My name is Cyntoia Brown-Long

I wrote a book about my journey through the criminal justice system called "Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System," and since MoveOn members helped to bring so much attention to my case, I wanted you to be some of the first to get the chance to purchase it.

Dear MoveOn member,

My name is Cyntoia Brown-Long. You may have heard my name on TV, social media, or if you're one of the over 636,000 MoveOn members who signed a petition calling for my release from prison. But I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you my story myself and to say thank you.

I am a survivor of child sex trafficking. In 2004, at age 16, I was sentenced to a lifetime in prison for shooting one of my abusers in self-defense.

Earlier this year, I was granted clemency, and last month, I was released from state prison in Tennessee after serving 15 years of a life sentence handed down to me when I was just a teenager. Throughout my court and appeal proceedings, no one heard my side of the story. No one cared that I felt the need to defend myself from this man and acted accordingly. Worse, no one recognized the abuse I had endured over the months preceding the incident. Instead, I was seen as a "fast" girl who made the choices that landed her where she was. I was silenced like so many others entangled in the justice system.

My conviction and sentence started a journey of 15 long years that would finally come to an end thanks in part to more than 636,000 MoveOn members who signed the petition to have me released.

I wrote a book about my journey through the criminal justice system called "Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System," and since MoveOn members helped to bring so much attention to my case, I wanted you to be some of the first to get the chance to purchase it. And as an extra thank-you, I'd like to sign each book ordered by a MoveOn member!

Just click here to preorder a signed copy of my book directly through MoveOn.

I know what I did was wrong, and I have spent the past 15 years coming to terms with it. But during those years, I also saw firsthand how the American prison system fails at rehabilitating prisoners, providing justice to victims, or showing mercy to anyone inside its walls.

And I hope to spend the rest of my life working to change that.

It is that hope that inspired me to write my book.

When I was in prison, my hopes of being released slipped further and further from reality. But I never stopped dreaming. I never stopped hoping for a better life. And I found a way to have a better life. I realized that prison didn't have to be the end.

I met inspiring, compassionate people, from members of my legal team to my college professors to my friend Erika, an inmate and law clerk who missed her own opportunity for an appeal because she spent all her time helping other inmates prepare theirs.

And I learned that there is no way for people on the outside to understand what it is like to be a Black woman prisoner, surviving off of $25 a month, piecing together life from scraps that the justice system left behind—unless you hear it from the people who experienced it themselves.

In my book, I share my experience, starting in the juvenile justice system and going all the way through my release earlier this year. I hope that my experience can shed light on how many people get lost inside the prison system and how hope and mercy can help lead them to freedom.

I sure hope you'll read it. Just click here to preorder your signed copy now.

The first time I heard about a petition calling for my release—from a woman at a resource fair I attended before my college graduation—I couldn't believe it. At that point, I had not yet come to terms with the idea that I was a victim of sex trafficking, and when I heard that people were talking about my case, I thought, "These people are crazy!" And I even worried that the attention would harm any chance I had at receiving clemency.

But as more and more people began to share my story—including celebrities like Kim Kardashian West and Rihanna—and as I started to do my own research into the epidemic of sex trafficking in America and how the justice system fails girls like me who had experienced that type of violence, I was finally able to come to terms with my past and begin to piece together my plan for the future.

Because we have to do something. If this problem is ever going to change, people need to be educated. And I'm fixing to do it.

I know MoveOn members typically come together to fight for systemic policy change rather than for individual cases, and I really want to thank you for taking the time to hear my story and being there for me. My experience made me realize just how important it is to find ways to build common ground with others, seek forgiveness, and move on to support each other as individuals, communities, and a nation, and I desperately want that to transfer to other people in my same position still suffering behind bars.

I am so grateful to all of the MoveOn members who shared my story and signed the petition calling for my release. Hearing about the hundreds of thousands of MoveOn members who signed a petition for me while I was sitting there in prison hoping and praying lifted my spirits to the rooftops—and I want you to know how much your simple action was part of the collective fight for freedom. I hope my book can be a first step toward building that change we so desperately need.

Click here to preorder a signed copy of my book now, and thank you again for all of your support.

Thanks for all you do.

–Cyntoia Brown-Long

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