# @blavity on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DbBwCDZEn0K
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/68162792-blavity-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/de6b3152cf.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-07-20T20:01:22.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Blavity (@blavity) — https://gondola.cc/blavity

## Caption

At 22, Chris Young (chris.l.young) was sentenced to life in prison for nonviolent drug offenses. He refused to go quietly.

At his sentencing hearing, knowing he would receive a mandatory life sentence, Young gave a nearly hour-long speech drawing from history, economics, science, and literature. It was so powerful that the federal judge presiding over his case resigned his lifetime judicial appointment and became an advocate for Young's freedom.

After more than a decade behind bars, a presidential commutation, and a degree from SMU, Young is now an author. His memoir "The Wound Is Where the Light Enters: A Memoir of Resilience" releases August 4.

"My motive was to preserve the record and to tell the truth because it's my story, but it's a generational story, one all too common for '80s babies surviving the crack epidemic, surviving mass incarceration."

And his policy ask is simple: make the First Step Act retroactive so people still locked up under the same laws that once imprisoned him can finally come home.
"If a law is wrong today, it was wrong yesterday."

Read the full interview at blavity.com

#Blavity #ChrisYoung #CriminalJusticeReform #BlackExcellence

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 262
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 17

## Tags

blackexcellence, blavity, criminaljusticereform, chrisyoung

---
Copyright (c) Gondola