I first met Derrick Washington in 2014. I was living in Boston during a tumultuous moment in American history. In Ferguson, Michael Brown had just been murdered. The ubiquity of smartphones was waking the public to the fact that his death was no isolated event. Eric Garner. Tamir Rice. Rekia Boyd. This was the beginning of Black Lives Matter, and the so-called “woke” movement – a groundswell so consequential that the word itself is now demonized by millions who, apparently, prefer to stay asleep. 

“Everyone wakes up in their own time,” I heard Cornel West say amidst the turmoil, speaking to a standing-room-only crowd on Harvard’s campus that year. Those words became the cradle of my relationship with Washington. Through his work and his words, my eyes opened. 

“I daily feel the aches and pains from slavery. I stare at its malicious face which has worn on me,” wrote Washington, who is a black man incarcerated in Massachusetts, serving a life without parole sentence. “Being branded as state property #W89316 strips away at my dignity by the day.”

There are about two million incarcerated people in the United States – the largest known prison population in the world. The country has five percent of the world’s population and twenty percent of the world’s incarcerated persons. En masse, these people represent the indictment of America’s ‘prison industrial complex’ – a catch-all for the sprawling machinery of imprisonment. 

Since the Civil War, law enforcement has exploited an exemption in the slavery-abolishing 13th amendment: “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” Criminalizing behavior became a means, enabling police to enforce selective prosecution that disproportionately affects marginalized communities.

“Throughout my sixteen years as a slave of the state, I've realized the importance of having our many stories heard,” Washington wrote in 2021, neck deep in the Emancipation Initiative (EI), his expansive project that’s gathered hundreds of people on both sides of the prison walls. His story has so effectively rattled the institutions that cage him that it’s been featured by The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, NBC News and many others – and now it’s taking root in web3.

Read more: How Crypto is Helping the Millions of Incarcerated People and Newly Free 

Today, just past the 20-year anniversary of his arrest, and in the midst of a yearslong appeal for his freedom, he’s inspiring a movement that draws parallels between the philosophy of decentralization and the tenets of prison abolition: namely, liberation from exploitative, centralized systems. This is the story of the Emancipation Impact Network.

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It was September, 2014. A dozen of us were huddled in a Harvard classroom, waiting to hear from the prisoner-education and mentorship charitable group Partakers. Its Executive Director, Arthur Bembury, detailed the group’s College Behind Bars program. I was there with a former partner and as volunteers, we were to travel to a nearby prison and mentor an incarcerated person pursuing their degree. 

I’d never been inside a prison. I felt some trepidation, but mostly I was curious. Bembury explained the rules of engagement: use supportive and empathetic language; respect their privacy – i.e. don’t ask “why” someone is incarcerated; be kind but maintain distance – don’t share too many personal details. 

On a Sunday later that month, a car full of us traveled to MCI Norfolk, a prison 30 miles southwest of Boston. Inside, the foyer was sterile and drab. Visitors milled about, waiting to gain clearance. I was there to see Derrick Washington, I told the attending officer. That was the name Partakers had given me. They checked some paperwork, looked at my ID, gave me a once-over and let me in.

Once admitted, we were guided back to the visitors room, a similarly dull, sanitized space with a couple vending machines, armed guards and a few rows of plastic chairs. We sat and waited. From another door, the incarcerated folks filed in. I found Washington by his nametag. He smiled as he greeted me. He seemed kind and sturdy, I noted – and that impression persists.

He was enrolled in Boston University’s prison education program, I learned. Inspired by an urban planning course, he’d been spending hours each day in the prison’s law library, arming himself with the knowledge he’d need to appeal the LWOP sentence he received in 2005.

Washington’s constitutional fluency far exceeded mine. He told me about the 13th amendment, and the 8th amendment, which forbids “cruel and unusual punishment.” An LWOP sentence violates that amendment, he asserted – it's a sentence of doom, a brand that unduly signifies, “beyond repair.” It fosters a culture of hopelessness, he said. It also drains taxpayer resources (costs vary by state, but incarceration costs can be as high as $133,110 per person per year).

I quickly realized that I would be this relationship’s mentee. But Washington’s tutelage wasn’t proselytizing – or even obvious. With his own gentle conviction, he showed me that his lived experience reflects the ruinous realities of millions of Americans. And as his awareness of the injustice evolved, so did his purpose.

In 2016, from the inside, Washington founded the Emancipation Initiative – rooted in ending LWOP sentencing. “This is just the start to a revolution of consciousness and action toward these flawed criminal justice policies,” he told me in a letter. “I’m in the fight of my life and working to dismantle a machine that has grown out of proportion. Slavery is REAL and I’m a victim of it in modern America. The Emancipation Initiative is the only answer to such an egregious practice.”

Later that year, now living in New York, I traveled back to Boston to attend a “End LWOP” rally led by Washington’s sister, Meia. Fifty of us marched through the streets, holding signs like “Release our aging lifers” – and chanting “All we are saying is give parole a chance” and “End life without parole, bring our families home.” A drum kept our beat. We ended at the Massachusetts State House, where Meia called Derrick who, amplified by a microphone, thanked us for our energy and encouraged us to press onward. 

The End LWOP rally, 2016

Since then, the Emancipation Iniative has. The organization has petitioned Elizabeth Warren to end LWOP sentencing. It’s hosted "Legal Institution of Slavery" events and "Struggle Sessions" in disadvantaged communities throughout Massachusetts. "Slave Narratives" from incarcerated folks were posted weekly. EI even pioneered a novel Donate Your Vote project, where people on the outside could donate their vote to an incarcerated person who’s lost the right. (Maine, Vermont and the District of Columbia are the only jurisdictions that permit incarcerated folk to vote.) 

For a few years, swept up in my own whirlwind love story, I lost touch with the movement. But in 2019, I saw my friend’s story featured in The Atlantic. The piece was rooted in Washington’s expanding fight for universal prisoner suffrage. If incarcerated people can’t vote, he surmised, no politician is going to bother addressing their unmet needs. 

The following year, I saw him featured in an NBC News special on Harvard’s student-led private prison divestment program. "Because prison is all of misery and hopelessness,” Washington said in a recording featured in the segment, “and Harvard readily profits from it is in fact, I see, as Harvard endorsing every single prison suicide, murder, recidivist and fallen tear drop from the effects of 21st century slavery."

With its surly and insidious tendrils, I observed, the prison industrial complex was propelling EI far beyond the scope of reversing life without parole..

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During the pandemic I reengaged, and joined a tenacious crew of volunteers. The Initiative had just pioneered the first ever revival of the Emancipator. The original Emancipator was an abolitionist newspaper, published in New York City and Boston from 1833 to 1850. It helped disseminate anti-slavery ideas and arguments, reaching a wide audience and contributing to the growing movement.

Prison abolition often gets dismissed as a radical, irrational approach that would sow chaos and overrun the streets with violent criminals. But for most abolitionists, prison abolition is an embrace of those same anti-slavery ideals – an awareness that slavery persists in a different form: the prison industrial complex. 

Read more: The Fourth Quarter Daisy Chain Report: How Are the Projects We Highlighted Faring in the Real World?

The new Emancipator published stories, essays and poetry from folks on the inside. “We want our humanity to be highlighted not as some form of charity but because it's necessary,” wrote William Lane Tufayl, who co-founded the renewed effort with Washington when he was incarcerated in New Jersey. “The progress in the elimination of the prison industrial complex and the consequent human suffering depends on us having a voice in this movement.”

When I rejoined, the initiative was seeking the attention of the Boston Globe, which was preparing their own Emancipator with the writer and activist Ibram X. Kendi (Kendi was included in Time's 100 Most Influential People that year). 

Despite letters from Washington and Tufayl – and the former’s recently published op-ed in the paper – the Globe wasn’t acknowledging our efforts. Worse, there weren’t plans to include any incarcerated voices in their publishing efforts. “No organization can claim to be for human rights and dismantling modern day slavery and not make the incarcerated a focal point of their movement,” Tufyal said.

We requested meetings with the Globe’s team, navigating narrow overlaps of availability where both Washington and Tufayl could join. Prison communications systems impose high costs and strict time limits. On average, a 15-minute phone call costs $3. And wages are not beholden to the same labor laws on the outside. For most common jobs, incarcerated workers earn between 86 cents and $3.45 per day. In at least five states, those jobs pay nothing at all.

Moreover, communications are surveilled and privileges can be revoked at any time without reason. For the bulk of the time I’ve communicated with Washington, emails have cost a quarter to send. And I’m often unsure if they’re actually getting to him. 

“This wicked prison administration is unnecessarily delaying and blocking most of my emails and purposely trying to stymie my communication with the outside world,” Washington wrote to me when I reached out about this piece. “There's much more I'd like to share with you but don't even know if you'll receive this give (sic) the prison's recent pressure on me.”

Our pitch to the Globe was that we could join efforts – provide additional resources and vital perspectives to what felt like a crucial but incomplete effort. Ultimately, they told Washington he could submit pitches to be considered for op-eds, and that was that. They were the Boston Globe and Ibram X. Kendi – we were but a band of feisty volunteers.

So we sought partners elsewhere. What followed was the formation of the Carceral Publication Collective (CPC), a cadre of similar organizations who disseminate newsletters inside and outside of prisons. 

At the time, circa 2021, I was diving headlong into web3. I was seeing everything through rose-colored, decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) glasses. Thousands of organizations nationwide were attempting to reduce the prison system’s harm, I realized, but they were engaged in a competitive zero-sum game for limited resources. They were competing for the same grants and operating with outdated communication systems across dozens of different jurisdictions – all to dismantle the same complex.

Resources would be more effective if allocated collectively – determined by community governance rather than centralized legislative efforts fueled by political agendas, where incarcerated voices aren’t even considered.

For me, the most exciting prospect was that an on-chain token could be reserved for every single incarcerated person in the US, restoring some sense of suffrage and ensuring that measures do take into consideration the voices of incarcerated folks.

I tried to articulate these benefits to the other core members of the CPC: Amani Sawari  – writer, activist and founder of the Michigan-based SawariMedia – and Shannon Ross – Executive Director of Wisconsin-based, The Community. Both of them were – unlike me – on-the-ground leaders in the criminal justice space. 

It wasn’t immediately clear to them how the blockchain fit into that work – an early demonstration of how inscrutable web3 can feel. But at the mention of the blockchain, Ross directed me to PR1S0N ART, a project grown out of the web3 learning community Kernel. 

They were auctioning artwork by incarcerated people as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), using funds to pay off state-incurred debts post-release. In their genesis drop, they raised $5,500 to pay more than half of the debts for an incarcerated woman named Sammy. It was also the first ever Proof of Impact NFT on Ethereum.

Ross connected me with one of PR1S0N ART’s founders, Abe Uccello. Inspired by our connection, I started working on a manifesto – as any halfway-decent, overzealous web3 dreamer did in 2021. The output was a 12-page plan for a DAO, fraught with complexity and laden with an ‘if you build it they will come’ spirit of idealism. 

Alas, as with many DAOs of the era, few actually showed up and stuck around. But eventually, one person did.

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In 2022, Elise Swopes launched Night on the Yard (NOTY), a virtual gallery that features curated works from incarcerated artists. Artwork is minted as ERC-721 tokens, and funds are split between the artist (50 percent), donations (20 percent, directed to on-the-ground organizations) and NOTY operations (30 percent).

“We need more people to care, because being good doesn’t sell,” Swopes told Decential’s Amanda Smith in 2023. “I’ve seen recently that 95 percent of all NFTs went to zero. What are we doing? I love collectables and NFTs, but we need to start with what’s not working and utilize this tool to make it better. That’s what this is all about.”

Elise Swopes

I was first connected with Swopes when I spammed the Friends With Benefits (FWB) DAO’s Discord server, looking for other folks at the unlikely intersection of crypto and abolition. For the past two years, Swopes and I have been trying to “make it better.” Inspired by EI, CPC, PR1S0N ART, NOTY and various other organizations, we simplified the 12-page tome into a more manageable framework, but our mission is no less ambitious: to re-enfranchise people who are intimately affected by incarceration, educate those who aren’t, and collectively work toward the abolishment of the prison-industrial complex.

Joining us in the Emancipation Impact Network (EIN) is a roving alliance – including Sawari, Ross and Grace Chen, who has long captained the editing and distribution of the Emancipator.

Our central support mechanism is to serve as a fiscal sponsor to inside initiatives – like BLACC (Black, Latino, Asian Cultural Coalition), an organization Washington founded in 2019 at Souza Baranowski Correctional Center (SBCC). Today, BLACC includes more than 200 incarcerated members and operates out of MCI Shirley, the Massachusetts prison where Washington is currently incarcerated.  

Our first call to action is our peer pal initiative, where folks on the outside become communication partners with folks on the inside. The intention is, as with EI and PR1S0N ART, to publish narratives and artwork from incarcerated folks, and to curate and display their work at Night on the Yard. Funds raised through these stories will directly support the struggles of the storytellers.

In the future, we plan to host events, as well as hackathons to build tools that respond directly to the needs of our participating organizations. We also plan to hold workshops – in partnership with organizations already doing this work – and offer an educational resource for those interested in learning about web3. This will enable us to leverage technology like NFTs that can help us effectively allocate funds to those affected by incarceration, measure proof of impact and re-enfranchise people using compassion rather than politics.

We’re also partnering with legal resources – including the law firm Fried Frank, which is generously providing pro bono support – to generate digital certificates as attestation of community action. 

Blocked from sunlight

And as we await 501(c)(3) status – which grants federal tax exemption to certain nonprofits – to continue building, we’re rallying around the theme, “Our Light.” It’s inspired by Washington’s essay of the same name, originally published in the Emancipator. When he wrote it, he had just been told, “absent any forewarning,” that one of his two weekly opportunities to get fresh air and sunlight had been cancelled.

“They block us from physical sunlight to block us from the light that provides a spark for mental freedom to stay positive and resilient,” he wrote. “However, I know, I can't let these people bring me down. Within such an inhumane place of human existence, I know it is incumbent upon me to reach within the light of my mind to bring about an inextinguishable light to extend to the world around me.”

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Since I met Washington, I’ve saved every bit of correspondence between us, culminating in a bloated manila folder and a Google Doc that is now 177 pages long. Within it are vivid descriptions of his environment – “a constant keg of chaos and confusion,” he writes. There are details of various assaults and other miseries he’s suffered. “Keagon, I'm sooooo ready to go home and leave this place,” he wrote in one letter. “This is a place that no living creature can get used to being in.”

There are also in-depth letters to legislators and meticulous accounts of various organizing efforts. Much of our recent exchange, though, has focused on his yearslong appeal process. Washington has always maintained his innocence. The last time I visited him at MCI Norfolk, some 11 years ago, he told me the story of his arrest. As his case evolves, those details have become increasingly public. 

On the morning of February 7, 2005, just turned 20, Washington and a friend were returning from a mall when they were pulled over by a state trooper. “Before being arrested or read any ‘rights’ he forced me into the back of his police car,” Washington wrote. “That was the last time I ever was free.”

He and two co-defendants were charged with murder and armed robbery. What's come to light over two decades of legal battles paints a disturbing – yet not uncommon – picture of systemic corruption.

Evidence withheld

It’s clear, now, that key evidence was withheld. Prosecutors knowingly presented perjured testimony – and concealed that their star witness was being investigated for similar crimes alongside the co-defendants. 

The prosecutor also suppressed evidence that would have directly supported Washington's alibi and “third-party culprit” defense – legalese for showing someone else committed the crime. Most damning, this pattern of misconduct wasn't isolated. The prosecutor has since been identified committing similar violations in at least four other murder cases, and has resigned from legal practice altogether.

Despite numerous hearings where this evidence has been presented – hearings I've attended on Zoom alongside dozens of supporters – Washington remains imprisoned. 

“It just sucks to have to be here another day given the evidence of corruption that's out in the open now,” he wrote to me. “It's one thing to personally know that I'm innocent and nobody else know that I'm innocent and simply be silently fighting to prove my innocence but, when I'm at a point in the fight where the evidence is now public and the government doesn't immediately take action to free me is when it becomes increasingly more difficult to bear dealing with the horrors of this madness.”

Somehow, he endures. He’s re-enrolled in college – Tufts this time, picking up the remaining credits he needs for his degree. He’s also part of EIN’s board – a project I hope he can helm when he’s finally released. 

As we’ve pieced together the project, he’s greeted all things web3 with fascination – “this blockchain thing just becomes more and more interesting…there just seems like there are so many dimensions to this technology,” he wrote. “How should we go about initiating this component of EI activism? Should we set up a NFT for it? Let me know.”

I am constantly humbled by his curiosity and resilience, and I can’t help but bemoan all the wasted energy directed toward abolishing a system that should have never existed. 

But again, Washington’s wisdom exceeds my own. “Love from our drive to dismantle these places of darkness is where we find light,” he writes at the end of “Our Light.” “This is an incandescent light of hope that carries us into tomorrows and lifts us up, beyond the malaise of depression and hopelessness.” 

This is our “revolution of consciousness.” “Our light is our collective energy that brings about true freedom that can never be snuffed out by any C.O. or prison administrator,” he continues. “Our light is our guiding post and through our light is where we find freedom!”

lead image: Derrick Washington