By Joseph D’Andrea
Humanizing people past and present is essential to understanding history, as well as how we can move forward by being mindful on a case-to-case basis. On Nov. 11, students in Professor Cristina Zaccarini’s US History of the Family II class heard from NahShon Jackson, who was incarcerated for 25 years, and who brought this mindset to students, using his own experience to highlight parts of the curriculum.
Learning about modern issues to connect what the class teaches to current events was Zaccarini’s goal when inviting Jackson, who inspired thought on the role mindfulness plays in our criminal justice system.
Jackson is the community outreach director at Network Support Services, a nonprofit in New York State that supports incarcerated people during their imprisonment and parolees during their reentry into society. He said he believes that learning institutions such as Adelphi are advantageous settings to get through to people because their minds are constantly being challenged, making them more open-minded to finding out solutions and, in the case of Jackson’s initiative, why the concept of criminal justice is being introduced to them.
“We want to get students’ minds open to the realities of what justice-impacted individuals face, growing up in their community: poverty, being exposed to relatives who may have been caught up in the criminal justice system and had an impact on them to make irrational decisions,” he said. “I want to bring these individuals to the students so they have a better understanding of how the system operates.”
An open book, Jackson explained his life story to the class and pointed to the importance of giving youth more attention and providing them with positive role models early on in life, especially if they suffer from poverty or if the situation at home is not ideal. From his experience, during one’s formative years, it’s easy to get involved with the wrong crowd because young minds are more impressionable. These connections can possibly have detrimental effects down the line, which is what Jackson experienced. Having been imprisoned for 25 years for a crime that he explained he neither committed nor was indicted for, students were exposed to the faults of the criminal justice system firsthand.
Influenced by the injustices he and others faced, Jackson began helping fellow community members at Otisville Correctional Facility prior to his release from prison in May 2017, and soon after, he became the community outreach coordinator for Network Support Services after reentry. In this role, he assesses and researches their legal issues, and helps with parole and rehabilitation, including mindfulness exercises. With Network Support Services, he works with such individuals to ensure they have the necessary documents of identification and medical issues taken care of to make their transitional process back into society and enrollment into programs smoother.
As the course’s name suggests, Zaccarini’s class tackles the history of the American family, ranging from Confederate fathers to those on the frontier to modern-day mothers, fathers and children. Jackson has spoken to Zaccarini’s past classes several times but this case was special. A majority of the students in the class are future teachers and history majors, and Zaccarini’s appreciation of the students’ questions and comments encouraged her to make sure Jackson had an opportunity to drop in sometime this semester.
“Since the class is framed through the subfield of the history of emotions, student questions were likewise geared toward eliciting responses that highlighted NahShon’s experiences from a humanistic perspective,” Zaccarini said.
In addition to teaching history at Adelphi, Zaccarini is a certified mindfulness instructor and co-founder of the Mindfulness Resolution Project along with Jackson, a program that enables transforming lives, changing society and giving individuals a second chance at life after imprisonment. Her passion for assisting justice-impacted individuals led to her meeting Jackson in 2017.
As Jackson puts it, the Mindfulness Resolution Project promotes awareness among students that “allows us to have conversations so that students get a better understanding that anybody can make mistakes and that justice-impacted individuals are human beings who have compassion.”
“NahShon teaches us that not only can we move past our worst moments, but do so with eloquence, confidence and tremendous power, and be an inspiration to all,” Zaccarini said. “He works tirelessly to help those returning from incarceration, helping with housing, work and all vital resources needed. Through Network Support Services, he works to improve the circumstances of those in dire need so that they not only refrain from committing further crimes, but also become a source of uplift for others, just as NahShon is doing.”
Sophomore history major Michael Fevola said that Jackson's story helped him understand how tough the US justice system is on incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.
“It’s important to hear from NahShon so we can stop de-humanizing incarcerated people and labeling them simply as terrible people because we don’t know what went through their heads at the time of a crime, if they were mentally ill or if that person even committed the crime,” Fevola said. “In America, there have been stories of people who were executed after being found guilty, just to be found not guilty after the fact because of DNA evidence by officials who didn’t want to correct the mistake. Stories like NahShon’s are important to tell so we can explain to students now and in the future that our justice system has made some wrong decisions.”
Zaccarini said that connecting the past to the present through the understanding of human experience is her core teaching goal, and that speakers can bring personal experiences to the classroom that connect the course’s readings to real life.
“NahShon allows students to understand how profits from the incarceration of individuals, and generational familial circumstances related to incarceration and lack of resources, contributed to his experience, rather than just reading about it,” she said. “While most history classes teach students how to understand the human experience woven into events that have already passed, a great, dynamic speaker like NahShon can link the past to a positive dynamic for helping to correct the mistakes of the past.”