Shaka Senghor is the author of six books, including Live in Peace: A Youth Guide to Turning Hurt into Hope. He is the founder of The Atonement Project, which helps victims and violent offenders heal through the power of the arts. He currently serves as the Director of Strategy and Innovation with #cut50, a bipartisan initiative to safely reduce the U.S. prison population in half by 2025. Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison (Convergent Books) is his memoir. In 1991, Shaka Senghor was sent to prison for second-degree murder. Today, he is a lecturer at universities, a leading voice on criminal justice reform, and an inspiration to thousands. During his nineteen-year incarceration, seven of which were spent in solitary confinement, Senghor discovered literature, meditation, self-examination, and the kindness of others—tools he used to confront the demons of his past, forgive the people who hurt him, and begin atoning for the wrongs he had committed. Writing My Wrongs is a page-turning portrait of life in the shadow of poverty, violence, and fear; and a compelling witness to our country’s need for rethinking its approach to crime, prison, and the men and women sent there.
