The Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism is proud to announce the winners of the third annual Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize. We were inexpressibly moved by each of the hundreds of essays we read, and wish we could have selected more than two; we hope to uplift more of these pieces in other ways throughout the year.
In addition to members of the Truthout team, we are grateful to our additional guest judge Colette Payne, one of last year’s winners of the prize.
The 2023 winners are Tracy McCarter, author of “As a Black Woman Accused of Killing a White Man, I Was Never Innocent Until Proven Guilty,” and Elizabeth Hawes, author of “As Incarcerated Women, We’re Subjected to State Rape.”
The Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize, awarded to two formerly or currently incarcerated people for essays related to imprisonment or policing, is given in memory of Keeley Schenwar (1990-2020), who was a devoted mother, daughter, sister, friend, writer and advocate for incarcerated mothers. Each year, the selected essays share some of the spirit in which Keeley Schenwar moved in the world (and wrote her own work) — a spirit of empathy, vulnerability and resistance. Each winner receives $3,000 and publication in Truthout.
Tracy McCarter’s essay, “As a Black Woman Accused of Killing a White Man, I Was Never Innocent Until Proven Guilty,” searingly chronicles the author’s experience of being criminalized as a survivor of gender-based violence — and how the consequences of criminalization extended beyond the brutal conditions of imprisonment. McCarter, a nurse, was denied the ability to contribute her life-saving skills during the height of the COVID pandemic. Released on bail, she faced heavy barriers to employment and education. McCarter condemns a system that marked her “guilty from the start.” She urges us to ask, “If we left behind the oppressive systems that deprive people of health care, housing, employment, safety, and their very freedom, what could we create instead?”
Elizabeth Hawes’s essay, “As Incarcerated Women, We’re Subjected to State Rape,” confronts the fact that strip searches — a procedure that incarcerated people are subjected to on a routine basis — are a form of sexual violence. The author shares her own story and those of others she interviewed, including a woman who was stripped multiple times while attempting to access treatment for a pelvic infection. As Hawes notes, most incarcerated women experienced sexual violence prior to prison — and once inside, they are re-traumatized again and again by this state-sanctioned practice. This powerful essay forces us to recognize that, as Hawes states, “Rape is about power and control. Subjugation. Prison is too.”
We extend our deep gratitude to Tracy and Elizabeth for exposing these horrendous injustices, and our congratulations to them for being selected as the 2023 prizewinners. To all who submitted essays: We are thankful, honored and humbled to have read your powerful work.
If you are moved to support this program, you can donate toward the Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize here. Please send a note to support@truthout.org afterward letting us know the contribution is for the prize.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy