Susan Burton: 'Becoming Ms. Burton'

The Seattle Public Library - Author Readings and Library Events

Susan Burton's world changed in an instant when her five-year-old son was killed by a van on their street in South Los Angeles. Consumed by grief and without access to professional help, Susan self-medicated, becoming addicted first to cocaine, then crack. As a resident of South L.A., an impoverished black community under siege by the War on Drugs, it was but a matter of time before Susan was arrested. She cycled in and out of prison for fifteen years; never was she offered therapy or treatment for addiction. On her own, she eventually found a private drug rehabilitation facility.Once clean, Susan dedicated her life to supporting women facing similar struggles. She began by greeting women as they took their first steps of freedom, welcoming them into her home, providing a space of safety and community. Her organization, A New Way of Life, now operates five safe homes in Los Angeles that supply a lifeline to hundreds of formerly incarcerated women and their children—setting them on the track to education and employment rather than returns to prison. Susan is now nationally known as an advocate for restoring basic civil and human rights to those who have served time. Becoming Ms. Burton not only humanizes the deleterious impact of mass incarceration, it also points the way to the kind of structural and policy changes that will offer formerly incarcerated people the possibility of a life of meaning and dignity.Susan Burton is a formerly incarcerated woman who after nearly two decades in the criminal justice system was unable to find work, housing, or adequate addiction-recovery treatment. She gained freedom and sobriety in 1997 and made it her life's work to help other women walking in her shoes. In 2010 she was nominated as a CNN Top 10 Hero and received the Citizen Activist Award from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She has been a Soros Justice Fellow and a Women's Policy Institute Fellow at the California Wellness Foundation. She lives in Los Angeles.