44 pages • 1 hour read
Brittany BarnettA Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 10-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Knocking”
Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary: “Girls Embracing Mothers”
Sharanda’s mother, Genice, was serving her sentence at the only medical facility for women in federal prison, Carswell. Calling the care given at this facility substandard would be an understatement. When improper handling caused Genice to break her tailbone, prison doctors deemed treatment unnecessary. As a result, the swelling threatened her internal organs, and she had to be rushed to an outside hospital. Such malpractice, neglect, and lack of compassion were the norm at Carswell.
After tenacious efforts, Sharanda finally succeeded in obtaining a transfer to Carswell, as the prison also housed inmates not in need of hospital services. Once there, Sharanda was able to help nurse her mother back from her “alarming condition” (157). Characteristically, Sharanda “threw herself into the everyday things that brought her joy and a sense of meaning—her card-making, her culinary creations, caring for and mentoring other women on the unit” (163). It was particularly impressive that Sharanda could make tasty dishes from the items available at the prison commissary.
In 2012, Barnett launched her nonprofit organization Girls Embracing Mothers (GEM) at the Gatesville prison, where her own mother had served her sentence. She was denied permission to start the program at Carswell because of her representation of Sharanda. From firsthand experience, Barnett knew the pain of having a mother in prison and the value of visitation. GEM allowed for longer visits that stressed “life skills and helped facilitate difficult conversations” (170). Her own mother, who worked hard to return to nursing, helped Barnett run the program.
Barnett visited Sharanda on many Saturdays and got to know many of the women at Carswell, including Alice Johnson, a close friend of Sharanda’s serving a life sentence on drug charges. Sharanda always kept a positive and hopeful attitude until her mother Genice died. Sharanda was devastated by the loss of her mother, and it almost broke her. In a testament to both Sharanda and her mother, “The entire prison community mourned Genice’s passing, even some of the guards” (172).
Part 2, Chapter 11 Summary: “Plea for Mercy”
Barnett decided to prepare clemency petitions, seeking commutation or reductions of prison sentences for Sharanda Jones and Donel Clark. A friend of Mike and Wayland Wilson, Donel had a difficult childhood witnessing domestic violence and losing his mother to cancer. After completing high school, Donel worked two jobs to help support his wife, son, and step-child. When his day job at a supermarket changed his hours to conflict with his second job at a liquor store, he pleaded with his friend Mike Wayland to make some extra money in the drug trade. Donel cooked powder cocaine into crack at night. When convicted on this offense, the punishment was once again harsh; Donel was given a sentence of 35 years.
In preparing Donel and Sharanda’s petitions, Barnett humanized their stories and described their rehabilitation efforts in prison, noting that “Donel had gone two decades without a single disciplinary infraction” (182). Obtaining multiple letters of support, including one from the prosecutor in Donel’s case, Barnett also won news coverage and public support for her two clients. An outstanding American Civil Liberties Union report, entitled “A Living Death,” featured both Sharanda and Donel in its profiles. After much work, Barnett filed these two petitions with the proverb “I am because we are” (189) on her mind. She recalls how this effort had the support of her community, highlighting a $20 contribution by an elderly woman, which Barnett used to pay for the binding of the petitions. Barnett did all this work while landing a new job, which was a “big leap” (192) in her corporate career. She was now working for ORIX as assistant general counsel, advising the company on law and business strategy.
In April 2014 the Obama administration announced a Clemency Initiative to restore “vigor and integrity” (191) to the process. It invited clemency petitions for those who would receive a substantially lower sentence if convicted of the same crime today; who were nonviolent and had no history of violence; who were low-level offenders; who had served at least 10 years of their sentence; who did not have significant criminal history; and who demonstrated good conduct in prison. Since Barnett’s clients met these criteria, she filed supplemental petitions and then waited. The wait was long and frustrating, but in March 2015, Barnett was informed that Donel was granted executive clemency and would be released in four months. There was still no word on Sharanda.
Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary: “Steppers Keep Steppin’”
After receiving his commutation from President Obama, Donel served four months in a halfway house before his final release. Instead of easing the transition from prison, it made the experience more stressful. He was not allowed to run, which had been his daily coping mechanism while in prison. However, he made it through and was finally free.
Meanwhile, Barnett was working on sentence reductions for both Keyon and Mike. While able to chip a little at Keyon’s sentence under new rules, she successfully got Mike’s sentence reduced from life to only four more years. Mike’s son Marc had recently visited his father and was stunned to see the deterioration in his health from the stroke and his 22 years in prison. When Barnett called Mike to give him this good news, she was struck at his disappointment. However, she understood that he had already suffered so much and four more years had to sound like an eternity. As a result, Barnett risked filing a motion for the judge to reconsider Mike’s reduced sentence. Despite the long odds of success, the motion was granted and the sentence reduced to time served.
At that point, the prison administrators released Mike and took him to a Greyhound station with only a bus ticket. The man did not have “the ability to read or write or speak clearly” (208). His family frantically tried to ensure his safety and track him down. Finally, he was able to borrow a phone and let his family know he was with a friend for the night. His family then got him home safely, no thanks to the prison bureaucrats.
Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary: “Love, Faith, Hope”
It was increasingly difficult for Barnett to enjoy her tremendous professional success given the reality of her clients’ lives in prison. Despite the heavy emotional burden, she kept working on their behalf. The matter was pressing. In Sharanda’s case, Barnett could see the heavy toll that prison life was taking on her physically and emotionally. Her knee joints needed replacement, but despite being bone-on-bone, the Carswell physicians recommended weight loss instead. Sharanda was also anxious and depressed about the prison’s decision to move her into another cell, which turned out to be better but nonetheless emphasized how little control she had over her life. When Sharanda found out that her daughter Clenesha was pregnant, she was at her wit’s end. Both mother and daughter needed each other.
Fortunately, Sari Horwitz of The Washington Post did a series of articles on the “human devastation from the War on Drugs” (214), one of which featured Sharanda and Clenesha. The article made the front page and generated a tremendous response and additional media coverage. Despite the increased support, the wait to hear about the petition for clemency was excruciating. While traveling to the third annual GEM Christmas party in 2015, Barnett finally got the call. President Obama had granted clemency to Sharanda, who would be released the following April, prior to the birth of her grandchild.
Part 2, Chapters 10-13 Analysis
In this section Barnett emphasizes the power of the mother-daughter bond and highlights the brutality of separating mothers from daughters. Due to her own experience with separation, Barnett can empathize with the women in prison and their families. It is significant that the two times Sharanda began to break down and lose her spirit were when her mother Genice died and when she found out her daughter Clenesha was expecting a baby. In those moments the pain was unbearable. Such situations are why Barnett founded a nonprofit to allow girls more meaningful time with their mothers in prison. Importantly, Barnett’s own mother is heavily involved with that nonprofit. That two-year experience links the author and her mother to the pain of all separated mothers and daughters. Barnett also empathizes with the pain of sons separated from fathers and brothers from one another; she cannot imagine being separated from her sister Jazz for years.
Family separation is one facet of the inhumanity of mass incarceration. That inhumanity is also demonstrated in the complete lack of compassion for prisoners suffering from medical conditions and the inadequate care given to them. They are not treated as human, and that degradation extends to their family members, who are routinely humiliated and bullied when visiting.
Given that brutality and lack of medical care, Barnett highlights the obvious consequences for the health of those serving long sentences, which are paid in declining physical health and significant emotional stress. Barnett emphasizes this heavy human toll through Mike, who was disheartened at having to serve four more years. His story demonstrates that there is only so much people can take.
Barnett shows how close her clients come to breaking down, but she also describes their incredible resilience. The need to “keep steppin’,” as she puts it, is a testament to their resilience despite disappointment and a near loss of hope. Stressing how critical it is for people to hold onto hope, she demonstrates the rewards for her clients: President Obama came through, showing that there was good reason to hope. However, Sharanda, Donel, and Mike are only three individuals out of many more in similar circumstances who did not receive pardons. In noting her own sadness and guilt enjoying the perks of her corporate job and high salary, Barnett asserts that no one is free when such injustices are present.
The theme of community recurs here, as this section stresses that the clemency petitions’ success depended on a team effort. Barnett did the bulk of the legal work and drafted the petitions, but others wrote letters of support, made contributions, and gave her important advice. Positive press coverage was also critical. It’s possible that Sharanda and Donel would not have received clemency without the media’s spotlight. This begs the question: How many more stories are untold?
