Tributes from Outside

Remembrances from Outside by Ellen Barry, Judy Greenspan, Millard Murphy, Deborah Tecson, Maria Telesco, and Sasha Vodnik.

Tribute by Ellen Barry, Founding Director of LSPC:

My Dearest Charisse,

It has been a little over a month, and I still can't believe that you're gone. I had to tell another one of our (your) colleagues today that had died. You took her under your wing, as you had done with so many women before her, and would do so many times after. You encouraged her to find herself, to find her calling, and you inspired her in the way that you have inspired me, and so many of us on both sides of the wall.

It's hard to imagine the world without you. You were so much a part of our world, of my world, for so long. So much a part of the conversation at work that it felt, at times, that you were there around the LSPC conference table. So much a part of the conversation at home that my kids grew up with you as part of their lives. I will always remember when my daughter was six and asked me "will you see Charisse when you go to the prison today?" And when I said Yes, she said, "you're going to bring her home with you, aren't you?" When I tried to explain to her why I couldn't do that, she got confused and upset. "Why can't you bring her home? You tell me what a good person she is. You tell me that she is sick and the prison won't help her. Bring her home and she can stay with us!" How do you explain such injustices to a six year old?

And, three years later, how do you explain the further injustice of your being forced to die alone, without your son, your mother, your daughter-in-law and your two beautiful grandbabies by your side? Without the comfort and support of a community hospice? Without being able to breathe the air of freedom? How do you explain to a child that a government could be so cruel as to recommend that this wonderful, heroic woman could spend her last days in relative comfort, with her family and friends, in the community with one hand, and then, with the other hand, snatch this precious opportunity away? When she heard that you might be released, my daughter sat down and wrote to Governor Gray Davis and to the Government:

Dear CCWF and Board of Prison terms, My Friend Charisse is in your prison. I miss her very much. Please can you let her out? It whould be great.

How can you live with yourself, Gray Davis? You explain to a little girl why you ignored your own Board of Prison Terms for almost tow months, why you allowed this courageous woman who had given so much to so many to languish in prison, unnecessarily. And, while you are at it, explain to all of us why so many other women - and men - have to die this way every day in our prisons. We say "enough."

But, my dear friend, I also want to take this time to say "thank you." Thank you for begin such a wonderful gift in my life. Thank you for all that you did for all of the many women who came to you, in pain and despair. You gave them hope and strength to pull together, to fight for better treatment, to fight for their dignity and their humanity. Thank you for your humor and your wit, your sarcasm and your stubbornness, your special gift of making each and every one you touched feel special. Thank you for sharing your friends and your family with us...Thank you for your beautiful smile...I will miss you, but, in my mind, I will always see your smile.
 

It is with deep regret that I bring you the tragic news that Charisse Shumate died on Saturday, August 4 at the Madera County Hospital. As many of you know, Charisse was not only a life term prisoner incarcerated for 16 years at the Central California Women's Facility and a woman dying of complications from sickle cell anemia, cancer and hepatitis C. Charisse was the reason that many activists and advocates got involved in defending the right of women prisoners to medical care and adequate treatment inside. Charisse was the inspiration that kept us in this battle year after year despite the constant setbacks, the losses and the deaths. Charisse we thought was indefatigable.

For those of us who had the honor to visit her over the past year, it was very painful to see Charisse physically deteriorate. She lost weight, became extremely weak, had more severe sickle cell episodes, and finally resolved herself to getting around in a wheelchair. Charisse was the woman who championed the cause of battered women when no one else was rallying to their support. (She herself was imprisoned in the first place for her response to the abuse she suffered as a battered woman.) Charisse was the woman who made the California Department of Corrections, its administration and all of its employees, shake in their boots, when she stepped forward to be the lead plaintiff and prisoner spokesperson in the class action lawsuit challenging the medical neglect and abuse of women prisoners (aptly named Shumate v. Wilson.)

When I visited Charisse the day before her death at the skilled nursing facility at the Central California Women's Facility, she was mere skin and bones except for her bloated stomach, a symptom of end stage liver failure. She was barely conscious although she knew I was there and called out my name a couple of times during our "visit." Before I left, I wrote her a note about how much she was loved and respected by those of us on the outside.

Charisse was going to die, we all knew that. But toward the end, we who had worked, laughed, and cried with her over the years, tried to get her out on a compassionate release. [Her parole application had been turned down earlier.] We got as far as the governor's office where Charisse's paperwork was placed in cold storage. It was clear that Davis was not going to release Charisse no matter what. We were just printing up the flyers for a massive fax zap to this cold-hearted governor when Charisse passed away.

Many of the groups (California Coalition for Women Prisoners, California Prison Focus, Justice Now, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and others will be organizing a memorial to her sometime over the next few weeks. We will keep everyone posted. But equally important is the fact that we want to figure out a response to Governor Davis that holds him accountable for Charisse Shumate's death. Governor Davis robbed us and more importantly Charisse's family (her mother, son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren) the opportunity to be with Charisse, to hold and comfort her, to make sure she did not die alone shackled to a hospital bed. Charisse Shumate's death this past Saturday is another crime against humanity on the hands of Governor Davis and the entire prison industrial complex. We should all feel free to let him know that.
 

The simple fact that Charisse Shumate was not released in the last days of her life and permitted to go home even to an all-but-certain death in the company of her children, family, and loved ones, in her weakened, harmless, and defenseless physical condition, is a TRAGEDY and a most accurate illustration of the sad and depressing state of racism, sexism, and anti-human-rights sentiment prevailing in the United States of America at the beginning the the 21st century. Although there are some who would say that much progress has been made on the journey toward creating a society of racial and gendered equality and human rights for all, Charisse's tragedy at the hands of the Department of Corrections of the State of California, shows us that We, the People, still have a long way yet to go.
 

My Love goes out to Charisse, She's was a very remarkable woman. She stood up to the Prison System, and made a very loud noise. I know she will be missed by many people. I pray she will continue to be an inspiration to her fellow prisoners. Change can happen even if its little by little it will come. Unfortunately it has to come at a very high price, the price is yet another life. Another senseless death, and the worse part is she probably had to suffer more because she stood up for herself & other people....I ask why did she have to die alone...why. Lets not let her death be in vain. Lets continue to fight with the passion that Charisse gave to the cause.

A person deserves to have an opportunity to better themselves whether in Prison or Out & Charisse was a wonderful example of someone who tried to make it better for herself and her Sisters in Side. As my sister Tina said nearly three years ago.....while she lay in the bed next to Charisse dying, she said & I quote (no don't have me moved, I'm down with my sister), listening to the moans & groans of pain coming from the woman (Charisse) in the bed next to her , she would not leave herside...

This is the dedication I'm standing up for. And I will never stop fighting the fight that those brave women started.....(Walker, Shumate, Balagno) and the list goes on just to name a few.

I know she's finally free, free to go on, free, from the turtue of the Prison Walls...Free from pain free from suffering Free......& the only one to really show compassion was the Lord who would not let her suffer anymore..... May god bless her & keep her AMEN...
 

I didn't know her well or for long, but I knew she was a beautiful soul, and I hope she has now found the peace she deserves, and is free of pain. Whenever I saw her in the visiting room, she always expressed her concern for the death row woman I was visiting, and that was Pure Charisse -- she was always cheerful, and always concerned with the other person's well being before her own. The other prisoners called her "Happy" because she brought a ray of sunshine into that dismal dungeon they all are forced to inhabit. RIP.
 

I had worked with LSPC for over a year before I finally got to meet Charisse. Before that day I became familiar with her in many other ways. I had first begun to hear name when people talked about the Shumate v. Wilson class-action suit. There was also a photo of her in the hallway of the LSPC office. Later, as I became more deeply involved with the work of LSPC and of women prisoners in California, I began to learn just how much people who worked with her loved Charisse.

Around May 2000, I went to CCWF with LSPC as a legal assistant. Several women gave me their accounts of continued substandard medical care for prisoners. Towards the end of the day, when we had spoken with all the women who had arranged for meetings, one by one we gathered around Charisse and Karen. They had the familiarity and ease of old friends, sitting together. Yet Charisse was not just relaxing with her visitors. She was telling stories - her own, as well as those that other women had entrusted to her - of recent interactions with the prison administration. Charisse sat in a wheelchair, wearing tinted glasses and looking almost as thin as if her dark brown skin were stretched over a stick figure. And yet as ill as her body looked, she sat upright and spoke with energy and intensity.