Hi, my name is Jia Johnson and I am a recent
Garrett alumna.
I graduated this past May 2020 with a
master of arts in public ministry with a
concentration
in racial justice. When I applied to
Garrett
I was pretty clear on what I wanted to
do. And I wanted to co-labor
alongside others in dismantling the
prison industrial complex.
I also wanted to think about creative
ways and more life-giving avenues for
re-entry.
My professional commitment to justice
making with those who have been directly
impacted
stems from my personal relationship to
the carceral system.
So I've seen and I've experienced how
incarceration impacts the family
of those who have been incarcerated. I'm
the sister of a brother
who has been incarcerated. I am the
daughter of a mother
and father who have experienced deep
pain from our current system of
incarceration.
I am the auntie of two beautiful nieces
who have also impacted,
who have also been impacted by our
current punitive justice system.
So with this in mind, the intellectual
rigor offered through the MAPM program,
as well as the academic community of not
only brilliant scholars and professors but
they are also ones who are caring and
thoughtful
and they created an environment and
space that not only provided me with
resources for theological
and theoretical analysis and spiritual
growth so that I could live into my purpose and
calling, but they also gave me
a place to heal. The course "Methods,
Models, and Tools for Social Change,"
is one of the core courses of the MAPM
degree. On this course in this class the bell
hooks text
"Teaching to Transgress: Education as the
Practice
of Freedom" was an assigned text. hooks
writes
that theory is not inherently healing,
liberatory, or revolutionary.
It fulfills this function only when we
ask that it do so and direct our
theorizing
towards this end. And so through a
combination of coursework and my time
at my field site placement and my
work that I did on my public ministry
capstone project,
I was able to direct my theorizing and
theologizing towards a vision of imagining and
creating into existence
more life-giving ways of being in
relationship with myself
and others as a community healer, as a
justice maker, and as a solidarity builder.
So I currently serve as the program
director for McCormick Theological
Seminary's Solidarity Building
Initiative for Liberative Carceral
Education. This program was formerly called
Theological Education at Cook County
Department of Corrections
and I became involved with McCormick's
program while pursuing my master's
degree at Garrett
while taking a course at McCormick
through the ACTS Consortium.
I was exposed to McCormick's certificate
in theological studies
program at Cook County jail and I was
invited to co-teach
a pilot course with Dr. Jenny McBride at
Cook County jail. We were at division 10
in maximum security division. And
later the certificate program became my
public ministry capstone project
and it was the hands-on experience of
co-teaching in the jail
while also working on my public ministry
capstone project that became the perfect
laboratory for me to imagine into
existence
a model of institutional leadership as
servants of solidarity
for liberative theological education in
a jail.
And so in community with others at
McCormick, I have been able to take what
I started at Garrett and foster it,
to cultivate it, and to grow it into the
Solidarity Building Initiative
for Liberative Carceral Education at
Cook County Jail.
The SBI program exists to create an
ecosystem of beloved community through 
liberative theological seminary
education. The program seeks to mitigate the
numerous materials, social, and political barriers
the system impacted individuals and
their communities experience
while incarcerated and upon release. We
envision that seminary education in the
jail will not only provide resources for
intellectual and spiritual growth,
survival ,and flourishing for
incarcerated learners, but the program
will also create communities of
belonging and advocacy.
So lastly in these intense and trying
times, it's difficult to not
think a lot about rage and grief.
I've been thinking a lot about my own
rage and grief in response to the
injustices that exist all around me
and us. I've been examining my rage and
grief at the intersection of my own
purpose and calling. What does my rage
and grief look like?
And what do they feel like? I've been
holding
these wonderings and tension with that
bell hooks quote
theory is not inherently healing,
liberatory, or revolutionary. It fulfills
this function only when we ask that it do so
and direct our theorizing towards this end.
my rage and grief are exhausting
but they are also beautiful. They have
been directed towards an
end - my work. And so when I think about
what my rage and grief look like,
they look like the Solidarity Building
Initiative for Liberative Carceral
Education at Cook County Jail.
And it was the intellectual rigor
offered through the MAPM program,
as well as the academic community at
Garrett, that helped me get to where I am now.
