| Justice USA: The Word of Mary McBride
My name is Mary Elizabeth McBride. I am 54 year old, mother of eight children, grandmother to more than thirty. I have been incarcerated in federal prison for nine years and am serving a life sentence for a crime I had no idea I was even committing. As a child growing up in Mississippi, I knew only pain and hurt, neglect and rejection. I never knew my father and life as an adult did not prove any easier. My children all have different fathers, I raised them all on my own. I suffered through abuse and abandonment by so many people. I never believed I could make it on my own so I went from relationship to relationship, searching for some completeness in my life; however, I never found it, found only more abuse. At the time I could not talk to anyone but God. Many nights I fell asleep praying and crying. I was raising the children all alone, trying to make ends meet financially. At the age of 43, I still never owned a car and I could not give my family a home to grow up in. I did what I could to earn money by working from eleven-o-clock p.m. to seven in the morning at a nursing home that paid me $300 a month. As soon as I got done at that job I would go to my second job at the local cotton gin where I would chop cotton for ten hours making $3.50, or I would pick cotton for $2.00. In what spare time I did have, I picked pecans and collected aluminum cans for extra money. I would then head to the city dump, rummage through it and collect clothes people had thrown away, wash them and fix them up for the children to wear to school. Money was so scarce, I had to do whatever it took to feed and clothe the children. About this time my life changed. Have you ever been hungry cold and tired? Have you listened to your children cry for food? It was so cold, we had no lights or gas and my life was empty of love. I did not even know how to love myself, let alone like myself. I felt I had failed and so attempted suicide. I was angry. Why didn’t God allow me to die? As desperate as I was, I thought my prayers had been answered when I was approached by people I didn’t know and asked if I would like to do something that would earn me one to two thousand dollars. As I stood there thinking about all the work and pain I had been through since the age of 12 with absolutely nothing to show for it, and as I thought about what that money could do for my children, the answer came easy, YES! I would help these people. I had never in my life seen that much money and they told me all I had to do was deliver a suitcase to some people in Florida. The arrangements they said, would be to buy a plane or bus ticket, carry the suitcase and give it to somebody who would pick me up at my destination spot. I had no idea what was in the suitcase I was carrying, it was none of my business. All I knew was that I was to do a job, collect my money, and go home to my kids. When I arrived in Florida I realized the whole situation had been a set-up. Authorities accused me of drug dealing. I have never seen or used drugs in my entire life. ME? Drug dealing? I was arrested and jailed for six weeks. Finally, I was released and told the charges had been dropped. I returned home and resumed my daily routine of being a mother, grandmother, and a working woman. Not long after, I was arrested once again on the same charges which were supposed to have been dropped. Authorities told me that I would only receive three years in prison if I could give them the names of the people I was working for. I could not give them any information because all I knew was the dealers wore dark sun glasses, and they never told me their names or any other information for that matter. Due to the fact that I could not bring forward any other people, I received LIFE in the federal prison system, with no way out, all because I was so desperate to care for my family that I would go to any lengths to provide for them. Once locked up again, I asked God “Why?” Why wouldn’t he just let me die? God had always been a part of my life but now, alone and scared, I really began to seek him out with all my heart. I talk to God about everything today. I realize the choice I made nine years ago were the wrong choices, I have accepted responsibility for my actions and I am doing the best I can with what I have. I struggle daily knowing my children and grandchildren are out there, without a mother or father. We have no money and now my mother is very ill. I believe God has my family in his hands just as He has me and I believe that one day He will open these prison gates and allow me to go home. I pray that somebody out there reading this letter can help me and my family make this possible. Also involved in this are my nephew, Rodney Davenport who is imprisoned in Yahoo City, Miss. And my son, James Jefferson, who is also serving a life sentence the United States Penitentiary in Poluck, Louisiana. I feel your letter was forward to me by my mother for a reason. God uses people here on earth to help one another, and I pray that together we can do something in order that I may experience this new found inner peace outside these prison walls. Thank you and May God Bless You! Sincerely,
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