Testimony from Phyllis D.K. Hildreth, teacher and colleague

Phyllis Hildreth’s Statement

...  Mr. Abdur’Rahman has a mission that he feels passionate about – to develop and improve a safe and healthy community within the prison.  He was selected by the prison administration to serve as the Unit clerk, a high position of trust in which he works for the Unit Manager.

I first met Mr. Abdur’Rahman in 2015 when the Rev. Janet Wolf invited me to join the volunteer faculty at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison, on Unit 2 which houses death row inmates.  Rev. Wolf asked me to help teach a class on community building and peaceful dispute resolution.  Mr. Abdur’Rahman impressed me with his clearly articulated passion for learning a) solid conflict management skills, b) grounded in academic rigor, and c) ways to practice these skills with professional competence for all members of his institutional community – staff and fellow inmates.  From that time to the present, Mr. Abdur’Rahman has served as inspiration, architect, and implementation leader in designing, developing and co-teaching a dispute resolution and peacebuilding curriculum that builds trust, safety, mutual respect, and hope among and between inmates, correctional officers, and the administrators of the prison. 

Mr. Abdur’Rahman has worked with me in developing the curriculum for this conflict resolution course.  The curriculum is based on the curricula that I use in the college and graduate school courses I teach on conflict resolution, adapted to the prison setting.  It also incorporates the requirements established by the Tennessee Supreme Court to become a certified mediator in Tennessee.  The curriculum trains our students to help fellow inmates and correctional officers to deal with the most serious and prevalent problems in prison, including racial conflicts, conflicts between officers and inmates, suicide, and prison sexual abuse and rape.  Not only has Mr. Abdur’Rahman helped develop our program, by adapting it to the prison environment to address the problems that often arise in prison, but he also has developed the protocols for addressing conflict situations – protocols that are now being used by fellow inmates as well as correctional officers.

Our program has garnered the support of the prison administration, and we are now expanding the program to other units at the prison.  Some of the alumni of our program who have been taken off death row are helping to lead and teach the program within the prison outside of death row.  We could not expand this program without the training and leadership of these alumni.

This program works.  It transforms the students who go through the training, helping them to better understand themselves, the sources of conflict, and the methods for managing and resolving conflict.  This program has been a major factor in maintaining peace and harmony within Unit 2.  The program helps the prison administration, staff and inmates.

And this program helps families beyond the prison, as participants in the program talk with their family members and assist them not only to break the generational cycles of dysfunction, but also to reverse those cycles by bringing about reconciliation and healing.

I now consider Mr. Abdur’Rahman as a colleague and fellow teacher.  He is constantly teaching me.  With his wisdom, education, and experience, he mentors younger inmates and helps them deal more effectively with the pressures of prison life.  Without his presence and passionate involvement in what we are doing, the prison would be a different, less peaceful place.

If we were to lose Mr. Abdur’Rahman, it would be a tragic loss.  His institutional knowledge, training in conflict resolution, and spirituality are invaluable to the prison and his fellow inmates and correctional officers.  Losing him would be a huge loss to me.  More importantly, it would be a huge loss to the entire community.

Phyllis is the Director for Grants Management and Strategic Partnerships at American Baptist College. Previously, she served as the Academic Director for Lipscomb University’s graduate Institute for Conflict Management, and past chair of the Metro Human Relations Commission.