4 Women, 6 Questions: A Celebration of Women’s History Month in the Healing Justice Community - Part 2

For our second segment of Women’s History Month interviews, we are honoring Survivor Voices in the Healing Justice Community. These brave women have attended and facilitated many healing retreats and participated in trainings and conferences all over the country, speaking out for justice of crime survivors, victims, and their family members. We’re so fortunate to have them in our circle. Let’s learn a little about each individual:

Andrea Harrison, Survivor and Healing Justice Advisory Committee Member

Andrea is a surviving family member of her mother, Jacqueline, who was murdered in 1987 in New Jersey. The person convicted of killing Jacqueline was released 18 years later based on DNA evidence. Jacqueline's murder is now a cold case, and Andrea and her family continue the search for justice. Andrea serves on Healing Justice’s Advisory Committee and is an active program leader, including as a justice reform trainer and a trained peer supporter. Most recently, Andrea helped to trained Ohio-based victim advocates on improving the experiences of victims and survivors in exoneration cases.

Jennifer Thompson, Survivor and Healing Justice Founder

Jennifer is the Founder of Healing Justice and lives in Chapel Hill, NC. She is a crime survivor from a case involving a wrongful conviction and exoneration, and is co-author of the New York Times Bestseller, Picking Cotton. Jennifer presents frequently to various audiences across the country, including colleges, law schools, criminal justice conferences, and state legislatures, about sexual violence, justice reform, and eyewitness misidentification. She has served as a Member of the North Carolina Actual Innocence Commission, the Advisory Committee for Active Voices, and the Constitution Project's Death Penalty Committee. Her op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, the Durham-Herald Sun, and the Tallahassee Democrat.

Women’s History Month Q & A

What does Women’s History Month mean to you?
Andrea: Women’s History Month is a time to reflect on those who have come before us and those who have laid a path or made a way where there once wasn’t one. It’s a time to honor women who have been brave enough to step out and do what others said they couldn’t or shouldn’t. It’s just a time to honor and feel that as a woman, to get in that spirit yourself. That’s what it means to me.
Jennifer: It means that we are not really highlighting women the rest of the year. There’s a great book that says “Women hold up half the sky”, and I think that’s really true. I’m glad we have a month that’s dedicated to really honoring women but I think we play such an integral part all year round, every day. But again, it’s like Black History Month. Why do we have only one month dedicated to the history of people that have been so influential and important to America, to families, to communities?

The theme of Women’s History Month this year is Providing Healing, Promoting Hope. This theme is both a tribute to the ceaseless work of caregivers and frontline workers during this ongoing pandemic and also a recognition of the thousands of ways that women of all cultures have provided both healing and hope throughout history. Can you think of a time when you’ve seen women providing healing or promoting hope that stood out to you?
Andrea: I see it every day. I have family members who are registered nurses, namely my cousin. I commend her going to work every single day, because at one point, she was staffed on the COVID floor. Just having to go to work knowing that you are putting yourself in potential danger – how courageous is she? Every day she gets up with a good spirit and goes in there and helps people. I’m thankful for people like her who go directly into those kinds of situations.
Jennifer: There's so many particularly in the wrongful conviction community that we work with. One of the people that stands out to my mind is our Executive Director Katie Monroe. She extends hope and healing every day with the work she does and the leadership she provides to Healing Justice. But you know, I think about also the small ways with mothers who are dedicated to making sure that their innocent children come home and give those children hope by visiting them in prison or by mortgaging their homes or whatever needs to take place to provide that hope and healing within their family and also for the innocent person in prison. And then for the crime survivors and family members – so many of the folks that we work with on that side are women who’ve been hurt and harmed as children and still grow up to be these incredible women and mothers and forces for good. I’ve seen so many of them go through some of the worst possible tragedies and traumas you can imagine, and yet still want to be a voice for the voiceless and stand up in their truth and tell their stories. I feel like I see hope and healing in the Healing Justice community with the women that we serve. They are my heroes and the people I look up to and admire every day.

To celebrate the "history" part of Women's History Month—is there a woman from history that you find especially inspiring?
Andrea: I always point to my mother because she’s the first and foremost person I will always want to honor as a historical figure. In my eyes, she is that for me. Though her life ended tragically, I know from reading some of the reports that she didn’t just give up; she was a fighter. I’m glad I have some of that zeal inside of me, that fight and fortitude. Outwardly, I am inspired by our Vice President, Kamala Harris. She stepped into a role that we’ve never seen a woman do before – and then for her to be a woman of color! To see somebody who looks like you, as a Black woman, is awe-inspiring for me in my own career. I’ve gained more confidence in stepping out on some of the things I’ve been doing because I have an example now of someone who’s done it.
Jennifer: Harriet Tubman has been my hero ever since I can remember. I was in fifth grade, and we didn’t have a library so we had a book mobile that would come through every two weeks. I would check out the same book every time, an autobiography of Harriet Tubman. I idolized her in so many ways as a woman who was born into a time when not only people of color didn’t have any power, but women of color particularly didn’t have any power. And she didn’t take that as an answer for her life. She instead stood up and became a force for good and a force for freedom and emancipation and families – and she was tough, tough as nails – and still found the capacity in her older age to love and to be married and continue the fight for freedom and help people that were struggling. She was definitely my hero and still remains to this day the woman who I look up to the most.

What barriers have you faced as a woman, and how did you overcome them?
Andrea: There were times in my career where I felt as though I was overlooked for my male counterparts and teammates, in positions I know I had the background and education for, but I was not chosen. That happens, but it's been a good way for me to just navigate my own way. I've been able to find my career path. Right now, I've landed myself in such a job with the census bureau that I love. I reached out to my boss yesterday and told him how much I want to stay in the organization long-term, and he told me how much value he sees in me. I’m becoming more confident these days. Just saying that to him yesterday, I don’t think I would have done that before. I think the pandemic has given me a refreshed view on the fact that tomorrow isn’t promised so you need to speak up or people will overlook you.
Jennifer: My many barriers started as a young girl. I was overweight in school, and that became a target which led me into a very dangerous relationship when I was a teenager. I talk about it often when people are hurt and traumatized – if we don’t find ways to recover and heal, we tend to blow our pain out into the world into other spaces and so for me, it led me into relationships that were harmful and destructive. That kind of became a pattern. When the rape happened when I was 22, it completely distorted and destroyed not just my physical body but also my spiritual self. And those were really hard spaces to recover from, particularly when the narrative is “At least you weren’t hurt. At least you’re ok.” I didn’t have a space for recovery or healing or reconciliation. I was kind of stumbling around trying to figure it out on my own and making a complete disaster of the recovery process (which wasn’t really a recovery process). I think I spent a large part of my life in a very dark space, which when you’re in relationships and when you’re mothering, can have an effect on those around you. So I think for me, the challenges have been being a sexual assault survivor, trying to advocate for not only myself and for others, but also seeing the residual impact it had on my kids who are now adults. I’ve spent a lot of my life learning and growing but also apologizing and shifting and pivoting.

How have you built confidence and/or resiliency over the course of your life?
Andrea: I talk to my dad a lot. He has a way with words, and he can always bring me back and help me get centered. Talking to my oldest daughter centers me as well; she has a good head on her shoulders. We are all teaching each other, and that’s what helps my confidence. I use my family members as a sounding board so I can get some honest feedback that I trust, that isn’t going to hurt me. I trust them when I ask questions like, “Is Mommy doing something that’s hurting your feelings?”, or “Daddy, am I doing everything I can for you as a daughter?”. I do those check-ins, and those conversations help me stay confident in the roles that I’m serving.
Jennifer: I think we use resiliency in this weird way. We always talk about the idea that children are so resilient. But children are only resilient if they’re given the space to heal and feel empowered again. I think that’s what happened for me. My resiliency came in the form of not sitting down, not going to the corner, not taking the time out that the world kept telling me to take. That resiliency for me came in the form of continuing to do the work I do and continuing to advocate for the people I advocate for. And I do give myself permission to feel the bruises, to be angry if I need to be angry. I allow those emotions to be felt, and then once I sit with them and feel them, my personality tends to be “enough of that”. Now I’m going to get back up. As children say, “You’re not the boss of me”. I’m taking my power back, you don’t get to own my happiness, you don’t get my joy. I’ve learned how to shift because I’m not one to give up. I don’t give up, and I don’t give in. And that might sound harsh but I think for women, that’s something that we learn – to not give up and to not give in. We just keep going forward. It’s just been a skill that I’ve honed because I’m just not one to go and walk away from something. I’m going to come back, and I’m going to confront it, whether it’s easy or not, whether it hurts or not, whether it’s uncomfortable or not, I’m going to go ahead and face it head on.

What are some ways Healing Justice empowers women?
Andrea: Just a safe space. A safe space and a community. I’m in a club you do not want to be in but you're glad that it exists because for a very long time, I felt like our family was the only family that has ever dealt with this. Of course you know that’s not the case, but you don’t know because you don’t have people to talk about it with. My mom was stolen from me when I was almost four years old, and I can’t tell you what her voice sounds like. Not only do I not know what my mommy’s voice sounds like, I don’t know her face. If I were to ever sit beside her on the bus if she were still alive, I wouldn’t know it was her. That’s the thing that sits with me everyday. I don't know what my mommy looks like. When I close my eyes and I think about her, I see her name. I just see her name, and it’s probably in Times New Roman font, 12-point. I don't see a picture, I just see her name in white letters with a black background. That’s all I see because somebody stole her from me. It's hard because my family doesn't want to talk about it. I’m thankful for Healing Justice for connecting me with people who have suffered a trauma but feel open enough to talk about it with other people; it’s definitely needed. I get to be in connection with these amazing people that feel the way I feel. Some of their loved ones met the same tragedy that my mom did, but thankfully these women are still here so I can hug them. When I see Jennifer [Thompson], I see her in a bright blue parka, collecting rocks, ready to share. When I see Katie [Monroe], she’s there with a smile but she’s listening. She’s got a listening ear. She’s firm with it, and I love that. I think about these connections, and they make me happy. That’s what Healing Justice does; it brings you in connection with people that you need for different reasons and provides a safe space.
Jennifer: I think the first thing that we do is give people safe spaces. If we don’t create safe spaces, we can’t show up to be brave and be vulnerable and to remove their armor and take off the masks that we wear. That’s the first thing we do, and I think we do it really well. And once people can kind of start unpacking and unfolding all of the stuff that we’ve just been folding for years – then another space unfolds. Once we start doing that and we begin working with our shadows, those dark spaces, it’s there that women begin to find their voices again and can begin to honor those broken spaces that we all have as opposed to disregarding them or covering them up. We begin to honor those broken spaces, those scars, those wounds, and when we start to do that, I think that provides women that we work with a space to tell their stories, to stand in their truth, not the media’s, not someone else’s story but their truth and their story. When you step into that space, that is powerful. That’s where the shifting happens. That’s where you shift from someone who’s been told certain things their whole life to shifting a space of “This is who I am, and this is who I will be”.

Thank you so much to our four incredible interviewees for participating in this exciting celebration of Women’s History Month!