From Death Row to Freedom | Renaldo Hudson’s 37-Year Prison Testimony

In this episode of From Wrong to Strong, Omar Calvillo sits down with Renaldo Hudson, a man who spent nearly 40 years incarcerated, including 13 years on Illinois’ death row.

Righteously convicted for a violent crime, Renaldo’s life could have ended behind bars. Instead, it was transformed. Through faith in Christ, education, and deep personal accountability, he rebuilt his life from the inside out.

After receiving two executive clemencies, first from Governor George Ryan and years later from Governor JB Pritzker, his sentence was ultimately commuted to time served.

Today, Renaldo serves as Education Director for the Illinois Prison Project, advocating for rehabilitation, second chances, and lasting change. This conversation covers his early years, life on death row, spiritual awakening, release, and the mission that now drives him. A powerful story of justice, mercy, and redemption.

https://www.illinoisprisonproject.org/

Transcript

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I was righteously convicted for a crime. I committed and sentenced to death row to be executed by the legal hand of the state like I think about. Almost 40 years of incarceration. I sat in the Cook County Jail for seven years. I sat on the Illinois death row for 13 years. I sat in the general population of prison for another 17 years with life without the possibility of parole. And so when you talk about my testimony, people forget I got two executive clemencies. He said two times he said through Governor Ryan commute his sentence from death to life. And then Governor Pritzker could come along 17 years later and say, Hey, we not done. Hmm. I'm gonna give you another one. Amen. Amen. And I'm gonna commute your life sentence to time considered served From the city of Chicago, a city most recently known for its crime and violence. On this podcast, we will be sharing stories of redemption Listen to my guests as they share their experiences, struggles, trauma, but also the strength, hope, faith and perseverance, these have developed in them to keep pushing and moving forward in life. Tune in to hear how their lives have gone from darkness to light and from wrong to strong. another episode of From Wrong to Strong. I'm your host. My name's Omar Calvio, and uh, tonight. We're kicking off our podcast in 2026. This is actually the first interview in-person interview that I've done in 2026. Uh, I took a break during the holidays and uh, then we did some fasting at the beginning of the year. So I just felt I was in no rush. Even though I love to do this, I love to get these stories out there. In a sense, I was just waiting, like on God's timing, you know, I didn't. Like, uh, me, like in the natural man, I just wanna, man, guy, I gotta record. I gotta get another interview out there. Gotta keep this going. But I was just trusting in God that in his timing, we, we will get the right person to kick it off. And I believe that that's what we got here. So I man, I, I'd like to thank my guest, Ronaldo Hudson, for being out here. Thank you, brother. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm, I'm gonna share a, a quick bio, you know, uh, uh, my brother here. So, our guest today, uh, carries a story that reminds us no life is beyond redemption. Ronaldo Hudson spent nearly four decades in in prison, including 13 years on death row in Illinois. While locked up, he taught himself to read, grew in faith, mentored others, and refused to let prison define him. After his sentence was commuted and he was finally released, he stepped right back into the fight. Now serving as the education director for the Illinois Prison Project and advocating for those still on the inside. His journey from death row to community leader is proof. That God can rebuild the life the world has counted out. Amen. Amen. Yes, he can. Amen. That's right. Yes he can. And yes he will. Right man. Thank you for being out on here, brother. Uh, uh, so, so I was watching, uh, you know, uh, I gotta send a shout out to Ronnie Carillo and Gilbert, uh, they do on Unshackled Building Bridges. They got a podcast. If you guys haven't listened to it, make sure you guys go check'em out. They're on YouTube. Uh, they're doing amazing work as well, but we're working alongside re uh, Ronaldo. But, uh, a few months ago they did a interview with his brother. Yeah, they sat down with him and man, he shared his story, and man, when I heard his story, like, man, I, I want to hear more. So I'm like, man, I, I've been wanting to connect with you since then. And then I think I got your number for maybe Ronnie or I. No, I send you a message on TikTok. I do. Yeah. Yeah. You send me a message, man, it's so funny because people don't realize I pay attention, right? Because God, when you talk about being the. You know, moving and anointing and fasting and asking God like, Lord, what will you have me and who will you have me interview in what moment? Because the way we start is important. Right. Because people, when you talk about from Ron or Strong, right? I love that. I like, I'll be honest with you, I was thinking about you before you start thinking about me. Oh, no way. Because I saw, I'm like, oh man, check out them brothers, man. What they on? Right? And then Ronnie was like, brother, you need to interview. Like you need to go over that podcast. I'm like, all right, I'm gonna reach out. And before I could reach out, you reached out to me. Oh, look at that. Yeah. So God was moving. Right? Amen. And so for me. When I think about when, like when you talk about my testimony, the Bible teaches us for, we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the words of our testimony, which mean we've been tested to moan about something. Right? That's the first time I heard you explain like that. Yeah. You know, you gotta, you just to moan about something. To moan about something because what happens, like we have to be broke out of our stupid. Hmm. You know, because we be thinking this gangster, right? And I've learned the most SSTs thing you could do is to surrender to Christ, man. Amen. When you put your hands up to God, he don't put handcuffs on you. Come on somebody. Right? In fact, even among those that want to arrest you, they find themselves blessing you. And so why I was among the guilty, so that's the part of my bio that people rarely talk about. Hmm. I was righteously convicted for a crime. I committed and sentenced to death row to be executed by the legal hand of the state who was holding me illegally because I'd never belonged to them. I belonged to Christ. Amen. Even before I understood it. And so for me, like I think about. The almost four decades, like man, almost 40 years of incarceration. But oftentimes people forget. I sat in the Cook County Jail for seven years. I sat on the Illinois death row for 13 years. I sat in the general population of prison for another 17 years with life without the possibility of parole. And so when you talk about my testimony, people forget I got two executive clemencies. I don't just have one. Now you go look at the record. In fact, I think we should be in the Guinea Book of Royals record because I don't think there's anyone else in the nation in the 9 billion plus. So people on the earth, but God. Mm-hmm. Amen. He said two times he said through Governor Ryan commute his sentence from death to life. See, there's a word right there. From death to life. Yeah. Right. And then Governor Pritzker could come along 17 years later and say, Hey, we not done. Hmm. I'm gonna give you another one. Amen. Amen. And I'm gonna commute your life sentence to time considered served Man, you know what? That's so, come on. You the one that's, let's get into all that, man. Absolutely. We're already giving them the end. We haven't even got to, we got there, but, you know, and that's the beautiful thing. No, we're not. That's what, see, that's what's so powerful. Thank you. Yeah. But I promise you I have done it a couple times and, and what I've learned about good chefs. When they're good cooks. Yeah. Yeah. They send, you advertise, you know, they'll send you a little teasers out. See, that's just little. Yeah. Yeah. Like that ain't the work. That's the byproduct. That's the stuff that happened. It's okay to know. They have to know it happened. Yeah.'cause I'm sitting here. Yeah. Right. And you, you know what I was gonna say? I was gonna say, you, you escaped from prison, you know? So I was gonna leave'em in suspense. Well, you know, I got a couple of them too. They never worked though. Yeah. I tried. Yeah. You know, I tried to crawl through the wall. Nah, for real? Oh, absolutely. Oh man, man, God. But God, what I'm telling you, man, when people say like from wrong to strong. Yeah, yeah. Right. I was, I was deeper than the wrong. Yeah. Like I wasn't, like, I wasn't someone ro wrongfully convicted. Right. Because those are testimonies too. Yeah. And them brothers and sisters should be righteously exonerated. Yeah. But I'm saying I love the liberation work. So that when you are wrong, God can make you strong. Mm-hmm. And say, I'm gonna liberate you. I'm in the liberating business. Yes, man is in the exoneration business. God is in the liberating business. Yes. Yes he is. Right. And so I love reminding people that in 2026, God is still looking. The Bible says it like this, the eyes of the Lord looks to and for in the earth to see whose heart is made strong, that he might show himself strong. Whose heart is made perfect toward him, that he may show himself strong. Amen. Amen. And so I was sitting in a cell minding my business. I was minding my business and I heard this thing, what is this? I heard this little thing that said, man, you know God ain't through with you. God ain't through with you. I'm like, man, are y'all, Lord, I don't know if you, you in the wrong, the right cell. I'm that dude. I ain't through with you. I could use you'cause you're not gonna be puffed up. Hmm. So, you know it's my hand because man can't deliver you. In fact, man have wrote you off. Yeah. I tell people all the time, society will reject you, but Christ will accept you. Yes. And so they write us off and I'm like, I'm, I don't, I don't want people to lose sight. That there's glory in following the gospel. It's not just a whoop me into submission gospel. You know, be good and then God will be good to you. The goodness of God has never been predicated on how good you are because you, your righteousness is like filthy rags. So how you going to be so righteous to bring forth the glory of God? It can never happen. No, but when you surrender in the true way. Said, Lord, do what you will.'cause I know I didn't mess it up. I'm, I'm speeding down the road without brakes on the car. I'm doing 80 jumping in and outta traffic and it didn't kill me. I, I'm drinking and smoking and in prison snorting dope. Man. I was kicked outta death row unit one time just to show you, man, how like I was on death row in Pontiac. And back in the day it was a little few things happening, but I ain't gonna testify on nobody. But you know,'cause you gotta be careful. I ain't that dude. No, no. Yeah, yeah. But what I'm saying is God allowed me, even in my slow moments, I'm sitting in the cell getting high.'cause I'm trying to run from what I couldn't outrun, which was my past. Yeah. And I'm getting high. And they decided, you know, when they wanted to do the major shakedown. And so I refused to shake down'cause I didn't wanna get my dope up. I didn't really care about the righteous issue to people with the man they messing with us and we got all these stuff and we gonna stand on them and the guys wanna know if you support. I'm like, man, I'm high. Yeah, leave. No, but not for anything righteous. Yeah. And so I'm telling this story because I'm on death row and got kicked off of death row from Pontiac Death row. Because of acting out, they kicked me out of the prison. I'm like, how you get kicked outta prison? Right. I'm like, man, you messed up. And they, they put me in shackle me, you know, when they, how they transfer you. And so they took me to this prison called Menard Maximum Security. And back in the nineties, death row was on what they called the heel. The hill, the Hill, national Hill, the hill on Emin R, like you had the pit, right? But then back in the day, which is wild, they would take us to death row and they drive you up this hill, man, like some Freddie Cougar type stuff, right? And I was like, man, they taking me to death. And they took me to a Minaj death row, which was a smaller death row. Pontiac had maybe 90 plus people. On death row. 98 people specifically. Well, exact. And then Menard had more like 48, you know,'cause it was, you know, in a smaller unit. And the, but the reason I'm telling you this is that in Menard was all the high profile so-called serial killers, et cetera. And God showed me this, I believe so I can see that. Listen man, you do you see what's where you at? Do you realize, man, that God has allowed you to see death in a way that the streets don't reveal it to you?'cause it's so much cleaner and the streets you wanna run'cause it's filthy and it's dirty. They clean you up and then exterminate you and they make it clean. Right? And when I saw that, it started to sober me when I saw them doing the death preparation. It beg, it didn't scare me. That's different. It sobered me. I said, I'm the only one playing. They ain't playing. We playing. And God gave me life that I might have it more abundantly. Yes. And I couldn't see it because I was caught in the net. And so I began to study, you know, and the Bible says, study to show thyself. Approve a workman that need not be ashamed. Who can rightly divide? Right. Divide what this word, this activating powerful word that can transform any life no matter where you are. Amen. No matter, like people get caught up in the romance of the prison story and forget that the author of the true story is Jesus Christ. Yes, he is. That's the story, right? I'm an actor in this script. And he gave me a part. That part is to be a testimony I need to moan. Right. Oh Lord, come get me and save me Lord. Oh right. And he says, see now I could show up. Mm. Not because, and God is not in the break us business like people wanna preach. He broke me into, no he didn't.'cause He's strengthening us. Yeah. That we might be strong. Don't nobody wanna follow no weak person. Quit playing with me. I don't wanna fall. No broke to him. So humble before the Lord, and I just can't do nothing. No, I'm brave. I'm courageous. Yes. I wanna fight against darkness now. Amen. Like I wanna turn the light on so you don't have to hide what God is doing. That's why I showed up to remind people in 2026. God, even in the midst of all that we see, don't you surrender your hope. Mm-hmm. The Bible says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. Yes. But when it come, it is like a tree of life. They trying to scare us into submission to man, when I was in the streets, you couldn't scare me. What make you think you gonna scare me today? Only the throne of God is where we bow. Mm-hmm. Amen. Amen. Yeah. So don't get the preaching, man. No, no, no. Hey, hey, hey, we, it's a great way to start, man. This is where we're all about, right here. Yes sir. Getting the word. But uh, so you mentioned, you know, obviously. A at your, your story and you were talking about being on death row on a hill. So man, let, let, let's let the people know how you got there. You know, how, how, how, how was life for you growing up, man? Yeah, yeah. You know, and this, it's, it's so important that people understand, like, I come up in Chicago, south side, you know, in fact, uh, and I, and I'm gonna get to the story'cause I just think it's framing. Just a couple weeks ago, I was over in the old Audi home. I went to visit to speak to the young brothers and sisters, excuse me, about holding on. And when I walked in the building, I remembered, I said, man, this is where I started back in the seventies. Right. Did you get almost like a flashback, like a, I got like this revelation of like, Ooh, this is a familiar spirit. Yes. Yeah. Like this space. Yeah. It's familiar. It is in the business of holding you captive. Mm. When you're young because they have to break you to prepare you to be a prisoner. That's why they start young and act like they're protecting society. And I wanted to go and encourage these little brothers and sisters to say, listen, no matter where you start, no one is their worst act. And all voices matter. Yeah. And this too can pass. How do you know Mr. Huon? How do you know Ronaldo?'cause I was here and I was locked up and they didn't have cuffs on me back then. They used to hold us by the seat of our pants and walk us around. No way. Right? What I witnessed with these kids is they make them put their hands behind their back and walk in a submissive. See this is devilment. This is not God. Work. God want them free so that they hands could be free. That they could do some drawing as some writing, not learn how to be submissive to an oppressive system. These kids should be in school, right? If you gonna hold them, hold them by God's grace and to the betterment of themselves, right? The, the people in authority shouldn't be, you know, I wanna keep you where you afraid of me? Yeah. Well, you won't do that. No, I don't wanna keep you where you afraid. I wanna keep you and help you to start to think like a decent human being. So I didn't have that as a kid. The reason I went into that. Oh yeah. Right. And so I was what they called a grade school dropout. I went to John Harvard as a kid over on 75th and Vince, actually, it's 70 in between Vince ends and a little street called Harvard. On 76 on the south side of Chicago, and I literally left school because I, you know, I had a bad encounter with a teacher who didn't have respect for the children, and I was a smelly kid. I could say that out loud. Now, I didn't know how to properly take care of myself'cause I wasn't getting home training. I didn't have parental support in a way that said, Hey, wash under your arms. Wash your stuff, man. Like clean your stuff up and take them dirty drawers off. Hey, do this. I didn't have that. And so I was smelling one day and this teacher, this white guy, really went in on me in front of all the girls in front of this was in the fifth grade, and they called me Stinky and I was like, dude. I ain't never coming back to school, and if I catch you out in the streets, I'm gonna do something to you. Because violence at that age was okay. I was 11, 10, 11 years old, and I was already in the streets knowing what would happen.'cause we were doing all the street stuff then already at 11, already at 11, 12 years old like my brothers was 13, 14, right. We were already breaking into houses, stealing guns. You know, and, and loading up. So violence was normal. My family were really aggressive. My uncle was punching his grown kids out in front of you. Front of us, right? And so it was like, Ooh, just don't get so close that he could hit you because you learn to duck and stay outta harm's way. So violence was normal. I was in the seventies. People forget that was the air of the pimps and, and all the stuff as well as the gang. Right. You know, we were right at the edge of when people told black empowerment and Black Panthers and all these different things that people idol, you know, idolize. Yeah, right. The original structures of the gangs and all that stuff was really popping. Right. And there was no one to interrupt my violence cycle. And so when I left school and just started running in the streets, violence was the norm. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. And so I ended up with my brother and some of our associates getting arrested for a burglary where we had broken to, actually, it was a, a cop's house and there was these guns and it was just so much stuff. And one of our friends got arrested and snitched us out. And so I lived at the time on 75th in Halsted. Right, right between back at the end of the day it was a, a lounge called the Star Trek Lounge, and then on the other side, show you how God is on one side of our house was a Star Trek lounge and it was playing cheating in the next room. Making plans to see him soon, talking softly on the telephone. And then on the other side it was, Jesus is on the main line, tell him what you want. Right. And I was like, how is this conflict? And I was a kid. Yeah. And I remember this, I remember the church battling the tab and the tab was winning'cause they had louder speakers and better equipment and it was more attractive to people. You know, and it was the black bike gangs over there on 75th and halted. And so anyway, all this stuff was happening. You know, the guys, the car wash on 75th and halted where all the players was coming through with their Cadillacs and the El Dorados. And as kids we would over there, they would give us dollars. So we didn't see the brokenness and the trauma and the problem with what they was selling. The community like we didn't see, I saw the sisters in them hot pans as hot. I didn't see them as women being exploited. Yeah. As women being extorted. I didn't see that. I didn't see their innocence being ripped away. And these were young girls Yeah. That were being taken advantage of. I wasn't conscious enough, old enough or educated enough to see that, that I could look back today and say, oh my God, what looked like cool was horrible. Yeah. And so I come up in that and I'm sharing that to frame. Oh yeah. So when. I ended up outta school. My brother ended up going to jail. My brother William Hudson, some of the guys back in the day may know him, little Hudson, he passed away recently. But William was kind of like the chief of our little, you know, clique over there. And it was like understanding that whatever we did had to be approved by him. And so everybody wanted to impress him. So we would be violent and we would fight each other. We would fight each other. You know what I mean? Let alone opposition. Yes. Right. And so all that being said, I was a kid, so violence was normalized. And so when William went to, uh, prison for these guns, make a long story short, I didn't get arrested. And so I ended up being kicked out of the city of Chicago for truancy and uh, uh, they called me a juvenile delinquent, and I was banned outta the city of Chicago. Right by the juvenile courts and went out into this suburb called, uh, Kankakee County. Yeah. And my family actually had a little farm out there, and so my trajectory of stuff began to change. But my brother William was in St. Childs, and so during the year that he was in St. Charles's, I was out on the farm learning, don't laugh, but I was learning how to deal with chickens and duck. And do you know? Yeah, yeah. Country stuff. And when William came home a year or so later, he was still stuck in the violent cycles of the way we were in the city. And I had began to break from that. And so we weren't as close. Got it. And so one day me and William get in, got into an altercation, and what I didn't know was William had been doing burglaries out there. And had an arsenal and decided that he was gonna kill me and my family. And so my brother William shot me this. By the time this all happened, I was 14, turning 15 years old. Oh, how old was he? William was a year older than me, man. Right. So William, when this happened, actually, and I'm kind of speeding it up. Yeah. But William was 16, I was 15 when he shot me in the chest with a 12 gauge shotgun. And left me for dead. Did did, did you see it coming when he was he? Yeah. He literally walked into the trailer. We had a trailer. It is a farm. We had trailers and we had a big house. He opened the trailer door after altercation, like 20 minutes after walking into the woods. He came back, opened the trailer and said, I got you sucker. And when I saw him come in the door with the gun, I begin to stand up. And it's only by the grace of God that I did that, that I think I'm still alive. Because if I would've stayed sitting on the couch, he would've killed me flat out with that shotgun the way it scatters, right? So I woke up maybe a week or so later in the hospital, and what I discovered was that at this point he had killed two family members. Like he had killed my little cousin, James, killed one of my aunties and shot seven other family members, and I was one of the survivors. And so I'm 15 years old starting to recover, uh, you know, in recovery. And what I realized was when I came home, my little cousins who were also victims who were from 10, 11, 12 years old, had all been shot and I looked like my brother. So I didn't know what triggers, triggers were. Back then, I was a walking trigger to my family, and then I was also a. How do you say it? I was for my uncle Jimmy, a walking shame because he was tough. But when my brother was running around with the gun, right, my uncle was made shame and so everybody prior to this happening thought he was really this tough guy. But when William had the gun and shooting everybody, my Uncle Renin went and hid. And so when I came home, he was angry over that shame, and I looked like my brother William. And he would say to me, try to pull that stuff your brother did. I'll kill you. When I walked into my auntie house, my little cousins would start crying. Because I looked like my brother William, that sent me into the streets.'cause I had no home and it escalated from that. So to not think of that, I started smoking PCP. I started drinking. So I was a 15-year-old from the age of 15 to 18. I was in the streets. I was hustling, I was robbing, I was sleeping with older women, man for money, you know. So I was actually a male prostitute. Right. So if I wasn't doing a burglary right, or if I wasn't running some weed and hustling right, I was chasing these older women that people don't talk about that chase young boys. Like we talk about the old men that chase young girls, but we don't talk about that part of the story. That's a part. You know what, this is the first time I've heard that. I know ago. Yeah. But it's the true, that's a part of my testimony. Right? That's a part of my history. I used to be on 75th. You know, and in between, uh, uh, Jeffries and uh, Kingston and the old women would be pulling up in their Aldis and come here, boy. And I'm saying that not like, you know, to make light of it. No, no. Yeah. It's a part of my story. And so when people say, how did you get to the place? I wanted to stay high. And so can I, can I ask you a quick question? Absolutely. Did your brother get get caught for that? Yes. My brother went to pr, went to prison. Okay. And the seventies. Right. And he ultimately copped out for life. They gave him two life sentences. And that, and I'm gonna double back to it because it's equally important in this story. So, um, one of the things that happened with that was I began to like, you know, man, I need to like hide from my memories. And so PCP for me back then was like, I lived in a fantasy world. Right. You know? Are you familiar A PCP for those that don't know, is that when you were dipping six cigarettes? Dip, dip, the, the Or like sticks? The sticks. Dipping. Yeah. And smoking and it's just, it's almost, if you remember Roger Rabbit, the cartoon? Yeah. Yeah. I literally was walking around living in a cartoon. And I'm not exactly. No, no. Yeah. I was living, uh, like I would walk on the vi locks and the vi locks would be like, I'm cold. Like I remember this stuff, you know? And I'm like, I feel safe now. I used to crawl and crawl spaces and go to sleep, you know? And so I tell people like, you don't know people story. But you judge us. Yeah. You know, and God, but God kept me even in all of this stuff. God kept me. I really believe that. And so, make a long story short, I came up with this idea. I began to stay with my father in this kitchenette apartment. Can I ask you something like, during your childhood, was your dad always in, in your life? My father was in and out my life. Okay. My father was what you would call a, um, absent kind of like. Uh, how do you say, uh, absentee dad. Okay. Like I really didn't have a real relationship with my mother. I knew who my mother was, I was around her at times, but I didn't have a relationship with my mother, and so they had no real ideas of the stuff that was going on with me. Right. And the shooting. With my family was the shame of the family. So people knew it, but they wouldn't talk about it. You, you, you know what I mean? And so all this stuff is crucially important for people to understand. And when you think about like, how do you help people get better, how do you bring people across the bridge to healing? You have to first know their story. Yeah. Meet people before you try to teach'em. Then too often people just wanna come in and, and here's the gospel and it's it, no, it's not like it's a formula. It is a process. You must understand the recipe. You have to learn process. We want to jump process. Yeah. Rather than, listen, wait a minute. This attached to this really quickly. As an example, when I was on Death Road, I'm gonna go back to the story. Yeah. One of the things that happened to me is when I was in segregation,'cause I had assaulted an officer. This warden came and was messing with me and you know, telling me all the, you know the stuff, you know, look, you did this, so we locking you up and all. I'm like, yeah, right. I'm on death row. Like, ooh, how you gonna lock me up more than that, right. And then he challenged me. He said to me, do you read the Bible? And one of the things that I didn't share right now was I. I used to read the Bible once I learned to read, to beat Christians up and in. In what sense? Beat'em up Howard. Like, because most Christians, and I'm saying this to y'all. Yeah. Y'all don't read your Bible from Genesis one, revelations 2221. There's a lot of information, right? Oh yeah. Oh, and very few Christians know and you could challenge. How many know what is the longest scripture in the Bible? What is the show? Scripture in the Bible? And so this warden asked me, did I read the Bible? And at the time I was flirting with the Nation of Islam at the time. And like I went from gang banging from the mob to like fighting the white man, right? I need to tell that devil teach that devil that white, white, that white double right? So I had learned, I studied Islam for the wrong reasons, and I don't wanna slander anyone's faith, right? Because I was at a place of brokenness where the discipline of Islam leveled me that I might be able to hear Christ. I wanna be clear about that. Right. Without the discipline of Islam, I wouldn't have the ability to hold the gospel. Yeah, that's deep. The, the, they, they, uh, connect. It just did, and people can fight that. They can get as mad as they want, but that's my truth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so under that premise, I learned the Bible because the nation says study. Study, study, study, read. And then the Bible said, wait a minute, the Bible do tell you to study the Bible. Don't tell you to listen passively and wait for right. Uh, some preacher to come give you your instructions. It says, study to show thyself. Approve. A workman that need not be ashamed. Who could rightly divide Amen. But most Christians that I knew didn't read the Bible. They listened to the television preacher or some evangelist walking down the gallery with tracks here and, and will you accept Christ today as your savior? Okay, follow this savior's prayer. And I'm still the devil I was when you walked up. There's no transformation. And the prayer, the transformation is in the process. After hearing the prayer, it activates action. Yeah. Faith without Works is dead. Yes it is. Right? So anyway, I'm getting into my preaching maho. Oh yeah. But, but my point is, these things always happening. And so I came up, going back to your question, what sent me to prison? I was living in this kitchen there, sleeping on the floor in this one bedroom apartment on 74th in Kingston, and I had this vision, smoking this stuff that this little white man had a million dollars. And I was going to tie him up, rob him, and run away. Be happily ever after somebody you knew or you've been watching or something. I saw him in the neighborhood. Got it. In this building that, yeah, this, think of this what I'm showing you, man. When you broken, you don't really, you're not rational. I was living in the slum, a slumlord building, and he was living down under me in the same building. I couldn't equate and do the basic analysis. Yeah. The dude can't have nothing, man. He in the hood. It's people that smoke crack and do heroin. Running in the hallways, sleeping in the hallways of this building, man ain't got nothing. But in my mind, I'm not making an excuse. I'm telling you what my story is. Yeah, yeah. Right. And I executed it and discovered in that process, he didn't have anything and I took his life, man. And it was horrible, and I don't wanna go into the graphic detail, but it was horrible. And I panicked and I did a horrible thing and I acknowledged that and I never tried to run from that. And it sent me to prison. And I sat in the Cook County Jail, and as I began to sober up, it hit me with a horrible thing I did. And so from my waking up in the cell in a paper suit, I woke up in a cell. Do you understand what I'm saying in that paper suit? Because they took all my clothes because with all of my brilliance, I had all that blood and that those clothes on me walking around because I couldn't make the connection to my harm and what I had done and that I was a walking testimony against myself. Right. Do you, you hear me? Oh, yeah. No, that's, that's, that's deep. You know, and I was arrested the same day, so I did not get a date. Away with this horrible act. And I acknowledge the harm and I tell people, listen, I'm the person responsible for the offense that sent me to prison, but I'm not the offense. Yeah. And that's why I love the gospel, because I can tell my horrible testimonial story and say, even with that knowledge, God showed up. Amen. So you can't tell me what story you going to tell me you got. Yeah. That's going to make me think God can't redeem you. Yes. So I walked into the public courts with blood on my hands, blood on my clothes, and I'm sitting in your. Podcast. Yeah. As a testimony of what God would do even to the worst, according to society. Yeah. Amen. So that's what put me in the cage. What brought me out is an awareness of God. What brought me out was I believed, despite what I just shared with you, that God wanted to do something greater with me, and I started believing it, and I started moving. In space. I went from functioning, lit. Go ahead. They, no, I was gonna ask you like. So, so you did that. Now, was there a time period, I know you're, you're talking about God, like, was there a time period where you didn't want anything to do with God? Oh, absolutely. And how, how, how did that, that that part of the story look before you get to the Yeah, no, absolutely. Like what was the, the, I'll give you an example. Yeah, absolutely. It's so funny because, you know, I've been, I've been clean so long that sometimes I even forget how dirty. Yeah, my past is, I'm being really honest. Oh no, but you, you know what? I think it's good to share'cause the, the, yeah, obviously the, the mindset was different. No, it absolutely, it absolutely was. I'll give you an example. I wasn't joking when I say I tried to escape. I was in the county jail for seven years. I was probably among the most violent people in the jail'cause I was scared. And I came to the conclusion that I'm gonna be so violent that anybody that think they wanna mess with me gonna think twice. How, how old were you when you hit the county? I was, I had just turned 19. Oh, wow, man. Yeah. I was 18. I was 18 when I first, I mean, I was, yeah, 18 when I first went to the county jail. And the first time I went to the county jail was in 1983. Early, I mean 80, the end of 82. Early 83 got out right and 60 days later I was back for capital murder. Wow. Because I didn't get any healing. I didn't get any help. So all they did is held me in the county jail.'cause for robbery, I had robbed a man and they end up, I sat in the county jail for 60 days and they gave me probation. After 60 days for strong armed robbery and yeah. And so when I went back to the jail and woke up, like I'm telling you, in that state, I was convinced I would never walk outta prison. And so I didn't wanna be a victim.'cause you know the story, you hear the stories if you.

Renaldo 40:48

You know, if you show any signs of weakness, they're gonna rape you and they're gonna, you know, and so I was like, I really believe that stuff. I'm gonna punch the police. I ain't gonna jump on. And it's so funny when I think about it, my strategy was I'm gonna scare the brothers because I'm gonna fight the police. You know, that was my strategy.

Omar 41:11

That's the plan. That's a

Renaldo 41:12

right. That was my plan. I was like, I'm gonna like see a white shirt and just go punch'em. And that's what I did.

Omar 41:19

That, that that'll show them you're really crazy. Right.

Renaldo 41:21

I'm like, man, you crazy. And he ain't got no sense. Yeah. And what I didn't know back then though, that they were putting people in body casts, like, and God didn't let'em do it to me.

Omar 41:31

Mm.

Renaldo 41:31

Like I punched brass multiple times and I mean, they gave me some tighten up. They put some tighten up on me. I don't

Omar 41:40

sure. Put leather gloves on you.

Renaldo 41:41

No, they, they put some tighten up on me. I wanna be clear like they, like I. Y'all know the one y'all know, they put some tighten up on me.

41:48

Yeah,

Renaldo 41:48

yeah. But then they threw me in a cell, but then they started treating me different, right? They started treating me like, oh, we don't wanna mess with him'cause we know he'll go. And so I no longer even had to deal with the population stuff because everybody, oh man, that's crazy hustling. You know? And then the guys, they were like, man, calm down, hustling. I'm like, oh, this works God now. Yeah. No, yeah, this works. And so that was the stupid stuff. And so I did that stuff for seven years, man. So I, I was, and I couldn't read, I learned gang literature by people quoting it to me.

Omar 42:27

Wow.

Renaldo 42:28

So I didn't, like, I didn't, Hey, tell me what that said. And re memorized stuff so that when we had the circles of different things I could quote my little stuff. Or if somebody stopped me if I was in the library or you know.'cause back then, back in the day, screening used to happen from you say you in this mob, they would screen you, but people didn't know I was a functionally literate. I hear that for years from so many people. I remember I even punched a per a brother once and started a fight because he was trying to gimme some stuff to read. Yeah.

Omar 43:01

That was your way out.

Renaldo 43:02

That was my way out. Yeah. Because it's like, Hey, why did you punch me?

Omar 43:05

Yeah. You know what I, I, I, there was actually a brother that I knew that was going to church with me. Yeah. And I would tell him, Hey man, let's do bible study. You know, and I didn't know this till later, but I found out from a family member, like, Hey man, he, he don't even know how to read. But it there, there's like a shame tied to that, right?

Renaldo 43:19

It it is. And so one of the things that I learned, and I do this in my work, I pay attention to my incarcerated peers and like I look for the science of illiteracy. Because I knew what mine was. Yeah. High, highly aggressive. A lot of aggression. Right. And so it was only when, and this brother's man, one brother out now man. And we don't talk like we used to, but he was a really good brother. Like when we was back, that literally used to like, uh, he helped me a lot. I ain't finna get into his name or nothing. Yeah, yeah.'cause we just not cool anymore and I don't wanna

Omar 43:54

Yeah.

Renaldo 43:54

Unnecessarily stir stuff. But that brother used to sit with me with a dictionary. And pronounce words and say this as word, and that helped me so much. And so from that type of tutoring to those little old, uh, urban novels, that was so simplistic to read Donald Gordon and Iceberg Slim, you know, all that little stupid stuff, right? Yeah. But that stuff helped me to move from Iceberg Slam to Crime and Punishment. You know, to like doing my incarceration and not to go too far, like I had as the chaplain clerk, I had access to all the philosophies of the world. They have volumes where people donated these libraries to the chapel, right? And so when I was in the chapel, I would pull out one of the books. We literally had the whole encyclopedias of all the philosophies of the world. And I was studied that stuff. I studied all of the. Presidential inaugural speeches during my incarceration.

Omar 44:58

Wow.

Renaldo 44:58

Right. Because I wanted to understand the agenda of leaders. Right. And then I learned, oh, it's, it's, these aren't necessarily the people writing these speeches. They have speech writers. Yeah. And they want to, to push their agenda. Right. I remember for example, one president said that the American dream will never go to those that sleep. I was like, who said that? And people would be, who said that? It was Nixon. Right of all presidents. Right. The American dream do not go, come to those that sleep. And I still believe that like if you sleep on the watch, you'll miss it.

Omar 45:32

Yeah.

Renaldo 45:32

Right. So anyway, to get back on on point,'cause I just went off into a No

Omar 45:36

no, no. Yeah. We're talking about the mindset before,

Renaldo 45:38

before God, so, so yeah. So it was violence.

Omar 45:41

Yeah.

Renaldo 45:42

It was like anything that I thought anyone else wouldn't do, I would do. I'll be honest with you, that's kind of the, the gauge Yeah. That I used. Like I remember this one captain that, you know, I won't name him. He may still be, and I won't embarrass him in front of his family, but everybody was scared of this guy. And once I realized who he was,'cause he had his little goon squad crew, I intentionally got on the, the gallery.'cause I was in division one, right. And soon as I saw him, I charged him. You know, and I got maybe three, four licks off on'em before they got me. And all the staff was scared of me. You know, they hog tied me and took me to a BO, right? Uh, and I learned if you want to survive in these spaces, you gotta be tougher than everybody there. But I run. I realized, no, you don't.'cause that's what people will tell you. No you don't. You just gotta be willing to go against who they think people think. Overwhelming is the most powerful force, and no matter what people say about the gang life, the most powerful gang in the Department of Correction is the staff. Because they can mount up on you. Like we can get'em for a moment. And they say, okay. And then they suit up and they mount up and then they spray us and they whack us and they, you know, have us spread out somewhere. Be like, we had a moment and it don't last.

Omar 47:09

Hmm.

Renaldo 47:09

So if they begin to handle me differently, that was my science. So that was a, so I, while I was at a jail, like I said, I was trying to escape. So, in fact, I'm an artist and what I don't tell the people a lot of time, my first piece of art was actually a plate that I painted a piece of cardboard to look like a steel plate because we had cut a hole in the wall to climb up to the roof of the county jail to try to escape. Right? And it's so funny when I think about it today, I'm like, dude, you was stupid, right? My other escape was I got a start pistol. It looked

Omar 47:49

in the county,

Renaldo 47:50

in the Cook County Jail. Like I was waiting on a real gun. I mean, I was broken, brother. I was messed up. But the people that was willing to help me like was leaving and I was like, man, the guys was offering me. 30 eights, three 50 sevens, and those were too big to smother in the jail. Smother in the jail. Right. And so my friend ended up giving me this starter pistol with the little red little thing. Right.

Omar 48:17

Oh, okay. With the caps.

Renaldo 48:18

Yeah. Right. And I got that out. And so I like, okay. And I held it in a way that I'm like, okay, if I just do like this. They'll see it as a gun. But what I didn't anticipate was when I did this to this lieutenant, uh, and then I, like I was, my mind was like, I'm gonna do this, show it to him and then put it under his neck. That was my logic. His logic was, oh, he trying to stab me. And so when I went to put it under this, uh, his neck, he was 400 pounds. Like he was a big boy. He said, oh, and he jumped me Back then I was maybe one 70. He jumped me and laid on top of me. I mean, he took me straight down. He got a gun and they whooped my butt. And that was kind of like the last straw.'cause after that I was shackled up pretty much Right. Everywhere I went from a BO to the library to, you know, I didn't get a lot of movement after that until I was actually end up transferred to, uh, death row.

Omar 49:18

Right. You know? Could I ask you on that, like. When, when, okay. You're, you're going through the trial, you know? Yeah. You can get to the, did you know that's what they were gonna, uh, give you?

Renaldo 49:27

Yeah. Well, I knew that they were after, uh, they were trying to sentence me to death. They have a thing called Weatherspoon back then, when the weatherspoon a jury is you qualify people to sit on the jury that would vote for death. And so I was smart enough to listen and hear like, ooh. They're trying to kill me, and I qualify according to the standard to receive the death penalty because I had a murder and a robbery. So a murder with a adjoining felony qualified you for the death penalty, right? And so. Excuse me. One of the things that happened is I had two trials. First of all, my first trial ended in a hung jury because my lawyers effectively put on an insanity defense. They said, there's no way this kid was okay. I couldn't really appreciate that defense because what I thought was normal was actually temporary insanity for real. I was insanity. I was insane from the use of drugs.

Omar 50:35

Yeah.

Renaldo 50:36

I don't know if I was insane in the medical way in which people call the definition.

Omar 50:40

Yes.

Renaldo 50:40

You know what I mean? Yeah. But in terms of I was not a rational

Omar 50:44

right

Renaldo 50:44

person. Right. Um. I fantasized, I did all that boish thinking. Right? So that was kind of why I sat in the jail so long. But then my second trial, they gave me the death penalty really fast. And that was in 1990.

Omar 51:01

How, how did that feel when you heard the verdict? Like when we're gonna,

Renaldo 51:04

I'll be honest with you, that didn't bother me. When the judge declared, when the jury said I qualified, they voted for me to to die. That didn't really bother me'cause I was suicidal. That's a part of my testimony that, yeah, I don't talk a lot about, I attempted to kill myself multiple times and failed every time I was a failure. Like I was like, thank God. Yeah. Right. But so that didn't scare me. I tell you what actually scared me. When I actually received the death penalty and was taken back to the jail, everything changed about the way they treated me. And they brought a team of staff members that was different from the normal cops. They were professional, they spoke really clear instructions. We're gonna need you to walk into the day room. We're gonna ask you to slowly begin to unrobe. I mean, it was a total different mind blowing thing because I wasn't used to staff not hollering and screaming to try to make you do stuff. They were so professional that it intimidated me. I won't lie, it intimidated.

Omar 52:22

So they were basically trained to deal with people who were on

Renaldo 52:25

broke. They were the elite of, in my opinion. Yeah. Like they were the people that knew what they was doing. Yeah. Like they weren't playing like I'm like. Hey, these other guards just got jobs and like, you know what I mean? They got peanut butter on their hand while they trying to do the count. They like, these dudes were neat. They were in shape, and they dropped them chains on the floor and began to instruct me, here's what we gonna need you to do. I, I can still hear, and I'll be really honest with you. People can laugh at me. It made me nervous where I couldn't stop shaking. That's probably was the scariest moment of my incarceration. Wow. If I could be really honest.'cause I realized in that moment that they had the power to do to me what I did to my victim, but it didn't detour me from being a criminal. It just scared me in that moment.

Omar 53:27

Yeah.

Renaldo 53:28

Because once I got into handcuffs and I began to feel safe. I went right back to my stupid, but I wanted to be really honest with you. No. Yeah, that's

Omar 53:39

good.

Renaldo 53:40

Yeah. I didn't want to, and I will not lie about that truth. Right. So all of that being said, so attempting to escape the, attempting to kill myself, you know, I know when I say that God favored me. Because I set up, man, one night in the cell and I had a syringe, and I thought, I heard that if you put air in the syringe and you pop it in your vein, it'll bust your heart. And I po stuck myself one night while also and being an active game member. So when I come out the cell in the daytime, I was happy and I would play the game. But when I went in the cell at night, I was miserable. I was broken, I was crying. Because I wanted to pain the emotional pain to stop.

Omar 54:24

So, so in on death row you had interaction with the other guys On

Renaldo 54:28

death row? You on death row. Death row is a, yeah, like on death row. What I'm speaking about now was, was in the county jail. Oh, the

Omar 54:33

county. Got it. Got it.

Renaldo 54:34

That was in the county jail. Yeah, I was there seven years. Yeah. When I went to death row, it was a different monster.

Omar 54:38

Got it.

Renaldo 54:39

Like, by the time I got to death row, I probably had 12 to 15 guys that I knew. So when I walked up on the death row unit, it was almost like a reunion. It wasn't like a, it wasn't the same as like when I'm telling you that moment when they shackled me to prepare me to go to death row, arriving at death row and hearing people call my name was a different experience because it was like, oh, these the guys. Right. And so all the stuff that I'm telling you that the fear, like I ain't even tell them like they learn it now if they hear this. Oh, right, right. Oh, re now you little, a little punk, huh? But it was my truth, right? Oh yeah. But so that's the stuff that rarely get talked about. Right? But in that process, like I'm telling you, like on death row, we still was getting high. We were. You know, and so in the nineties was really when they started back to executing. So I wasn't there long before a guy by the name of Charlie Walker decided that he would drop his appeals and they accommodated him by executing him.

Omar 55:51

They, could I ask you? Yeah. How were they? Uh, um, executing people back then.

Renaldo 55:56

Lethal injection.

Omar 55:57

Okay.

Renaldo 55:57

Yeah. Illinois only during my stay

Omar 55:59

Yeah.

Renaldo 56:00

Was using lethal injection. Right. Uh, and most of the executions was happening at Stateville. Well, pretty much all the executions that was happening during my state happened at Stateville, except for one. The last one that happened was a guy by the name of Andrew Cora, and he was, uh, executed in Tams. Yeah,

Omar 56:24

supermax. Yeah. How could I ask you, like, let's say the, the first guy that got executed. How, how was it for you to see somebody, I guess, walk the last walk? How, how, how, how, how did the last, the last day go?

Renaldo 56:36

Honestly, honestly, back then, in that moment, it didn't bother me one bit. That was him. He was, you know, it sucks to be him. I was still kind of in that state. Yeah, it sucks to be him. It ain't me. And I just went back to drinking and getting high. It's only a couple years into that space. I began to sober. I began to change, and so the lights came on. There's a different kind of reaction to sobriety. Emotional sobriety. Spiritual sobriety, that the room change. You see the stuff, you see the details you can hear the chains you like. I remember I was writing in my journal this morning, a perfect example, and I remember one night on death row I was just awakened and I heard this, I ain't supposed to be here. And the guy was crying and I was like, what's wrong with this dude, man? Don't let them hear you. Cry. You know the Tom Hanks movie? There's no crying in baseball, right? With the girl baseball like, yeah. I'm like, there's no crying on death row. But then what I discovered was when I stayed up at night, it was more common than not. And then I discovered even more that there actually were innocent people. Yeah. Because I was sitting in the seat as I did it. I'm supposed to be here. I wasn't crying about that. You know?

Omar 58:05

Yeah.

Renaldo 58:06

And what I discovered was, and I teased my friends about this to this day, death row reminded me of the power of the gospel while God took innocent people to save the guilty. And it was the, the experience of the public being exposed to innocent people being placed on death row, ushered in a redemption story. Because my life was spared, not predicated on the merits of me, but on the idea of someone innocent being executed. But God.

Omar 58:43

Amen. Right? Yeah.

Renaldo 58:46

And I benefited from that. And so that was my first executive clemency.

Omar 58:51

Could, could, could you share that story?'cause I, I, I believe that's what happened, right? Like,

Renaldo 58:55

yeah. Yeah. Like people, you know what happened in Illinois was they discovered that there were actually innocent people on death row. And it started like you had the death row team. You have my friend, in fact, uh, that's here now. I wanna bring him into your show. Amen. Amen. Uh, brother by the name of Stanley, John Howard, who was the founder, one of the founders of the Death Row 10, and they began to tell the story of being tortured and to confessing. For crimes they didn't commit. And the Aaron Patterson story and the Madison Holley and the Ronnie Kitchen, you know, Stanley Howard, his book is my, uh, torture by Blue, uh, Ronnie Kitchen book, and they're out, they're in the documentary that I'm, I'm tell you about a little bit. Oh, right. But, uh, Ronnie Kitchen, my Nightmare years, his book is out. Right. They were tortured. By the John Burge and his henchman and sentenced to death. So we were on death row together. But this is the thing about the glory of God, though I was sitting in a cell like I did it. Uh, and so it was hard to see innocence. When you think, and you've been conditioned to be like. You know, we all lie. You know, that's the way they talk about us. You know, all of them are innocent on death row.

Omar 1:00:17

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:00:17

Except for Ronaldo. He the only one that's guilty. And I used to tease guy like, I, I know y'all. I'm the only one did it. But in my brain I was like, come on, y'all. Y'all know y'all did this.

Omar 1:00:26

Right?

Renaldo 1:00:27

And I equally had to learn like, oh no, that there's innocent people here. Thank you God. And I tell my friends, man, I thank God for your innocence because it saved me from my guilt.

Omar 1:00:39

Man.

Renaldo 1:00:41

Then ultimately moved to the marriage that God used to ultimately release me.

Omar 1:00:48

You, you know? Okay. You share the story about the one guy that end ended up. Yeah. I believe it was his case that made the governor,

Renaldo 1:00:55

well, it was a case. It's multiple cases. There was a lot of stuff, but the case you might be referring to is Anthony Porter, rashe brother Rashe. In fact, me and Rashe was buddies on death row and he used to play chess and like I used to always be like, man, stop playing. He said, Hey, nato, like I'm innocent. I'm like, man, I ain't gonna say the word I would used to say, but I used to say like,

Omar 1:01:16

yeah, yeah,

Renaldo 1:01:16

man, get out my face with that.

Omar 1:01:18

Right, right, right,

Renaldo 1:01:19

right. I'm like. Come on man. You know you did it, but I ain't asking you. I ain't finna turn states. You ain't, you ain't gotta confess to me. Right,

Omar 1:01:27

right, right.

Renaldo 1:01:27

Don't sit here and lie to me at the same time. Like, come on man. And it turns out that this guy, he was 48 hours to his execution and the lawyers discovered. I don't know the exact details. I don't wanna mis disrespect it, but from my recollection, um. They came up with this argument that the Supreme Court declared that a person had to be in a certain mental state to be executed. You couldn't be mentally challenged, right, and be executed. And so they asked for a psychiatric evaluation that halted his execution while that was happening, these students. At Northwestern under, uh, professor David protests, if I remember correctly, they had a box with research and stuff in it, and they asked the professor could they investigate this since this guy already gonna be executing. And from that, it evolved to where they found the number, a number in a box, went and contacted this person, right? And this person ended up confessing. To the murders. Think about that. That ultimately led to his exoneration. And Governor Ryan was like, oh my God, this poor kid was about to be executed. Yeah. And so it definitely moved him along with, you know, uh, the other thing is the Andrew Cora case, which was the only case that Governor Ryan signed to death one. And I learned this and this is an actual true story and I send love and a shout out to the Ryan family'cause I was fortunate enough with, uh, Stanley Howard and Bill Ryan to go to Governor Ryan's memorial, his funeral, and one of his friends of 50 years told this story that really melted my heart to be really honest at his funeral. And he said, man, whatever you think of Governor Ryan, the execution of Andrew broke him in a way. Like there was all a lot of other stuff. I don't wanna minimize all the activists and all the stuff that different people did, but witnessing this story about what the governor did and people were saying, man, he, the guy said the governor called his friends into his office. And said that the governor, like, man, I'm having a problem with this. And his friend who was given the, his words of love to the governor said, he said to the governor, this guy was a horrible guy and he deserved to die. And Governor, you're doing the right thing. The family deserved closure. And this guy said, listen, like Governor Ryan is known for being strong like this dude. And he said, man, this was my friend for 50 years. I know him. And he said he Governor got up and walked, was walking away. And he said he touched the governor on the shoulder. Governor Ryan, George Ryan. And he said the governor turned around and a tear was in his eye. And man, when I say that. Soften my heart in a way that, I don't know if I can really articulate it, but it gave me a different experience with all that I've been through. It's like, man, we forget the humanity of people, even people in authority. Right, and the guy said, man, I knew then that this guy had been undone. And the reason it moved me, because there's so many moving parts around the death penalty story, but one of the things that I was anticipating with all the poli publicity was that my sentence would be commuted from, uh, death to 40 years. Instead, it was communed from death to life without parole. And so I had. Personally, and I'm being really candid, some personal emotional feelings.'cause I had been doing a lot of activism work and stuff on death row at this point. But when I witnessed this testimony, I realized, dude, how selfish I was being.'cause I had no way of understanding what this guy was holding.

Omar 1:05:56

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:05:57

You know, but I just wanna say that to people because I so now want to honor that fact that this dude spared my life, and along with 166 other people with the stroke of a opinion, right? And so when people talk about clemency or pardons, like I use that scripture, all that is connected. Right. And it's, it's like hitting the lottery to be clear, to get executive clemency. Right. And that God gave me two of them.

Omar 1:06:35

Hmm.

Renaldo 1:06:36

So even with my broken heart in the moment of the death penalty stuff, what I didn't know is God would allow me to do so much work in between that 17 years because I started during that time the Stateville speak newspaper. People don't know that, that I'm the founder of the Stateville Speak newspaper. I'm the founder of the Danville Building Block program that exists across the state. Right. And so God began to allow me to be working into the lives with people and helping more people to find them way to education and God,'cause I was also the chaplain clerk in Danville for seven years. And so I facilitated setting up all the services for all the religions in that facility for seven years,

Omar 1:07:26

right.

Renaldo 1:07:27

Bug God.

Omar 1:07:28

Amen.

Renaldo 1:07:28

I was. I got into an altercation and I kind of talked a little bit about going from gang life to Islam, back to the gospel. What I didn't do is build the bridge and share what that looked like. And so one of the things that happened for me on death row was I talked about being kicked out of the prison. What I didn't tell you is that I got kicked outta the other prison and so for sighting a riot. And so when I came back to Pontiac, I was in the Sally port. Like, you know, you wait to get into the, the prison. But God was working with me at that point. Like the Menard, I was in the nation of Islam, like running in place, eating one meal a day. Like really, really disciplined. Like I was like on it, right? And talking crazy to like, I was listening to, uh, minister Farrakhan religiously. Like I can quote to this day speeches. And so one of the things happened to me, make a long story short, when I went back to Pontiac, I got into an altercation with this officer and I was placed in segregation. And so I, I talked a little bit about the warden making the challenge to me. Yeah. What I didn't tell you is prior, before that I was, uh, in the, i, in what they call it, uh, isolation. Right. And one of the brothers, Victor X, brought me a tape and he gave me a Walkman. Remember? The Walkman? Yeah. Yeah. And so he gave me the Walkman through the chuckle, and he gave me the tape. And on this tape it was Minister Lewis Farrakhan. And he was talking about who are you good for? Or are you good for nothing? And I was like, go get em, Mr. Right. And he was that white devil, and I was like, y'all saw? But then he threw a curve ball. He said, listen, we can talk about the chronological history of white folks all day, and we can talk about his footprint. And we know that anywhere you see the plant is a plant called the white man footprint. Footprint, right? Anywhere you see that plant on the earth, you know he has been. And then he said, but can people trust you? If you were walking down the street, would people be safe walking down the street next to you? And I don't know why, it just hit me the way it did, but it made me start thinking about stuff that I had experienced on death row. And one of the things I've shared this in public before was I was disinvited to a death row party. It's crazy, right? Like, and I was like, hold it man. How do you get this? I know, right? Come on, minister. You can't be laughing at me like that, man. No,

Omar 1:10:21

I'm trying to imagine it like,

Renaldo 1:10:22

so think about this here, what it is.

Omar 1:10:24

Well, first of all, a party on death row. I mean even that is throwing me, you know?

Renaldo 1:10:28

Okay, so lemme put it in context. Yeah, yeah. Like on death row, we used to celebrate people's birthday because that mean they made it. Without being executed. Yeah. And so one of the things they would let us do, they would let 10 of us go to a rec room or the yard together, but we would be shackled till we get to the yard and then they'd take the stuff off us and we would be on the yard for an hour, hour and a half. And so whoever, if it was someone's birthday, people would make, you know, prison cakes and you know, hooch and all this stuff. And so I was, back then, I used to be really lifting weights a lot. And so I used to go to the yard, like it was my thing, like I wanted to be, I wanted to be so strong that if I hit you, it's just a one punch thing. It ain't really, that was kind of my thing. And so I to be, I always want to hit the waist, like, whoa, I wish somebody would start some stuff. I just wanna do it. And. One day. Anyway, I went to the yard and no one was on the yard. None of my regular guys. And so when I came back and went to the shower, my buddy, the guy that I'm gonna introduce you to, Stanley Howard Stanley. John Howard was in the shower next to me. I'm like, dude, where everybody, like, where was everybody? And Stanley said to me, no. Oh, that's what you hear when you hear him talk. He got that funny voice. Oh, brother. Oh, didn't nobody wanna be around you. I said, what you mean don't nobody wanna be? He said, you unstable? I said, I'm unstable. Yeah. Can't nobody trust you? You like, and I didn't think about this stuff I was doing, man. I really didn't. Like I used, and I'm not bragging, it is just the truth. I be seeing this, uh, on Instagram right now, man. Then maybe one of the ministers might tell me, stop watching it now that I'm saying it. But, uh, they got these slapping. I don't know if you ever seen it like

Omar 1:12:14

the, like a competition.

Renaldo 1:12:15

Yeah. Like they smack smacking each other. Yeah.

Omar 1:12:18

Right, right.

Renaldo 1:12:18

That used to be my thing. Like I used to be smacking like people, like if I didn't like you, and so I was watching, I like, Ooh, I used to be doing that. And, but I was mad because I never made people like, like, oh, they like bust a vessel or something. Like, Ooh, that's, but I remember that on. Ooh, that's what I used to be doing. Right. What you say? Okay. Smack him and make him wanna fight. Like,'cause if you smack somebody, they had to fight.

Omar 1:12:42

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:12:42

People didn't wanna fight. I'm like, dang. So anyway, I started thinking about this, like why? Why you acting like that? But I mainly used to be like, I wanted people to be scared of me. I wanted people to be scared of me. Even on death row. I want you to be scared of me, everybody. Right. But I didn't feel like that was connected to my guys though. But I didn't have the ability really, honestly, to recognize that I was doing that. You know what I mean? And it was some tough dudes, don't get me wrong. Like I ain't saying that I was the tough'cause I wasn't. Right. It was some really tough, strong dudes around us, right? And I didn't mess with them and they didn't mess with me. But we knew, okay, so anyway, it was like they disinvited me because they did. I was unstable and. That happened. And so when I was sitting in the cell and I was listening to Minister Farrakhan, I was like, dude, I don't want the feel this way. And then he asked another question. He said, if you was to die today, would anyone care?

Omar 1:13:44

Hmm

Renaldo 1:13:45

That hit home man. Like that Pierce. I'm like dead now. Not only will no one care, no one is even checking on me.

Omar 1:13:53

Did. Was there any family still connecting with you back then?

Renaldo 1:13:56

You was just No. No. On

Omar 1:13:57

your

Renaldo 1:13:57

own? No, I was on my own. In fact, the family that I ended up having as God began to sober me up was Brothers on death row. Families, their mothers. One of my brothers right in the kitchen. His mother adopted me. Like she used to call me out and someone else would call her son out and she would like visit you. Huh? Visit me on death row. You know, Dr. Margaret Barrows, who started the Daba Museum, used to come to Death Row and. Visit with me. And she used to like, so those were the mothers, the surrogate mothers in my life. Uh, sister, mother Helen Sinclair, you know what I mean, that are historically known as these really big activists. They came to Death Row and, and encouraged us, and inspired us and them were my mothers. Them was, you know, uh, the people that I could say love me. Uh, Mary Johnson, one of the brother's mother used to come and see me. But not my mother, not my father. Not one day on in my 30 plus years did my family walk into the visit room to see me. I reunited with my family upon my release. Now my sister, who's one of the most amazing people in my life, Niecy, I call her my mother sister.'cause now she thinks she get to tell me what to do. Right. And my nieces man, I have some of the most amazing nieces. And not to get off point. Oh no. Yeah, yeah. But so that's family. God restored that. Right? But while I was in the trenches of prison, no. And so I was hardened, right? And I was sitting there thinking, man, if I was to die today, no one would care. And then one more thing happened to me one day I called,'cause I used to talk to people on the phone and one of my cousins answered the phone. I'm like, man, he like, who this? I say it is Renardo. He say, Renardo, man, I thought they executed you. I was like, dig, man. Like that's a heck of a thing to say to a brother, man. Like, okay. And then my, I got mad at'em, right? Yeah. I'm like, man, well if you thought they executed me, why y'all ain't come get the body? Like maximum my brain went to. Then I realized that there was no connection,

Omar 1:16:07

right?

Renaldo 1:16:07

And so all these things is popping in my head while I'm sitting in the cell, uh, listening to Minister Farrakhan. And I'm like, from that day, from that very day to this day, I stopped breaking the rules. There was a spiritual transformation that lit, sparked in me. And I wasn't a Christian in that moment. I was an active Muslim. Do you understand this? I want to be clear about this. Oh, no. Yeah,

Omar 1:16:39

yeah.

Renaldo 1:16:40

Islam was the thing leading me in that moment because I did not see or hear a strong enough Christian that I was willing to follow.

Omar 1:16:50

Mm-hmm.

Renaldo 1:16:53

Because they were all tiptoeing from my observation. Yeah. And their fingers in their, they were pretty. And then the sisters, I'm like, man, I ain't following you man. I need, I need, I got to follow, you know, a strong representation of my, my sense of masculinity. Not toxic masculinity, but masculinity.

Omar 1:17:15

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:17:17

And Minister Farrakhan at that time was that symbol to me. But then he'd show you how,'cause I would do the aha, which is the most frequently said prayer among Muslims. And I used to hear, see this is what the gospel does. I begin to hear one of the ias from the, the Koran is a get not zeba begotten. And from the moment I started saying that, I used to hear this rumbling. But John three 16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. The whosoever believe in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Those two scriptures began to wrestle in my brain and I came to the conclusion that I need to answer that to shed it up.'cause I was tired of fighting that in the sale. And I walked into the Muslim service on death row and told the guys, I'm going back to Christ. And when I tell you about the moment of when they stripped me out to bring me to death row, that's the second most dangerous moment I thought I was ever in, in my life because the Muslims in that room were so displeased with me. And I was like, man, I'm now a enemy to them, a hypocrite.'cause I'm denouncing in their minds, their faith. Yeah. And I said, I can't be more afraid of you and this is my decision. I'm going to go with the gospel to you. Be your way to me. Be my, that's an Islamic scripture for the record.

Omar 1:19:03

Okay.

Renaldo 1:19:04

I love, I worship, not that which you worship, nor will you worship that which I worship to you, be your way to me, be mine. That made perfect sense to me. And I said, I'm gonna walk with Jesus. And I walked away. Right? But I wanna back up the other thing to go back to with the warden. So, but that happened in that sequel, uh, cycle. And so the other thing that happened was that when me and this warden had the conversation, he challenged me to read the Bible. Right. And he said, I'll make a deal with you. I come, I'll come to death row every Friday, and if you quote a scripture to me, I will take a day off of your sentence in segregation. He had no idea how much Bible I knew because in the, in what people don't realize, this was admiring Islamic education. Farrakhan. Of all the teachers that I've known and I studied. I don't know of many ministers to this date, and I challenge you that know the Bible better than Minister Louis Farrakhan and I listen to more and learn more Bible from Minister Farrakhan that I'm learned from any Christian. Hmm. Now I challenge people go back and listen to the tapes. He quote the Bible like it, it was insane how he know the Bible. Right. And if he didn't know the scripture, it was a sister in the audience. He said, sister so and so, where that text at, and she'll pop off the address. And so God take the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. People have to understand God, don't care about what we wanna make the issue.

Omar 1:20:41

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:20:42

Will you submit to Christ? And so I'm like, man, I love Minister Farah. I would never denounce him. Because God used him to build me up to receive Christ.

Omar 1:20:55

Look at that.

Renaldo 1:20:57

So I don't care what people say about that. Yeah, yeah. Like that's what brought me to Christ. How dare you. You didn't.

Omar 1:21:05

Hmm. That's

Renaldo 1:21:07

deep. You understand?

Omar 1:21:09

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Renaldo 1:21:09

And that's what people fear because they want it to be a white, central idea, and the gospel is not white. It's right. It's not white.

Omar 1:21:19

Yeah, I like that.

Renaldo 1:21:20

You know what I'm saying?

Omar 1:21:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No,

Renaldo 1:21:22

and that's what we do too much of. But God want to redeem us.

Omar 1:21:26

Amen.

Renaldo 1:21:27

I wanna witness, in fact, God ba me witness, when I got off death row, I was in Stateville in Minister Farrakhan came to Stateville and I was one of the people that met him in the warden's office. And I said to Minister Louis Farrakhan, because I had, I was a member of the Islam, the Nation of Islam, and I walked away, and so ministers that was there with him that knew me.

Omar 1:21:53

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:21:53

They weren't feeling me. They weren't, yeah, yeah. You know, like, you know, but I was able to speak to Minister Farrakhan and I said, I just want to tell you why I, as a Christian, love you. So I didn't get in front of him and say, I'm sorry, I'm back in. Yeah. I said, as a Christian, I heard the gospel of Jesus Christ preached out your mouth. Now people can debate the stuff. Yeah. That you say to other stuff. Right. And if I was a activist with respect to believe in all that, I would be with you. I won't walk in hypocrisy and be a hypocrite. That's why I turned. And went in the other direction. That don't mean I don't love you. In fact, it's a sign of my true love and respect that I'm palms up and I'm not playing with you about faith and pretending to be with you and I'm not with you. I'm more with you outside of your faith than I am within it.

Omar 1:22:51

Got it.

Renaldo 1:22:51

Because I'm strong as a Christian.

Omar 1:22:54

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:22:55

And God put a shield up and he made me strong because the gospel that was being preached from everybody, with the exception of this old white warden

Omar 1:23:06

warden

Renaldo 1:23:07

who I thought I was smarter than. So I wanna go back to that. Yeah,

Omar 1:23:10

you go ahead.

Renaldo 1:23:10

Right? And so he said. If you quote a scripture when I come and don't get in trouble, man, pay attention to that part and don't get in trouble in between. This night, this time and Friday, he tricked me on a couple levels. One'cause I was, I would act out and to get the day of good time from sag. I couldn't act out in between the time he visited. And then on top of that, he made me dig into the scripture. And so when he showed up, I was like, I got him. Ooh, I'm finna get him. And so he came and he said, Hey, you, you got your scripture. I looked at him, Jesus wept. And I had to two

Omar 1:23:55

words,

Renaldo 1:23:55

right? Two words. Jesus wept. I was so proud of myself, man. You would've thought I was one of them. Doggone banny. Uh, roosters, you know, I was prancing

Omar 1:24:05

extra. Huh?

Renaldo 1:24:05

Strutting. And he looked at me and he wrote on the little thing. He said, okay, but then he said, but why did he, we, I said, that wasn't a part of the deal. I don't need to know that. But it sparked curiosity. And so my biblical brain, I have a biblical Rolodex, right? My brain started to process, Hey, wait a minute. Ah. Jesus looked out among the sheep and wept and said, I pray that you pray that the Lord of the harvest will send more laborers for the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. I said, oh my God, he didn't put this gospel together. He's sowing a testimony together from he wept to why he wept. In the short conversation, I said, this dude smarter than he looked. And we had some of the most brilliant, most biblically loving conversations during my incarceration.'cause it went from him tricking me to him, investing in me.

Omar 1:25:16

Hmm. Amen.

Renaldo 1:25:17

And I went from being one of the worst people like I was what they call a Level E. Extreme high risk offender, the green ID on death row and in population when we first went out. Right. But God even dealt with that. Right. So my point is, so that was my, that was my training. And what it did also was it made me unafraid to talk to people in uniform because we also are conditioned them versus us. Yeah. And what God showed me that he is no respective person. And you don't know who he gonna bless you through.

Omar 1:25:54

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:25:54

So be kind to all people.

Omar 1:25:56

Amen.

Renaldo 1:25:57

Right, because if you kind, then you can, it's like this, with my fist ball I can punch, but I can't receive anything with it open. I can receive and give.

Omar 1:26:10

Yes.

Renaldo 1:26:11

Right.

Omar 1:26:11

Oh yeah.

Renaldo 1:26:12

So that was my thing. And so I went from that process and as I began to evolve. And I began to dig deeper into the scripture. I realized that my frown on death row turned into a smile. My punching men on death row went from punching to hugging brothers. I became known on death row as the hug king.

Omar 1:26:35

The hug king.

Renaldo 1:26:35

The hug king. Yeah. Yeah. Like I began to hug brothers on death row. I began to walk with brothers on death row when they was at their death walk, and their friends would turn on them, and I would love on them. That I can't tell you what's gonna happen after this, but I could introduce you to what I know, and I could pray for you and I could sit with you and I don't have to be talking to you, said Christ right now before you die. That was never my testimony to anyone. In fact, I used to tell people all the time, show me in the scripture where Jesus chased anything but a demon. People always want you chasing people. Why the gospel in itself? The gospel redeemed, not me.

Omar 1:27:20

Yeah. Amen.

Renaldo 1:27:21

Don't quit telling me. Go chase that. He Why? You might chase a devil. The only thing Jesus ever chased was a demon. I rebuke you. Go. Anybody that got a word from God, they came seeking. Seeking first the kind of God in all his righteousness. Right.

Omar 1:27:43

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:27:43

The woman with the issue of blood sought him out and touched him. He didn't touch her. She touched him.

Omar 1:27:52

Hmm.

Renaldo 1:27:53

Just said If I could just get to touch the hem of his garment. And he said, in a crowd, ah, who touched me for faith has drew from me essence of power.

Omar 1:28:07

Amen.

Renaldo 1:28:08

That's what happened to my life, brother. I was sitting in a death row cell and I touched Christ. I tell people all the time, I fell in love with a man. And I'm not homophobic and I'm not a homosexual. I'm heterosexual. I love women, but I fell in love with a man in a cell, and his name was Christ. Amen. And my life has never been, it's just been no comparison. And there's no wall, there's no anything. And I've been in some stuff since I've been home. Nothing has touched it.

Omar 1:28:45

Amen.

Renaldo 1:28:45

Nothing has matched it, and his word is continually knocking down walls that they said I couldn't overcome. I'm a living testimony. I get to be a physical manifestation of the love of God and the person of Ronaldo. I'm not an anointing. I am touched by the anointing.

Omar 1:29:08

Amen.

Renaldo 1:29:10

He pulled it over in me and that's why it come outta me with ease.

Omar 1:29:14

Yes.

Renaldo 1:29:14

I don't have to perform.

Omar 1:29:16

Amen.

Renaldo 1:29:17

I don't have to seek men's attention. I'm working, I work and I do the stuff.

Omar 1:29:23

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:29:24

But God in his time has consistently blessed me.

Omar 1:29:28

You, you know what I, I know you mentioned right now the work and everything.

Renaldo 1:29:32

Yes, sir.

Omar 1:29:32

I, I don't think you shared how. How are you here? How are you free?'cause you, you, and I know you mentioned being on death row, we talked about, uh, governor Jim Ryan.

Renaldo 1:29:41

Yeah.

Omar 1:29:41

You

1:29:42

know

Renaldo 1:29:42

George, George Ryan

Omar 1:29:42

before, was it George? George Ryan, yeah. And then, um, so basically you went from death row to life without parole. Yeah.

Renaldo 1:29:50

And then, okay. This is so what, so powerful. Go ahead. No, thank you. Thank you, man. Like I, in 2000 at the height of COVID, but prior to that. There's this little lady named Jennifer Sobel, who is the executive director of the Illinois Prison Project. Right? I ain't playing with y'all. Go look us up. Right. Illinois prison project.org. Right. But here's the thing. She started this organization after experiencing some hard stuff that she said, wow, people are referred to as stock in prison. She was reading these documents about the way they talked about us and decided that she wanted to start dealing with that. And so she started this organization and she came to Illinois and she met my friend Bill Ryan, and she asked Bill Ryan if he would introduce her to the community. She asked would he commute her, introduce her to the community of activists in Illinois and Bill Ryan true to this word today. My friend say, yeah, I'll introduce you, but you gotta represent Aldo. She said, I can't, Aldo, who is Aldo? And she looked me up. She said, man. That's a heavy case. I ca he said, that's, well, that's my price to help you. And she said, okay, I'll go visit him. She came to Danville, her and the deputy director of the Illinois Prison project, Rebecca, and saw me and she said to me in our first meeting, Hey, when I get you out, I want you to come work for me.

Omar 1:31:24

Right? What, what, what year was this?

Renaldo 1:31:25

This was in 2019. And COVID hit. Now what we were doing, our plan was to work to make the public get to know me, and this was the height of my building block program. I think. I don't know if I sent you the documentary that have

Omar 1:31:41

No, you know what I, I, I watched one of your videos and they were showing the documentary, and I believe there's even like a, we're talking about CEOs there, there was, uh, correctional officers talking about the work Yeah. That, that was being done through you, that you started. Yeah. And the, the change that they, they were, that they were witnessing for themselves.

Renaldo 1:32:00

Yeah. Absolutely. And so

Omar 1:32:02

actually real quick, what's the, what's the name of that maybe so people could go watch

Renaldo 1:32:05

it? Yeah. Danville Correctional Center Building Block Program. Like if you go to, it's on YouTube, the Building Block program. Right. Uh, of Danville Correctional Center, second Church of Christ. Right. Pastor Dale. Right. And so if you look that up, man, like God moved him through the Global Leadership Summit like I was of the grand division with them. But going back to the point that a question that you asked, so, uh, Jenny and I had agreed that we would work toward my. Building me up. And so the building block was reaching its first year anniversary and we had a celebration of the building block and she came and one of the deputy at the time, the chief of staff, uh, came to Danville with her for the Department of Correction. And I talked, I, I spoke at the graduation and she. The, uh, chief of staff a few months later did a keynote speech, uh, for graduates of cadets.

Omar 1:33:10

Okay?

Renaldo 1:33:11

And within that, she talked about you guys about to start working in the prisons. Be careful and mindful how you treat people.'cause you may be talking to a Ronaldo Hudson. An anointed person of God. And I was sitting in the cell and a sergeant came to the cell and said to me, Hudson, can I talk to you? I'm like, yeah, what's up? And he said, uh, I was at this graduation and our chief started talking about an inmate. And as she started talking, I realized, oh my God. She talking about what? Hudson? He said, I felt proud because I know the work you're doing. Mm-hmm. Amen. But man, the chief is talking about you. And I was like, really? And when he left, I went and jumped on the phone and called Jenny and said, Hey listen, uh, I just found out and I told her what she said. She said, you think she'll say that in writing? And she did. And Jenny. And so a month later or so, March of 2020. COVID was the one.

Omar 1:34:22

Yeah,

Renaldo 1:34:22

Jenny just said, you know what, I'm not going to wait. I'm gonna file an executive clemency asking for your relief. And so I think it's crucially important. I was having this bad day I, and I'm talking about, man, it was just a hard day. And I had been active with the Building Block program, like we do the trainings, the building block basics, and I came up with a program that's, that's mine called Men of Integrity. And we would just be, you know, doing stuff. But this particular day I just didn't feel like, I'm like, I don't wanna be bothered. I'm going to the cell and I'm locking up. And so this other sergeant came to the cell and said to me, Ronaldo de warden wanna see you. I'm like. Man, I ain't studying that warden. And I'm like, threw the cover back over my head. And so maybe 20 minutes later, the sergeant came back and said, man, what's wrong with you? The warden walked, I'm like, man, I ain't studying. So he went and told the lieutenant, and so the lieutenant came to the cell and said, listen, you all right? I'm like, man, no, I'm, I don't wanna be bothered. Leave me alone. He said, well, listen, man, like I, I really want to acknowledge you feeling bad, but the warden say, bring you either in cuffs or walking. But the warden wanna see you. Yeah. You know what? I do not wanna walk off the wing in handcuffs, but my head was hurting. It was just hard. And so I walked up to the gym and so it was Warden Kim Larson and Felicia, uh uh, Atkins, the number one warden and the warden of programs, and they began to talk to me about opening another wing. Right of the building block in the prison. And so I was like, oh man. And so the warden like, wait, you don't wanna do it. I'm like, I said, I know the difference between being voluntold or volunteering.

Omar 1:36:18

Yeah,

Renaldo 1:36:18

I'm being voluntold. Yeah, I'm gonna do it. She said, okay, you seem to be hot. Let's go to clinical services where it's air conditioning. I'm like, no, I'm cool. She said, no, come on, let's go sit down there so you can cool off.'cause you seem to be a little agitated. And so we went down to clinical services and it was cool. And when I walked into that air condition, I have to tell you this, I immediately began to feel better. I'm like, it was the heat I was having, right? And then I'm, but I'm looking at the wood and she walk over to this other desk and pick up this telephone. And untwist the cord and walk it over and put it on the desk and pick up the receiver and dial a number and say, go for Hudson. I said, go for Hudson. What is going on? She said, oh, one of the deputy directors wanna talk to you. I said, they just want to just suck all the life out of me. And so I said, hello, and man, when I tell you this, people can laugh at me, but when I tell you. I heard the sweetest voice I've heard in my life say to me, Ronaldo, you're coming home. Governor Perker just granted your clemency, brother, when I tell you I was undone, when I tell you, I immediately felt. Like I was a hundred pounds lighter. Instantly. I did not know with all the good work that God had allowed me to do, and I enjoyed it, but I didn't realize how heavy it was. And instantly that weight was lifted off of me and I started to cry and I was like, God, though this, there's no way. This is real. And the warden was like, oh no, it's real and you deserve it. And I tell people this, I never felt I was more worthy than anyone else, but I knew I was committed. And man, bro, I was like, who did this ever happen to? But I wanna tell you, it's really to back up before this happened. A month before this happened, a friend of mine that was on the wing used to come to me and they used to say, governor Preska has this purple pen and it has a gold tip. And every time he pull it out it says yes, and I'm going home. And I used to be like, yeah, okay man, and I'm telling you for 30 days this happened. And one day I'm sitting there and my friend came to me, say, I'm scared. They're calling me up front. And you know what happened? Governor Pritzker granted them clemency. His, my friend that was telling me this story.

Omar 1:39:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Renaldo 1:39:19

And so when they left, I went to the cell and started giving away everything in my cell. This was 30 days before I got my clemency. I gave away everything. And my friend who's in prison right now, I started telling him. Hey brother, you know, governor Pritzker has this purple pen with a gold tip and every time he pull it out, he says yes. And I was giving away all of my stuff, brother. 37 plus years, I had all the stuff. My cell looked like a sale of someone that first came to prison and people was saying to me, and I would hear people whispering the old man and finally lost it. He, you know, and then I even had Buddy brothers was like, man, taking stuff from people said, man, we giving all his stuff back. He tripping. He'll be back once he come. To his sense, we wanna be able to give him his stuff back. And so one of the brothers that was doing that when I was in the. The clinical services and we walked back down the hallway to go, for me to go back to the building. I saw him and I said to the warden, can I tell him? She said, sure, Hudson. I said, man, the governor just granted my clemency and his face just dropped. And so people don't know that. Part of my testimony is that I started confessing the last 30 days. In fact, one of the things my lawyer to this day Jennifer Sobel teased me about is I told her on the phone, Hey, I gave away everything 30 days before they ever granted my cl. And she was like, oh Lord, we're gonna have to buy this boy new TV and everything.'cause he tripping. Right. And so I know I got a little emotional man. Oh no. Yeah, man, that's, every time I tell that story, it reminds me of the grace of God. Amen. And I think people sometime forget that because I'm a confident person, people mistake confidence as arrogance. I'm not an arrogant brother. I'm a confident brother. I've been fully persuaded that the gospel would do everything it says it would do.

Omar 1:41:35

Amen.

Renaldo 1:41:36

And that's why I don't walk in fear for God. Give me not the spirit of fear, but power, love, and a sound mind.

Omar 1:41:44

Amen.

Renaldo 1:41:44

And when I heard that soundly word, I started to repeat it. The governor and show you how good God is. I was over at Healthy Hood, you know, uh, healthy Hood on 21st and Damon? No. Okay. The Lianos, uh, minister Tanya, I teased him all the time, but she called me one day the minister, and she said, brother, governor Pritzker is going to be over here and I would love for you if you wanna say thank you to him to come. And I got to tell the story. I just told you, the Governor Pritzker, my friend told me that Governor Pritzker has this purple pen with the gold tips. This was when he was running for reelection.

Omar 1:42:27

Okay.

Renaldo 1:42:27

He was making his rounds. And I love Governor Pritzker. People could say what they want. That's my dude. Okay. Right. But with the issues. But I get it. But that's my dude. I don't back for my friends, but plus he let me go. Couldn't stop playing. Right. It's kind of hard not to love him.

Omar 1:42:42

That's right, man.

Renaldo 1:42:42

Right. But. Uh, I told him that story, man, and got to hug him. You know what I mean? And it was so funny because when we hugged each other, it was almost like, dude, God gave us this moment. Gave him the picture. Right? Because he immediately, I'm like, okay. But anyway, so that's the part of my story that I love to tell and people don't know. The governor originally wanted me to work for him. That I got word that after, you know, I get my stuff together, the governor wanted me to come work and my boss, Jennifer, sober like Duke, nope. And immediately hired me as a director.

Omar 1:43:22

Mm-hmm.

Renaldo 1:43:23

Not as a helper. I'm a partner in the organization. I'm in the leadership of the organization. Hey, could, could you share with us what exactly is it that, that you guys do? Yeah. The Illinois Prison Project does work to decarceration, right? We work, in fact, our organization, my, my boss, Jennifer Sobo, was essential in helping to draft the, the, uh, the compassionate release bill. Which is, so what we do is we have three components. We have the education branch, which I lead, which we do education, educating the public about the dangerous narrative around not giving people a fair chance at freedom and parole and clemency. And then we have the legislative branch, which is another brother that is about to graduate from law school that was in prison with me, right? He is our policy comms guy. He work on the legislative leg to help to create backend mechanism to bring people home, good time and laws that change. You know, the level of penalties to give people access to be free again, and then direct legal representation, be it clemency, be it, uh, uh, appeals. Oh, and we have, I'm sorry, the, the, the third leg, which is the women and survivors that is ran by, uh, Rachel White Domain, who's one of the baddest lawyers you'll ever meet and deals with domestic violence and like. So many sisters, people don't realize this. There's so many sisters in prison because they fought their attacker off and oftentimes it's a husband, a boyfriend, et cetera, and they lost their lives. And so they prosecuted them rather than, uh, freeing them from their captain.

Omar 1:45:04

Yeah,

Renaldo 1:45:05

right. And so we do work to bring them home aging. Men and women and people that's in that situation. And like with me specifically, we do lunch and learns. So we do monthly trainings around how do you educate people to help themselves. So we have two kids, for example. Anyone that has a loved one in prison or they wanna know how to do it. Executive clemency to ask to be released. No matter what your sentence are, reach out at to the Illinois Prison Project. We'll send them the toolkit. We'll get you that information. And you can share it with with people, and we do legal clinic, so anyone that have a legal question and they can't afford to pay an attorney, they could come sign up for our legal clinic and ask the question and get that information. And we never ask people for a dollar for that service.

Omar 1:45:54

Amen.

Renaldo 1:45:54

Like if you ever get a, well, let me be clear. We do fundraisers and we do galas, and we do that stuff, but we never ask people to pay us for a service. Yeah. Got it. And we walk with families through hearings. We walk with families and show them how to do what's necessary to bring their loved ones home. So right to date, we're almost at 200 people brought home in the five years of the organization existence. I, that should have never been home. According to my standard, according to the law. Yeah. I shouldn't be sitting here.

Omar 1:46:27

Right,

Renaldo 1:46:28

right. I should be. In fact, according to people, like, man, you got a clemency, you'll never get another one. There's no one else. There's three people in the whole world, and I wanna be clear about this, who received clemency from two different governors and the other two are exonerees people who were innocent. I'm the only guilty person in the country, which I think in the world now. Right, right. That has received executive clemency, and it was because of the amazing writing, I believe, of Jennifer Sobel. Right who did not litigate my case? She told my story. She gave my testimony in a written form. And the governor signed, yes. Let him go. Free that man and let him go the gospel. Yeah. Come on man. Like I don't, I don't know how, if people don't believe that God is still in the miracle business. I'm sitting here.

Omar 1:47:20

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:47:21

I was guilty. I'm guilty of the offense that sent me to prison, but I'm also guilty of confessing Christ. Ah, deal with that.

Omar 1:47:31

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:47:32

And because I confess Christ, he confessed me.

Omar 1:47:36

Yes.

Renaldo 1:47:36

And he saved me, not just from my sins, but from my physical capte captured. Right. I walked outta prison in the height of COVID

Omar 1:47:46

bro.

Renaldo 1:47:47

Like when people were panicking to my man, we on lockdown and, and social distance. I was so happy.

Omar 1:47:53

Could imagine.

Renaldo 1:47:54

I was walking around like, oh man, this is, this is this. They calling this lockdown. This ain't no lockdown.

Omar 1:48:01

So, yeah, so, so you got out when people were, uh, locked out, really

Renaldo 1:48:04

scared?

Omar 1:48:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it. Got

Renaldo 1:48:06

you. Okay. It was like mass and like, man, I got a video. I'm serious. It's so funny'cause I did videos and stuff with, uh, the Department of Correction to try to get more people to get they shots. And so I got this, it took me three hours and my friend who's a, who was a, a a, a intern at the time, she's now my assistant director in my department, Caitlin, who I love, she's like a, she's my co. Conspirator partner, but she's also my role, my role dog. But anyway, and I'm kinda like a surrogate dad. Okay. But anyway, she drove me around to this. To do this commercial and I got this goofy commercial where they talking about, I took the shot and it's, and it's so funny, I found it the other day. I was like, Lord, you are so good. Like, but they made me sit there, man for three hours to say that one thing. And I know I killed it in the first. They made me do it. Like, could you say it with more compassion? Like, I took the shot like so

Omar 1:49:03

No, no, you gotta send it to me so I could put it with the video right at the end. You know,

Renaldo 1:49:07

promise I'll, man, I'm gonna send it to you. Right.

Omar 1:49:08

But,

Renaldo 1:49:09

but, but so all this being said, brother. Yeah. First of all, I do want to say, I want to acknowledge, man, that God is so good to me.

Omar 1:49:16

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:49:17

But God is not just good to me. God is good to us.

Omar 1:49:19

Yes.

Renaldo 1:49:20

And to anyone that hear my testimony, my only ask is to share it. Whatever parts that God inspire you to share, just share it for someone need to know that no matter what they going through, if it's in prison or out in the world, that God is listening.

Omar 1:49:38

Yes, he is.

Renaldo 1:49:39

And that he will come and that he will move and we have to go. And I love that man. I mean, I'm on one of these shirts too, man. You play too much.

Omar 1:49:49

No, no, no, no. Ray, I'm gonna get you one, gimme the subway and, uh,

Renaldo 1:49:52

absolutely.

Omar 1:49:52

I'm, I'm actually, I, I, I changed my logo. Because I, I, I, I, I turned this into a, a, a a non-for-profit back in September.

Renaldo 1:49:59

Okay. Okay.

Omar 1:49:59

So when, when I switched it, I wanna make sure I do everything by the book, you know, legally

Renaldo 1:50:04

Okay.

Omar 1:50:04

So, but yeah. Yeah. I got the logo, but definitely, I, I'm already like working. I got you. I got you. Put it up

Renaldo 1:50:09

for Absolutely because I love it.'cause I'm telling like from Ron to strong. No,

Omar 1:50:11

no, yeah, yeah. I'm with the team. Right? So, so the, the motto is, you see is from, from darkness to light and from wrong to strong.

Renaldo 1:50:18

Yes sir.

Omar 1:50:18

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:50:19

Yeah. I'm with that man. Amen. And so, and that's the stuff to me. That I want to promote. I want to share. Yeah. I want to remind people that when we come together. Can't nothing stop us, man. No. Like can't not. You hear me, man. We ain't got to be begging. Like I tell people all the time, I don't need to ask you for your stuff. But I ain't scared. I tell people all the time, like, cars don't move without gas movements don't move without cash. Right. So stop playing with me. You know what I'm saying?

Omar 1:50:47

It's the truth.

Renaldo 1:50:48

Like, so if I ask you, the Bible says, ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock. And the door shall be open unto you for if anyone like, I'm like, yeah. Lord, we here, man.

Omar 1:51:02

Yeah.

Renaldo 1:51:03

From darkness. I love

Omar 1:51:04

that. Yeah. From darkness to light. Yeah. Went with however I could hope. Like, man, I'm, I'm with that too. You know, obviously the gospel and man helping guys behind bars. Absolutely. So, absolutely. I I, I'll be going to, uh, cook County division 11. Yeah. I know you shared that story about going into the juvenile and having almost that dejavu or that flashback Yeah. That, that happened to me when, when I started, uh, uh, event, uh, doing a Bible study there. Yeah.'cause when I got locked up in 96, no, 97. 97 is when I went in. I remember my first time going to division 11 again.

Renaldo 1:51:35

Yeah. It

Omar 1:51:35

is like I was. Teleported or transported? Yeah, if something awakened, I don't know, in my subconscious or something, and like. It was almost like I ex I had the, that, that feeling. Yeah. Like the emotions came back of being there. It was man. It was, it was, yeah.

1:51:51

Trip.

Renaldo 1:51:51

So do you do, like, you do a, a small Bible study or,

Omar 1:51:54

yeah. So, uh, so right, right now I, you heard of House National Ministries? Uh, uh, pastor Manny Mill. Yeah. So I, I, I, I volunteered through his, uh, mi uh, ministry. Okay. So, so we go into Division 11 at least twice a month. I, I've been trying to do like three times a month. So we go into Upper D, division 11 O, upper D, so we go on the. In the gym, and then they'll bring the guys from the four different pods like, and then we have a Bible study with'em. And yeah.

Renaldo 1:52:19

Okay. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Omar 1:52:21

Yeah. So I've been doing that for two years now, so yeah, that's definitely like, like, like my heart to, to go and, and, and I go because I know there's hope for them.

Renaldo 1:52:29

Yeah. You know? Yeah. And it's so funny, the reason I, I, and I'm gonna reach out to do more of that in the county because I always think about like, well, division one is no longer there.

Omar 1:52:39

Okay.

Renaldo 1:52:39

And so it's funny because most both of my escape attempts back in the day was from division one, but I laugh about it because I remember, and I'm gonna look him up at the time, uh, there's this DJ called, uh, uh, uh, Kenny Jam and Jason. Who was the one that crawled up the thing, right? But I think about that stuff, man. How God had bring you from darkness. All that darkness to light to now I get to shake hands with people and say, Hey, let's help people walk out of freedom, walk into freedom legitimately.

Omar 1:53:12

Amen.

Renaldo 1:53:12

And my job is, man, I was able, and I'll shut up one day, one of the guys that was with me back in the day trying to escape. You hear me?

Omar 1:53:25

Yeah. Yeah.

Renaldo 1:53:26

I got a call one day from my boss and say, what are you doing? I'm like, uh, nothing chilling. She say, could you go pick someone up from prison?'cause she had won his release. I'm like, yeah. And so I drove down to this prison and my, one of the, I had bought this car. I had the, I had the Chrysler 300 and I was doing this thing. cause I was like, yeah, it's a Bentley. It ain't a Bentley. I was doing that Boca,

Omar 1:53:51

it looks

Renaldo 1:53:51

look,

Omar 1:53:51

looks nice though,

Renaldo 1:53:52

right? It looked nice until I met a real Bentley up, going up north one day. It punked me. But anyway, um, I pulled up in front of the prison like the, where they come out at. And I see the guy coming out. And when I looked, I realized, oh my God, me and this boy, he got, he had got life without the possibility of parole, and I was sent to death row. That's where we last saw each other. The organization that freed me, freed him. And when I looked at him and he said, as I live and breed Aldo Hudson. I said, get in the car and shut up. Before they realized who we are. And we drove down the highway and he had his state, little state, uh, jailhouse, uh, watch on. And I had this nice watch and I said, gimme that watch. And he gave me that watch and I opened the window and threw it out. I did, and I took off this really nice watch. They put this on so you can keep real time. Right. But anyway, that's just one of my little stories.'cause that's awesome. Now instead of trying to escape,

Omar 1:55:02

yeah.

Renaldo 1:55:02

I'm picking people up legitimately

Omar 1:55:04

through the front door.

Renaldo 1:55:05

Through the front door. From death row to the front door. Amen. If you ask what my story consists of from death row to the front door,

Omar 1:55:13

praise.

Renaldo 1:55:13

You need to know. God's telling the business.

Omar 1:55:15

Yes he is. Yes he is. Yes, sir. Brother. Man, I just wanna thank you for coming down here. Absolutely. And sharing your testimony. Like you said, my brother's definitely been a blessing, you know, could, could you close us out in a prayer as we get ready Absolutely.

Renaldo 1:55:27

To wrap up? Absolutely. Amen. Absolutely. Heaven. Father used said that if we just trust you, that you. Are faithful to your word. Lord, I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak to your people, to share the glory of the gospel, Lord, the testimony that will never go out and come back void, which is that Christ is in the healing business, in the delivering business. But not only that, in the saving and bringing us from darkness to the glorious light I give you praise and honor in the precious name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Omar 1:56:03

Hey, man. Hey man. Man, tha th thanks for being out here, brother. Real, real, real quick, can you share that the website again for the

Renaldo 1:56:08

Illinois prison project.org And follow me, Aldo Hudson, Instagram, Ronaldo Hudson 33 48. I'm also, really quickly, I'm about to release a full link documentary really soon, and once it's ready to be released, I will come back and share with you because God is doing some amazing work and we are going to go across the nation. Both glorifying God and telling the truth about how to unshackle hell the Bible said, loose that man and let him go. That's what we want to do.

Omar 1:56:38

Amen.

Renaldo 1:56:39

All over this nation. Amen.

Omar 1:56:40

Amen. Amen. Now for sure, whenever, whenever you're getting ready to release it, absolute come out, we'll do a little promo. A little plugin. Definitely get it out there.

Renaldo 1:56:46

Absolutely. I appreciate

Omar 1:56:47

that. All right, thanks brother with that. With that, we're gonna get ready to, to, to wrap up. Uh, ma Matthew four 16 reads. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned alongside my guests, Ronaldo Hudson Am Omar Calvio. And through Jesus and through Jesus Christ, we've gone from darkness to light and from wrong to strong.