By Ayesha Hana Shaji
Texas Metro News Team
Photo: Ayesha Hana Shaji
When Lauryn Whitney found out she was pregnant, on her first ultrasound, the doctor told her that she thought it was going to be a baby girl. Whitney was ecstatic.
Fast forward to her 20-week ultrasound, the doctors confirmed it was going to be a baby boy. Whitney could not stop crying.
“I remember walking out of the room as we were heading home and my husband stopped me in the hallway and asked, ‘So why are you crying? We’re having a healthy baby boy,’” she said. “And my only response was, ‘Yes, I know but I don’t know how I’m going to protect him.’”
The mama bear instincts had kicked in. In a day and age where Black men are so blatantly targeted, Whitney said, she knew she was going to have to fight.
“I knew that I was gonna have to make sure that everything I did was to make sure that he has a better, brighter tomorrow,” she said.
In 2021, her company Authentic Voices Global officially launched as a platform that highlights marginalized voices and tells their stories. “It is a platform that highlights the audacity of everyday people daring to make a change no matter how big or small,” Whitney said.
Their latest work in progress is a documentary called Redemption Scholars, which they started in 2021 and follows the journey of three men who were incarcerated for years but were able to start their higher education programs while in prison.
“My biggest hope with this documentary is that we shift perspectives of the way that we see individuals who have experienced incarceration,” Whitney said. “That somewhere through this documentary, we provoke people to examine themselves and their perspectives and also to examine the educational system, and then be able to ask themselves, ‘where do I play a role in making a change?’”
Whitney said the project was inspired by her paternal uncle, Vernon Johnson, who was released from prison in 2020 after serving 12 years, and she recorded his first moments of freedom.
Later, she met two other men, Talib Charriez and Chris Lynch, who became the documentary’s focus, along with her uncle as they shared their stories of transformation through education.
According to Whitney, all three started their education through Rutger University’s New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons Consortium (NJ-STEP), a program that is specifically for individuals who were incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals.
On Saturday, April 29, Authentic Voices Global will be hosting a fundraiser for the documentary. Whitney said the event is purposefully held in April as it is Second Chance Month.
“Second Chance month is an opportunity for us to give space for individuals who’ve experienced incarceration,” she said. “So focusing on those who are reentering society and the opportunities that they’re being given or the barriers that are up and examining those barriers – where can we be more compassionate as a society.”
Whitney said she is looking to raise $100,000 to help complete the documentary, including filming and post-production.
While raising funds is the primary goal of the event, Whitney said she also hopes to make people come in and ask themselves this one question – “how do my perspectives and the stories I create for others, keep them imprisoned or keep them from freedom?”
The fundraising event will be at Common Desk, Addison (14555 Dallas Pkwy Ste 100) from 6 to 8.30 p.m. Guitarist K Cooks, Vocalist Asha Childs and Black Wall Street Artist Eddye K will be present at the event.
