Mansa Musa:
2), in terms of allow you to have access to your family.
Ernest Boykin:
[inaudible 00:15:55] Excuse me.
Mansa Musa:
They don’t. And lastly, what impact does that have, from your perspective, on the general population? How did you see that plan out in the general population?
‘Cause we know when they had Lorton, and Lorton was the prison that was in under the District of Columbia’s government. We know when they had Lorton, that it was a correlation between the community and Lorton.
When people got out, came out of Lorton, they went back to the District of Columbia. And they did progressive things in the community, because that was their town. That’s where they was from.
But now you have a situation where you in Walla Walla, Washington. Next time you look up, you in Florida. Next time you look up, you in South Carolina. Next time you look up, you on your way out. Now you in Ohio.
From your experience and your insight, how did that play on the mentality of the prison population?
Ernest Boykin:
Well, most people don’t have to experience going outside of their boundaries. But the people who usually have to experience that are the Washington DC inmates.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Ernest Boykin:
And if you’re a 007 inmate or 016 inmate or 000 or something like that, then nine times out of 10, the BOP will send you out of boundaries because they had a label on guys from Washington DC.
They tried to take it out on the DC guys by sending us far away from home, so that we couldn’t get visits. Because they felt like if we got visits, then that would just empower us more. Or it just would be too much like right.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
So just because guys from Washington probably were a little more aggressive or more joking about doing the time because of the culture; people coming from Lorton, they was doing time. And they wasn’t doing time like that in every other prison across the country.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Ernest Boykin:
So the people’s attitude was totally different.
Mansa Musa:
Let me ask you this here. All right, so now you get out.
Ernest Boykin:
Yes sir.
Mansa Musa:
Right? Now you get out of prison and you got the opportunity to be with your children.
What was that like? When you got out, and now not only do you got the opportunity to be with them, but now in your mind, what?
Ernest Boykin:
When I got home and saw my kids for the first time without having a CO or a window, a partition or some chains on or something, that was a magical feeling. It was great.
They all hugged me and they didn’t want to let go, every last one of them. I mean, when I got home, my kids was grown, most of them. Well, not most of them, they were older teenagers.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right, right.
Ernest Boykin:
I had one that was 20. And he hugged me probably for 10 minutes before letting go, crying like a baby.
Then I had my baby boy at the time, he tried to slide $30 in my pocket. He said, “Hey Dad, I was cutting grass because I wanted you to have some money in your pocket when you came home.”
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
And that really touched me. Then my other son, he fired up the grill. And he was cooking some hot dogs and burgers on the grill for me. So I really felt great in that moment.
My daughter, I was just shocked to see how mature she had gotten. I felt like she didn’t have enough clothes on, and I tried to say something to her about it. I just wasn’t ready.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Right, right.
Ernest Boykin:
She was not the little girl that I left.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Ernest Boykin:
And just to let you know, my first day was magical. But every day after that was very hard, because I had expected the kids to be one way and feel one way about me coming home. And the kids that had expected me to be another way, and they thought that I owed them something.
I was like, “Hey man, you guys, don’t you remember everything I’ve done for y’all? And don’t you remember when Dad was home, we had good times? And there are going to be good times again.”
And it had been so long that they really had forgotten the stability that a father brings to their family and their household. So they were really not trusting. They were really damaged.
Mansa Musa:
That’s the part that this prison industrial complex plays on. Like you say, it’s designed to create an atmosphere in the families that there’s no trust. It’s designed to create a thing where there’s no unity. It’s designed to create a situation where there’s no respect.
So if I’m getting visits, I’m taking care of my children and I’m trying to do things with my child over the phone and in the Visitors Room. But once I get out, because I didn’t have the opportunity to do that, or they didn’t create a mechanism within the prison industrial complex for me to have that kind of opportunity and access. Now, like you say, when you get out, it’s an expectation on everybody’s part.
But looking forward, because you said that it’s a struggle. And I think all parents coming out of the system are confronted with the [inaudible 00:22:16].
A friend of mine, he talking about he’d be struggling with his eldest son. They respect him, but at the same token, he had to be stern with him sometimes to try to get their attention. Like, “Look, I’m your father, no matter what. And I will put hands on you if that’s what it come to.” Right?
Ernest Boykin:
Right.
Mansa Musa:
But that’s the reality. But that don’t change. It’s no love, it’s lots of love there.
But looking now as we get ready to close out, looking ahead and looking where you at right now, what would your children say?
First off, what would your children say if I say, “Your father Ernest, how is your father? What’s your father like? What do you think they would say?
Ernest Boykin:
Oh, they imitate me all the time. They probably think I’m burnt out for real. Honestly, that time would burn you out a little bit, because it’s like I have so many stories from there. I always reference that period of my life when I’m trying to teach them a lesson.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right, right, right.
Ernest Boykin:
It could be anything. It could be like, “Yeah, don’t cut the line. Because if you cut the line in some places, man, some people might go upside the head.”
Mansa Musa:
You feel some kind of way about it, right?
Ernest Boykin:
“They’re not going to like it, and they might try to put the knife in you for that.”
And they be like, “For real dude, for cutting the line?”
And I’m like, “Yeah, it’s that serious.”
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
So they probably might say that they definitely respect me. They’ve seen me start over from nothing, and actually build our family back up to better than it was before I went away.
Mansa Musa:
And what would somebody say like, “Man, what’s up with your kids, man?” What would you say about your kids? How would you identify?
Ernest Boykin:
I have great children. They’re very intelligent. They are all handsome and beautiful in my eyes. They’re generous people. They’re stand-up individuals. They don’t condone none of the things that society is making okay.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, that’s right.
Ernest Boykin:
They’re not on none of that. Right?
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Ernest Boykin:
They definitely understand that people who tell on people ruin people’s lives a lot of times. So they’re living in that culture where now they having to see, “Okay, what’s the difference between people snitching and what’s the difference between people trying to have a nice community?” You know what I’m saying?
Mansa Musa:
Right. I got you. I got you.
Ernest Boykin:
My kids are growing up now, and I don’t try to influence them to do anything other than to be good people and to be financially responsible.
Mansa Musa:
Let me ask you this here as we close out. How can people get in touch with you? And what are some of the things you’re doing now that you think people should be made aware of?
Ernest Boykin:
Yes. Oh, thank you. Well, you can always reach me at straightroutetrucking@gmail.com in reference to trucking, and in reference to just if you wanted to talk to me about justice reform or have me come out and speak or write, because I am an author. I should be publishing a book about re-entry in the end of this summer.
Also, I write for FAMM. I write articles about people who are over-sentenced or wrongfully accused and things like that.
But yeah, you can reach me at ernestboykiniii@gmail.com. That’s E-R-N-E-S-T B-O-Y-K-I-N I-I-I @gmail.com. You can even call me at 202-285-1153.
I really appreciate this opportunity, Mansa Musa. I really love what you guys are doing here. And I love this platform that you’ve built up, because you’re really, really giving a voice to the voiceless. And I’m big on that.
Mansa Musa:
You heard it, there you have it. Real dude Rattling the Bars. This is Ernest Boykin. You would never believe that after hearing this conversation, that this man was one time justice-involved, raised his children to be what he, by his own definition, responsible children, responsible members in society.
In the face of all the problems that our children are being confronted with, his children has risen above. And it’s because of his influence. And we can’t take this lightly.
We implore you to think about this. You can listen to what Ernest say. And it’s millions of other people like Ernest in the criminal injustice system: fathers, mothers that are raising their children from behind the walls and behind the fence.
Whereas you continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News. Because guess what? We really are the news.
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