Time For Dortell Williams To Come Home

More than 20 years ago, when I was a young community radio show host in Southern California at KPFK Pacifica Radio, hosting a daily morning drive-time show called Uprising, an inmate at Lancaster State Prison wrote to me. His name was Dortell Williams and he told me he was an avid listener of my show. His correspondence stood out amid the many letters that crossed my desk and I wrote back. We carried on a correspondence for years, leading to my interviews with him. Dortell now serves as special correspondent on Rising Up With Sonali.

Eventually Dortell was moved to Chuckawalla State Prison, and finally Mule Creek State Prison where he is currently being held. Dortell is among those people that California has decided are beyond rehabilitation. He is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a conviction that took place before he could even grow a beard.

Read his op-ed in YES! Magazine about what it's like to serve a life sentence:

Dortell was, in part, the inspiration for my 2025 book, Talking About Abolition: A Police-Free World is Possible (Seven Stories). In that book, I wrote:

When I think about the profound damage the carceral system inflicts on people, families, and communities, I cannot help but think of my friend, Darrell “Dortell” Williams, who has been imprisoned in California for more than thirty years. Although we’ve been friends for about two decades, we’ve never met in person. To me—a non-Black American who has not had to suffer the pain of seeing a family member incarcerated—his indefinite incarceration is symbolic of everything that is wrong with our current justice system.

Read the op-ed I co-wrote with Dortell about how cycles of trauma lead to crime and how addressing crime must center breaking the cycle of trauma.

It's time for Dortell to come home. In September, I joined a group of people who deeply care about him and formed a committee to focus a concerted campaign aimed at California Governor Gavin Newsom to commute his sentence.

Newsom has commuted the sentences of many individuals serving life sentences like Dortell. With the stroke of a pen, the California governor could reunite Dortell with his family and friends.

I've spent the past three weeks devoting every free moment to building the new website www.FreeDortellWilliams.com.

I now call upon all my subscribers to take 5 minutes of your day to do 2 simple things:

1. Write to California Gov. Gavin Newsom to commute Dortell's sentence
2. Sign this Change.org petition to Newsom asking for him to commute the sentence.

That's all. JUST PLEASE TAKE THE TIME RIGHT NOW. Whatever you're doing, it can wait 5 minutes. The freedom of one individual relies on your ability to ask authorities to release him. 🙏🏾

At a time when our nation is falling apart and despair seeps through our skin, paralyzing us, let's remember there are still things each and every one of us can to do exercise our power, to make demands, to seek justice. Even if it's for the freedom of just one person.

P.S. As we come upon the second anniversary of Israel's horrific genocide in Gaza, watch and listen for this week's show which will be a special program dedicated to covering the movement for a free Palestine.