“The Weight of Time,” a Morton Contemporary Art Gallery exhibition of paintings by 10 artists serving life sentences at Montgomery County’s Phoenix prison, lays bare heartache, hope and the crushing force of hour piling upon hour. “I served 20 years with [the artists],” says Eddie Ramirez, who was formerly incarcerated at Phoenix. “We painted together
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One night in July 2016, Jean-Pierre Lokombe woke up to a group of armed men banging on the door of his home in a small village in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The men were part of the Allied Democratic Force, one of the deadliest of the more than 100 rebel groups that rape, kill
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For Ana, 19, of Brazil, and Jonathan, 17, of Guatemala, the southern border of the United States marks the line between life and death. Ana and Jonathan, both clients of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society of Pennsylvania (HIAS PA), a local humanitarian nonprofit that provides legal services to low-income immigrants in the state, now live
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Within days of a police raid in the home he shared with his parents in Krasnodar, southern Russia, Ilia Chernov, 26, a computer programmer and system administrator, went into hiding. Over five years, “I was subjected to repeated questioning, threats, police surveillance and house searches due to my political views and activism,” says Chernov. A
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One warm October night at Temple University’s Liacouras Center, tall, tan rodeo athlete Au’Vion Horton burst out of a high wooden chute on the back of a one-ton bull. As the bull plunged, spun and kicked to throw off Horton, the hum of the crowd at the East Coast premiere of the 8 Seconds Rodeo
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At St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, a tantrum looms. Scalp bristling with electrodes, a three-year-old boy remains stubbornly unmoved by his parents’ pleas that he take his medication. Then his nurse proposes a deal. “Yeah,” the boy responds to her question, “I’ll take the pills if the clown comes to see me.” Within moments, Marilyn
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First raped at age 12 and then throughout her teens, Reverend Dr. Michelle Simmons began using drugs. In her early 20s, thirsting for a new life, the Germantown native moved to Los Angeles. “I took my old behaviors with me,” Rev. Simmons says. Convicted of prostitution and a felony, she spent six years incarcerated in
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A half dozen three- and fouryear- olds wave “adios!” to their moms and younger siblings, then pile into the little bus, “el Busesito,” parked on a street corner in Frankford. Inside the 24-foot van, repurposed as a mobile preschool classroom, the Spanish-speaking children grab puzzles, blocks, stuffed animals, papers and crayons and settle on a
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On the morning of September 13, 2023, James Aye, cofounder and co-CEO of the Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout (YEAH Philly), a Black-led nonprofit that provides critical services to teens and young adults, refused to leave a hearing when ordered to do so. An 18-year-old probationer, a YEAH Philly client and the subject of the
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Before her mother died in 2020 at age 46 of heart failure, complicated by diabetes, lupus and lung disease, Lelache Word (aka Lela), then 15, was living in Arizona with her mother, stepfather and step-siblings. Strapped by her mother’s staggering medical bills, the family sometimes slept in the car or hotels. After her mother’s death,
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