Rikers Island inmates at the East River jail recently celebrated walking across the stage, beating the odds of an uncertain future behind bars. These 63 Rikers high school graduates exchanged their jumpsuits for robes of excellence while they wait for the courts to decide their fate.
Tylik Thomas, the class’s valedictorian, said, “4,200 feet. 1,300 meters. That’s the length of the bridge we crossed over one day, not knowing the day they would return to the other side, miles away from family and friends.”
RELATED STORIES
He crossed the 3-mile bridge earlier this year, ending up in Rikers Island on a nonviolent weapons charge.
“In some of the harshest and roughest living conditions known to man, we found light in a place where darkness and negativity reign supreme,” he told ABC7.
It was announced at the ceremony, “By the power invested of the State of New York, You are now official high school graduates.”
Tylik’s uncle, Malcolm, attended the ceremony to witness this profound accomplishment.
“Joy, happiness, I see so much of myself in him,” said Tylik’s uncle, explaining what he was feeling.
Tonya Threadgill, head of East River Academy, told Eyewitness News that the theme for the graduating class is “resilience”. “It means that they can overcome, that coming to jail is just not the end stop for them, that there’s hope and there’s a future for them.”
Threadgill celebrated their historic achievement with their largest class since 2014, made possible by a collaboration between New York Public Schools and the Department of Corrections.
“From day one, my directives were clear, how do we improve the literacy capacity of our students, as they’ve expressed, because I can’t read, I’m making decisions that are not in my best interest, unable to read the charges brought against them,” said Glenda Esperance, Superintendent, District 79, Department of Education.
Now, Tylik is looking forward to traveling that bridge back into the real world this November. Hopes, dreams, ambitions, full speed ahead.
“I should have done it way earlier. This is a long time coming its finally came … don’t waste your time, wasting your freedom,” he said.
Research shows that more than 80 percent of the people confined at Rikers Island have not been convicted of a crime and endure unsafe and dangerous conditions as they wait for trial.
Meanwhile, the Literacy Project Foundation reports that three out of every five prisoners in the United States are unable to read. Other research suggests that illiteracy rates in jails can reach 75% of the population.
