Dear MoveOn member,

My name is Cyntoia Brown-Long. You may have heard my name on TV, social
media, or if you're one of the over 636,000 MoveOn members who signed a
petition calling for my release from prison. But I wanted to take this
opportunity to tell you my story myself and to say thank you.

I am a survivor of child sex trafficking. In 2004, at age 16, I was
sentenced to a lifetime in prison for shooting one of my abusers in
self-defense.

Earlier this year, I was granted clemency, and last month, I was released
from state prison in Tennessee after serving 15 years of a life sentence
handed down to me when I was just a teenager. Throughout my court and
appeal proceedings, no one heard my side of the story. No one cared that I
felt the need to defend myself from this man and acted accordingly. Worse,
no one recognized the abuse I had endured over the months preceding the
incident. Instead, I was seen as a "fast" girl who made the choices that
landed her where she was. I was silenced like so many others entangled in
the justice system.

My conviction and sentence started a journey of 15 long years that would
finally come to an end thanks in part to more than 636,000 MoveOn members
who signed the petition to have me released.

I wrote a book about my journey through the criminal justice system called
"Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System,"
and since MoveOn members helped to bring so much attention to my case, I
wanted you to be some of the first to get the chance to purchase it. And
as an extra thank-you, I'd like to sign each book ordered by a MoveOn
member!

[ [link removed] ]Just click here to preorder a signed copy of my book directly through
MoveOn.

I know what I did was wrong, and I have spent the past 15 years coming to
terms with it. But during those years, I also saw firsthand how the
American prison system fails at rehabilitating prisoners, providing
justice to victims, or showing mercy to anyone inside its walls.

And I hope to spend the rest of my life working to change that.

It is that hope that inspired me to write my book.

When I was in prison, my hopes of being released slipped further and
further from reality. But I never stopped dreaming. I never stopped hoping
for a better life. And I found a way to have a better life. I realized
that prison didn't have to be the end.

I met inspiring, compassionate people, from members of my legal team to my
college professors to my friend Erika, an inmate and law clerk who missed
her own opportunity for an appeal because she spent all her time helping
other inmates prepare theirs.

And I learned that there is no way for people on the outside to understand
what it is like to be a Black woman prisoner, surviving off of $25 a
month, piecing together life from scraps that the justice system left
behind—unless you hear it from the people who experienced it themselves.

In my book, I share my experience, starting in the juvenile justice system
and going all the way through my release earlier this year. I hope that my
experience can shed light on how many people get lost inside the prison
system and how hope and mercy can help lead them to freedom.

[ [link removed] ]I sure hope you'll read it. Just click here to preorder your signed
copy now.

The first time I heard about a petition calling for my release—from a
woman at a resource fair I attended before my college graduation—I
couldn't believe it. At that point, I had not yet come to terms with the
idea that I was a victim of sex trafficking, and when I heard that people
were talking about my case, I thought, "These people are crazy!" And I
even worried that the attention would harm any chance I had at receiving
clemency.

But as more and more people began to share my story—including celebrities
like Kim Kardashian West and Rihanna—and as I started to do my own
research into the epidemic of sex trafficking in America and how the
justice system fails girls like me who had experienced that type of
violence, I was finally able to come to terms with my past and begin to
piece together my plan for the future.

Because we have to do something. If this problem is ever going to change,
people need to be educated. And I'm fixing to do it.

I know MoveOn members typically come together to fight for systemic policy
change rather than for individual cases, and I really want to thank you
for taking the time to hear my story and being there for me. My experience
made me realize just how important it is to find ways to build common
ground with others, seek forgiveness, and move on to support each other as
individuals, communities, and a nation, and I desperately want that to
transfer to other people in my same position still suffering behind bars.

I am so grateful to all of the MoveOn members who shared my story and
signed the petition calling for my release. Hearing about the hundreds of
thousands of MoveOn members who signed a petition for me while I was
sitting there in prison hoping and praying lifted my spirits to the
rooftops—and I want you to know how much your simple action was part of
the collective fight for freedom. I hope my book can be a first step
toward building that change we so desperately need.

[ [link removed] ]Click here to preorder a signed copy of my book now, and thank you
again for all of your support.

Thanks for all you do.

–Cyntoia Brown-Long
Want to support MoveOn without ordering a book? The MoveOn community will
work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda,
contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of
swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind
of future that we must never give up on. And to do it MoveOn needs your
support, now more than ever. Will you stand with MoveOn?



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