I Made 13 Cents an Hour as a Prison Janitor. Here’s Why I Donated My Wages to Gaza Relief

“Your story… it’s gone viral!”

As he shared the information, my mentor of over 15 years, Justin Mashouf, was smiling ear-to-ear. “I’ve acquired tons of messages from folks all around the world,” he continued throughout our late February video go to. “I had no thought it will blow up like this once I first posted it on X.”

The story Justin was referring to was about how I — an incarcerated man in California working as a janitor for 13 cents an hour — had donated $17.74 of my earnings to aid efforts in Gaza.

Justin and I had first linked in 2009 when he was engaged on his documentary about reentry, “The Sincere Battle.” I had requested him to assist me be certain that my donation would go straight to civilians in Gaza.

Over three months after I’d despatched him the test, he shared the story of my donation via a tweet that included an image of my pay stub and the test itself. As of April 4, it was favored or reposted over 32,000 instances, from so far as Algeria.

I determined to make the donation a number of weeks after Israel’s warfare towards Hamas in Gaza started final October. The solar had set, and I used to be watching “PBS NewsHour” on the 15-inch TV in my cell. Inside a couple of minutes of tuning in, I discovered that the electrical energy, water and gas would quickly be minimize off in Gaza. I jolted upright so shortly that the metal bunk mattress I used to be lounging on shook beneath me.

The pictures and movies I’d seen have been already horrifying. And day-to-day, the general destruction and dying toll — significantly amongst youngsters — was climbing. As I noticed it, Gazans shedding entry to water, electrical energy and gas would escalate the warfare right into a full-blown humanitarian disaster. What number of extra folks would lose their lives and their proper to dignity?

I instantly considered my treasured 11-year-old granddaughter, Naimah. Looking at an image of her spherical, bubbly face when she was simply over a 12 months outdated, I puzzled how I might react if it was her life on the road.

As a Muslim, I used to be additionally reminded of the youngest casualty of the Battle of Karbala, a big battle in Islamic historical past. Ali al-Asghar, one of many great-grandsons of Prophet Muhammad — peace be upon him — was killed at simply 6 months outdated.

Moments earlier than his dying, his father, Imam Hussain, stood in entrance of the opposing military, pleading for water to offer his son. His phrases echoed in my thoughts: “What evil — what crime has this baby completed?” Ali al-Asghar subsequently misplaced his life in a battle he wasn’t sufficiently old to take part in, not to mention perceive.

Donating my wages wasn’t a matter of sympathy; you’ll be able to sympathize with somebody and do nothing about it. Slightly, it was empathy. If you empathize with somebody, you place your self of their footwear. You do your finest to narrate to their struggling in hopes you may be spurred into motion.

Determined to remodel my empathy into motion, I referred to as Justin the subsequent day. Although my good friend was stunned to listen to about my plans, he was greater than supportive. “I received you,” he mentioned.

Given that I made 13 cents an hour, I knew it will take many shifts to provide you with even a $10 donation. However the greenback quantity was inconsequential to me. What mattered was the intention behind the gesture.

As a lead porter, or janitor, in my unit of California Well being Care Facility in Stockton, my staff and I have been accountable for distributing meals throughout breakfast, lunch and dinner. We sanitized surfaces and emptied trash bins. We additionally led the weekly laundry pick-up and supply so each particular person in our unit had contemporary garments — and clear bedsheets and blankets — to sleep in.

Certain, my job gave me one thing to do to move the time, however I’d additionally come to know every process as a reminder that I used to be contributing to the well-being of these round me. There was a way of success in figuring out that, regardless of the constraints of my circumstances, I may nonetheless make a distinction.

Weeks after deciding to donate, once I had labored a bit of over 136 hours, I mailed a test to Justin, who instructed me that my cash went to Islamic Reduction USA’s Palestine Humanitarian Assist.

It’s a typical false impression that after somebody enters jail or jail, they lose their curiosity within the exterior world. The general public assumes that our beliefs, values, politics and capability to attach with different human beings come to a standstill — or worse, disappear altogether.

For me, at age 56, that couldn’t be farther from the reality.

I bear in mind being egocentric and egotistical in my late teenagers. I glided by the road title Child Boy, and it was my life’s mission to have the whole lot go my manner. If I couldn’t get it, I might take it. I didn’t contemplate the ache I used to be inflicting on these round me.

In 1985, I shot and killed my uncle — my mom’s youthful brother — whereas taking part in with a gun. I used to be convicted of second-degree homicide, and on the age of 17, I started my sentence of 15 years to life.

Through the almost 4 a long time of my life that I spent in jail, I watched myself develop and alter. Nothing contributed to my transformation greater than the Islamic idea of Islaha.

Islaha means to reform, amend and restore, or to make restitution. The phrase seems many instances within the Quran. It’s additionally a working theme within the lifetime of Malcolm X, a transformative determine whose journey deeply resonates with me.

“The Autobiography of Malcolm X” was the primary nonfiction e-book I ever learn. I used to be wide-eyed, 20 years outdated and 4 years into my sentence at Folsom State Jail, one among California’s most infamous penitentiaries. A good friend of mine handed me the e-book, and I used to be struck by the sheer drive of Malcolm’s transformation — from a hustler and a pimp to a towering determine of resilience and activism.

Half a 12 months later, once I lastly accepted Islam, I got here throughout the idea of Islaha, and all of it clicked for me: There was hope. So long as I put within the work, I may redeem myself beneath the eyes of God, my family members and the folks round me.

By means of Islam, I went via a non secular and moral awakening, and with that got here solace and goal amid the chaos of incarceration.

And I grew to become obsessive about historical past. I pored over the works of Marcus Garvey, Chancellor Williams and J.A. Rogers. I learn in regards to the American, French and Iranian revolutions and the U.S. Civil Rights Motion. Once I learn in regards to the sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama — and the way lots of the college students protesting the bombing have been jailed — I instantly linked that to the Tiananmen Sq. protests in China.

At instances, l have been overwhelmed by the conclusion that each one our experiences are interconnected. And having entered the felony justice system at such a younger age, it took me a few years — and plenty of books — to know how my identification as a Black Muslim man impacts how I transfer via the world and the way the world responds to me.

In late February, Justin let me know that together with posting about my donation, he had arrange a GoFundMe to assist me rebuild my life. Beneficiant contributions flooded in, and by the tip of the month, the marketing campaign had raised over $102,000. Media shops together with The Washington Put up, TRTWorld and Complicated even did tales about it.

I felt deeply humbled and moved. This help got here at a vital time as I ready for my April 2 launch, which I had been preventing for because the mid-Nineteen Nineties. Between 1995 and 2024, I used to be denied parole 10 instances.

My parole was lastly authorised, because of California Senate Invoice 260, laws that provides contemporary parole alternatives for youth offenders serving prolonged sentences for crimes dedicated earlier than they turned 18.

Once I pictured my life post-incarceration, I noticed household and group. The very first thing I needed to do was give my mom a giant hug and kiss. I needed to ask her for forgiveness. I needed to take out the trash for her. I needed to chop her grass once more. I needed to take my granddaughter to highschool and go to a PTA assembly. I needed to journey a metro bus and soak up totally different smells and sights.

I needed to maneuver via my life cherishing the straightforward issues.

And since I used to be coming residence towards the tip of Ramadan, I used to be excited to rejoice my first Eid with the bigger Muslim group. This group has proven me a lot compassion and mercy over the previous couple of weeks, and there’s nothing I need greater than to return the favor.

Once I first grew to become critical about remodeling my worldview and myself, I wrote down a collection of mantras. They have been taped to the uninteresting grey concrete partitions of my cell:

At this time, I’ll take the excessive street.

At this time, I cannot permit myself to be derailed.

At this time, if confronted or insulted, I’ll first bear in mind my targets. Secondly, I’ll stroll away. Lastly, I cannot personalize something and provides in to my ego.

At this time, I shall be of service and attempt to make right this moment higher than yesterday.

At this time, I’ll bear in mind at each step that I’m the grasp of my ship. I shall be anchored by my religion, values, targets, endurance, humility and forgiveness. With all my energy, I shall be humble right this moment.

Over time, these traces grew to become my ritual. I recited them earlier than I left my cell every day. And as I proceed to organize for all times past jail partitions, these phrases will proceed to be my information.

Hamzah Jihad Furqaani is a father of 1 daughter and a grandfather to 4. Furqaani was imprisoned for 40 years and was launched from jail on April 2, 2024. He intends to create an academic program for incarcerated those that tackles the misrepresentation of Islam in U.S. prisons. Furqaani additionally hopes to pursue greater schooling in sociology.