Change Agents The Podcast
Reparations Media & Juneteenth Productions
Are YOU a “Change Agent”? Organizer. Activist. Educator. Policy maker. Block club leader. Nonprofit founder. Religious leader. Business owner. Voter. Neighbor.
Change Agents is a documentary series revealing the power of community-driven activism told by those in the fight. These are the stories you aren’t hearing — told by and for communities of color and other marginalized communities that have long been overlooked, misrepresented and maligned.
Headquartered in Chicago and produced across the Midwest, we highlight authentic, actionable, grassroots solutions to society’s most pressing problems — including reentry after incarceration, homeownership disparities, anti-Blackness, the mental health crisis, and more.
Produced by a team made up of BIPOC, female, queer and disabled journalists, for Reparations Media, with support from Juneteenth Productions.
Executive Producers: Judith McCray and Maurice Bisaillon. Senior Producer: Mary Hall. Operations & Digital Manager: Nicole Nir. Head of Development: Alina Panek. Sound Design: Erisa Apantaku & Will Jarvis.
Follow us wherever you get podcasts, or at changeagentsthepodcast.com. Subscribe to our newsletter at bit.ly/change_agents_newsletter.
Change Agents The Podcast
Harry Peña: From Prison to Purpose
When a rash decision changed the course of his life, Harry Peña spent decades behind bars. But prison didn't break him — it revealed his purpose. Determined to turn his painful past into a force for good, Harry founded the Life Impacters Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to disrupting the incarceration and recidivism cycle that traps so many formerly incarcerated people.
I'm an entrepreneur, and I knew it early on in life. I was an entrepreneur in drug dealing. When I dealt drugs, I made money. I just didn't know that later on down in life, I would see it from the legal perspective instead of the
SPEAKER_00:illegal perspective. That's Harry Pena. We joined him for a virtual interview. He greets us with a warm smile. Sitting by the window of a cafe, he sips coffee with one hand and waves to familiar faces that pass by. This is an interview with Harry Pena for Change Agents, the podcast. I'm Mason McKee, and my co-producer is Red Frumkin. Our co-writers are MJ Jacobson and Simra Qasim. Over the course of three interviews with Harry, we learned he grew up in Chicago's Humboldt Park, a neighborhood that struggles with high crime. Harry faced abuse at home, leading him to look for support elsewhere. At just 10, he found himself joining a gang. So at the
SPEAKER_01:age of 10,
SPEAKER_00:I shot my first
SPEAKER_01:victim. That's the first time I put a bullet in somebody. And it was because I was being initiated into the gang at that time. 10 years old, spewing. That moment would kind of solidify By
SPEAKER_00:12 years old, Pena was in and out of schools and detention centers, living on the streets and couches of friends and girlfriends.
SPEAKER_01:I was, I've experienced the brutality aspect of life, how evil life can be. I was acting out and I was already at the house at 12. I was living in the streets at 12 years old. By the time I was 15
SPEAKER_00:years old, I was already out of school. By 15, he had his first son and swore off crime, finding steady employment and new purpose. However, at 24, an accident left him with a broken ankle and unable to support his family. Feeling desperate, Pena agreed to join fellow gang members who were planning to rob a convenience store. But on the way to the convenience store, Harry, a devout man of faith, believes divine intervention tried to lead him down a different path.
SPEAKER_01:While we're on our way over there, I was getting ready to happen, and I hear the voice again. Son, don't do it. You'll be gone a long time. I don't want to do this no more. We got to go. Somebody's going to get killed. I gave the gun to this individual, and I threw my hands off, and he put it back in my face and said, you came to do a job, you're going to do it.
SPEAKER_00:A man was killed during the robbery that night. Harry fled, but was taken into custody. A little over a week later, Harry, along with the two other men, were charged with capital murder and armed robbery.
SPEAKER_01:All I can remember was looking at the judge, and the judge out telling the prosecutor because the prosecutor wanted the death penalty because it was a capital murder case.
SPEAKER_00:Harry was instead sentenced to 45 years for first-degree murder and armed robbery. He ultimately served 22 and a half years in prison. During his incarceration, Harry saw countless men granted release, only to see them back again soon after. He began to wonder about the cyclical nature of incarceration.
SPEAKER_01:It was at that time period I began to get, you know, these thoughts about How do we impact a community that's been impacted by incarceration? It's all around me. I was in it. I lived in it. And I can see people coming back and forth from prison.
SPEAKER_00:Nine years into his incarceration, Harry's curiosity turned to activism. That's when he and his wife, Yolanda, created Life Impactors Foundation, or LIF. LIF aims to curb recidivism and end what they call permanent punishments, which follow men and women with criminal records, limiting their access to jobs, education, and housing.
SPEAKER_01:We want to curb recidivism, but we do that in a way where we teach you skills that that you may not have. And if you do have, we help cultivate the skill set that you do have so that when you go back out into the workforce, you're able to get a job. Our sole purpose is to give individuals a true sense of the word of second chance, their second chance at life.
SPEAKER_00:Their work centers around advocacy, mentorship, and workforce training, such as their reentry curriculum called Getting Ahead and the LAF Reentry Housing Workshop.
UNKNOWN:Music
SPEAKER_00:For Harry, the people he works with aren't defined by the mistakes they've made. He advocates and assists anyone who may come through the doors of life impactors. I have an
SPEAKER_01:opportunity to actually fight for 4.1 million individuals that have backgrounds in the state of Illinois and not know their faces yet love them enough to fight for them. Not knowing their names, not knowing their situation, but yet fight for them.
SPEAKER_00:Pena's commitment to his work sometimes forces him to address the trauma he faced as a child. He told us about struggling to work with a man guilty of abusing his own children.
SPEAKER_01:In that moment when I asked him how he was doing, I could see his eyes swelled up. And he just started weeping. It was the most hardest thing that I had to go through. Didn't value life, didn't care about children. And I saw an individual that was broken. And in that moment... I heard a voice inside of my heart and he said, are you going to love him or are you going to kill him? And I made a decision in that very moment to love him. And by loving him means that I would not judge him for what he did. But I chose in that moment to love him.
SPEAKER_00:Harry believes that his commitment to the power of redemption comes from a higher calling. His faith is what guides him in his work.
SPEAKER_01:It would seem ironic as it is that the same people that hurt me, God would use to teach me how to love. And so every act of love compounded in itself, I
SPEAKER_00:began to visualize what love was really about. Drawing upon his past experiences, Pena lends his advice to others currently experiencing reentry barriers. Harry sees himself as a guide, using Life Impactors Foundation to foster empowerment and positivity.
SPEAKER_01:And so now today I walk in that luck because I understand the need of man. I didn't know I had back then because all I knew was darkness. Forgiveness is the beginning of it all. That's how I live my life now. You know, there's space for forgiveness and redemption.