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Lately, Roderick Johnson has been getting a lot of attention. People Magazine and Oprah Winfrey want interviews. Newspapers across the country have covered his experience, and a reporter from Reuters is turning his life into a book.
Everyone, it seems, wants to know his story.
It's possible that people are drawn by the gamut of dark emotions endured by Johnson during his 18-month stay in a Texas prison. He says he felt the fear of a non-violent offender imprisoned among roaming predators, the frustration of a black man whose pleas for protection were ignored because of his skin color and the despair of a homosexual reduced to thoughts of suicide after being raped by more than a hundred men.
Perhaps his story attracts interest for its added component of vindication; Johnson has sued the Texas Department of Corrections for indignities suffered within its prison system. Hearing him speak, however, it seems the lawsuit embodies not an attempt at payback, but a demand for justice.
"What's done is done," said 35-year-old Johnson. "I have harsh feelings, but I'm not vengeful."
When he talks, Johnson is polite, articulate and surprisingly quick to laugh. There is pain behind his eyes, but he tells his story with the frankness of someone intent on delivering the truth.
"It's not just happening to me," he said of the violence that invaded his life. "It's happening to a lot of people."
If Johnson's story had ended there, it would have remained unique for the sheer scope of its tragedy. But the most remarkable chapter of all is taking place now, as Johnson attempts to rebuild both his own shattered life and the brittle lives of countless youth facing circumstances similar to those that nearly broke his spirit.
Trouble began in 1990 when he was 23. Johnson had just returned home to Marshall, Texas, from a stint overseas in the Navy. According to Johnson, some of his friends broke into his neighbor's home, stole some private possessions and took them to Johnson's house, where the police arrived and arrested all of them for burglary.
"I was a victim of circumstance," Johnson said.
A judge gave him a 10-year probated sentence for the incident. In the years that followed, Johnson earned a bachelor's degree in business at UT-Arlington before going to work as a business consultant with Merrill Lynch in Dallas. Then, eight years after the burglary, he was arrested for possession of marijuana. Having violated probation, Johnson was sent to a minimum-security prison in Henderson, Texas, for 18 months.
When he got out, life wasn't the same.
"As an ex-offender, you're upset, you're hurt, and you feel a lot of pressure," Johnson says. "You become uncertain with life."
He went to work as a courier at a law firm, but, at $6 an hour, his new salary did not afford him the amenities of his former life. Johnson was arrested again in 2000 for writing a hot check at Wal-Mart for $300. This time he was placed in Allred Prison, a maximum-security facility outside Wichita Falls, Texas. For Johnson, it was like being thrown into a viper's nest, he said.
"I was in prison with people serving two life sentences," Johnson said. "They don't care about anything. Their lives are over."
At first he tried to survive as an independent - someone unaffiliated with any of the various gangs that Johnson said controlled the atmosphere inside. Soon, Johnson took another role, one forced upon him by inmates because of his sexuality, he said.
"I became a 'she'," Johnson says. "In their eyes, I'm a woman."
Some of the inmates made him clean their cells and cook their food, he said. Then the rapes began. According to Johnson's lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, he was raped nearly every day for 18 months. He attempted seven times to convince a prison committee to move him into the safekeeping wing of the prison, where vulnerable prisoners such as known homosexuals and ex-police officers remain segregated from the general population. Each time, the committee refused his appeal.
"Blacks are basically in the general population," Johnson said, explaining the committee's refusals. "They believe that most black homosexuals can defend themselves."
Johnson said he remained a victim until he wrote to the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project in a plea for help. Soon after, in April 2002, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against the Texas Department of Corrections, Executive Director Gary Johnson and various Allred officials. A total of 22 people were implicated in the case.
Lara Stemple, executive director of Stop Prisoner Rape, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group, said she is shocked by Johnson's ordeal.
"It's one of the most disturbing incidents we've heard about," she said.
Texas was found to be the worst state in the nation for prison rape by Human Rights Watch in a 2001 report, according to the ACLU. A Department of Justice spokesperson told the San Antonio Express-News that approximately 225 cases of rape are reported each year, though the department has no way of knowing how many rapes actually occur.
The sheer magnitude of Johnson's case, however, has helped inspire change. The Texas Legislature recently enacted a Safe Prisons law requiring officials to transfer prisoners if other inmates victimize them. After Johnson's distraught family testified before a congressional committee, Congress approved the Prison Rape Elimination Act, signed by President Bush last fall. Now in its early stages, the measure calls for a national study of prison rape and will eventually require all U.S. prisons to conform to strict standards upon penalty of losing funding from the Department of Justice.
Johnson said he believes there is still more work to be done. He is in Austin now working to create his own outreach program with a mission to "aid the re-integration of troubled young adults into mainstream society as productive, responsible citizens." Johnson's organization will target young people who are homeless, addicts, ex-offenders and in distress.
"I have the experience to connect with these people," he said.
Since 1999, shortly before he was sent to Allred Prison, Johnson started planning what he now calls "a movement." Behind bars, Johnson studied voraciously; 80 percent of each day was spent conducting research, studying statistics and learning how to create a successful program, he said. Already Johnson has rallied benefactors, including LifeWorks, the Community Action Network, the Homeless Task Force (of which Johnson is a member), Families of Incarcerated Loved Ones and Austin's district attorney's office. Today, he appears before city and social service leaders to talk about his vision.
"I have the net cast," Johnson said. "Now I need the supporters to come in."
He's looking for volunteers, especially from the student population of Austin. Johnson is recruiting "a council of young people" who possess the expertise to get the job done and are willing to unite as a single voice.
"We're really impressed with him as a survivor," said Stemple, who recently helped elect Johnson to the board of advisors for Stop Prisoner Rape. "Many victims can hardly talk after getting out. He is a very courageous survivor who wants to help others."
Johnson still struggles to come to terms with the nightmare that almost swallowed him whole. He said he is learning life all over again and that helping others is therapeutic. As more people hear his story, Johnson hopes to channel all of the attention into other places.
"Let's not focus on me anymore," he said. "Let's focus on others who are going through the same thing."
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