Sherry Grace shudders when she recalls crawling on her hands and knees through her upscale Longwood home. Drug abuse and crime had a stranglehold on her sons Andre and Avery Grace, and every doorbell ring brought fear of another arrest.
“I would check to see if it was a police officer,” Sherry Grace, 49, said. “If it was, I would crawl through the house on my hands and knees to get to my boys’ rooms to tell them to get under their beds and not to move. I knew we could not afford to bail them out again.”
Many who knew Grace and her husband, Dr. Willie Grace Jr., during those years did not know about the family’s problems. The Graces worked hard at keeping it that way.
Sherry Grace eventually found comfort in an unexpected place. While visiting her sons at the Orange County Jail, she found herself reaching out to other moms there. On Mother’s Day 2001, she started Mothers of Incarcerated Sons.
Since then, the Orlando support group has spread to five states and has more than 255 members that include moms, grandmothers, dads and young men in “universities of learning,” as Grace refers to prison.
On Feb. 25, Grace will take a film crew to Coleman federal prison in Sumter County to document a new initiative connecting business leaders with inmates being released.
“We are asking, ‘Will you just take one?’ ” when they get out of prison, Grace said.
Grace’s group is promising to screen the inmates and mentor them during the transition from prison to the workplace.
Publishers of Essence magazine were so impressed with Grace and her organization that they featured her along with Colin Powell and Maya Angelou in a recently released book, The 50 Most Inspiring African-Americans.
Essence editor Susan Taylor met Grace last summer while speaking in Orlando. Before her presentation, Taylor struck up a conversation with a young man who had been in jail. Taylor invited him to her conference, and Grace came forward to offer him and his family support.
“I love and admire the work Sherry’s trying to do,” Taylor said. “Incarceration of our young people is one of the horrible things happening in this nation.”
The number of black men in jail or prison has grown fivefold in the past 20 years, according to a Justice Policy Institute study released last summer. The study by the Washington-based research agency reported there are more black men behind bars than are enrolled in colleges or universities.
To help the women who care about those men cope, Grace has inspirational meetings on the last Sunday of each month. Women young and old form a circle around a table filled with candles and baby pictures. Some are looking for strength to face a lifetime away from their children. Others, such as Deborah Casey, find a place to talk about their loss for the first time.
Casey said although her heart was broken over her son Robert Casey’s 10-year sentence for armed robbery, she kept silent.
“My family didn’t feel like I did about it,” said Casey, an Orange County school-bus driver. “And ever since he was arrested, I couldn’t tell anybody at work.”
At the mothers’ support group, Casey found understanding. Like the other moms, she doesn’t make excuses for her son’s actions. But his crime hasn’t stopped her from caring.
“He was a good kid,” she said of her 23-year-old son serving time in a Panhandle prison. “This is the first time he had been in trouble.”
Like battle-weary soldiers, they are in this for the long haul. Some have seen their sons’ sentences shortened. Others have won appeals or at least had their sons moved closer for visitation.
Grace looks to her own children for hope. Edmund, 21, and Angelina, 19, are in college and doing well. Son Andre Grace, 29, who could have faced a long prison sentence, has stopped using drugs and runs his own dental lab. He often travels with his mom to speak about the support group.
For Avery Grace, 27, the story has been sadder. He has been in and out of prison and mental-health institutions. His baby picture is at the center of every meeting. His is the first candle lighted.
“I know that God will heal Avery,” Sherry Grace said.
While she waits for that miracle, Grace is busy planning more programs for her mothers’ group: employment opportunities for men coming out of prison and community forums to educate parents and youth about crime and consequence.
Success for Sherry Grace is no longer measured by the interior design business she gave up or by the flattering attention of the Essence publishers.
Success is now someone such as Baron Woods, 31, who was serving a 22-year sentence and is now out working and mentoring a high-school student. Success is Deone Adams, 37, a former inmate who found an apartment with Grace’s help. The construction worker joined the men’s group and is saving to get married.
Cecil Hollar, a former IBM executive and Mothers of Incarcerated Sons board member, says those successes are due to one thing.
“It’s a mother’s love,” Hollar, 56, of Gotha said. “It’s unconditional, and there are no boundaries or borders.”
