“Bill!” Simmons yelled, and the two men embraced.

With that encounter — whether by chance or providence — a friendship was rekindled and the seeds of a ministry were sown. Seventeen years later more than 600 men, and by extension many families, have been touched.

Credit: Gayle White

Credit: Gayle White

An unlikely friendship

On the surface Simmons, now 69, and Bill Sumner, 78, appear to have little in common. Simmons is African American; Sumner is white. Simmons grew up in Atlanta; Sumner in small-town South Carolina. Simmons dropped out of school in 10th grade; Sumner graduated with a law degree from Duke University, and handled tax and anti-trust cases that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

What they had in common was prison.

Simmons was convicted of murder (he says he didn’t pull the trigger) in a fight over gambling proceeds. After several transfers around Georgia’s prison system, he was serving time at Burruss Correctional Training Facility in Forsyth when he met Sumner.

Sumner pleaded guilty to theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in clients’ funds. Expecting to spend only 18 months in prison, he ended up with more than four years of incarceration, including time at Burruss, beginning in 2003.

Both men were assigned work details outside the prison for the Georgia Department of Public Safety; Simmons in the warehouse and Sumner driving a tractor. Although they had separate jobs, they began spending their breaks together.

“We walked around the building together one solid hour every day at lunch, just for exercise,” Sumner said.

“Bill didn’t talk about prison stuff,” Simmons said. “He talked about sports and politics. He talked about what was happening in Atlanta.” Thanks to a friend, Sumner was received newspapers in prison and shared what he read with Simmons.

While in prison, Sumner wrote legal briefs for inmates at no charge, and employees showed him a new respect after one noticed his name on a list of trustees of the state employees’ retirement system. He taught GED courses and planted a garden that produced tomatoes, cantaloupe and watermelon that he served to fellow workers for lunch. He wrote an occasionally humorous newsletter called The Chain Gang Chronicles.

As for Simmons, he earned a GED and began taking classes through a Mercer University program then operating at Burruss. He keeps a sheaf of papers that includes a college transcript and several letters congratulating him on making the dean’s list. “I never made a grade lower than a C,” he bragged. “It’s how I stayed out of trouble — work and class.”

Credit: Gayle White

Credit: Gayle White

A move toward redemption

That winter morning on MARTA in 2006, Sumner, who was in a Department of Corrections transition program, was headed to work at First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta where he was a longtime member. The church had arranged the job to fulfill Sumner’s work requirement for the transition period. Sumner invited Simmons to accompany him.

The two began to meet frequently at the church, which operates a community ministries program providing food, clothing and other services to homeless people and those in transition. Associate pastor the Rev. Charles Black often prayed with them and gave them encouragement.

Conversation among the men often turned to the lack of support for people leaving prison after long sentences. Black, who has since died, took note. One day he stuck his head into the room where they sat grumbling and asked, “Why don’t y’all do something about it?”

The next day Sumner asked. “What do you think about RAP?”

RAP? Had he become a hip-hop fan?

“Redemption After Prison.”

Redemption, Sumner explained, has a two-fold meaning. “If one believes, one has available to him redemption through Jesus Christ. The other is secular redemption: jobs, housing, expungement when we can get it done and true reentry.”

Much of a former inmate’s life is controlled from the top down — by probation officers, parole officers, counselors. “You’re told, ‘Do this and come back to see me next month.’ Period,” said Sumner,

The idea for RAP was to create a support group led by former prisoners for former prisoners.

“When they first get out, former prisoners feel most comfortable talking to other prisoners,” Sumner said. “They won’t be immediately ‘othered’ because of their criminal history.”

While coming to terms with their pasts, acknowledging their mistakes and establishing new goals, the former inmates must learn to live in the present and that may seem alien to them. Like Simmons, who was overwhelmed by MARTA, they may feel that the world passed them by while they were behind bars.

At monthly dinner meetings, RAP gives them an opportunity to talk about their struggles with others who understand all too well, Sumner said.

Difficulty finding work is a common topic of discussion. When former prisoners admit to previous felonies on a job application, they are likely be denied employment. But some have found jobs in auto repair and construction, and RAP encourages entrepreneurship. Two men recently started a handyman company. RAP also helps eliminate small barriers to employment with a microfinance program that helps members buy tools or steel-toed boots for job sites. A former inmate who qualified for a commercial driver’s license got a $600 loan to pay off some traffic and parking tickets.

“Those are the little things that we try to work through and put them back to work,” Sumner said.

Simmons found work first as a day laborer, then with Delta Air Lines driving a tug, shuttling luggage to and from planes. He proudly shows off two service awards for his “positive attitude, professionalism and commitment to superior service.” He is now retired.

“A lot of guys getting out of prison don’t have confidence in themselves,” he said. “We try to make them understand that they still have a lot of life to live. It’s time to move on and better yourself — but it’s not going to come fast.”

Staying the course

By fostering friendships among men who share the goal of making a go of it in the outside world, RAP strives to reduce recidivism by helping replace pre-prison relationships.

“If you truly want to do something about shrinking the size of the prison population, stop the merry-go-round,” Sumner said. “In prison we call it life on the installment plan. You’re out, you’re with your family for a while, and then you go back. Generally, people go back because they go back to their old playgrounds. They go back to their drugs of choice.”

A 10-year study completed in 2018 by the U.S. Department of Justice shows that eight in 10 people released from state prisons were arrested at least once during the decade following release.

Several RAP participants have been re-incarcerated for short periods on technical violations such as missing appointments with parole officers. Sumner was briefly jailed for falling behind on restitution payments. But Sumner claims no active participant has been convicted of another crime. Nevertheless, not every prisoner is a candidate for RAP.

“There are people (in prison) we should be afraid of,” said Sumner. “There are people there who are not prepared or able to function peacefully in society. They are a relatively small number. The overwhelming number of people coming out of prison are coming home. They’re coming next door. We need to give them every opportunity to succeed.”

About 10 years ago, RAP transitioned from an independent nonprofit organization to part of First Presbyterian Church’s Community Ministries. Former prisoners who come to the church for food, clothing or other services are referred to RAP and vice versa. Many receive their mail through the church until they find housing and partake of the Samaritan Counseling Center.

“There is so much resilience and hope in the men we work with,” said Tricia Passuth, a licensed social worker who directs the ministries and counsels RAP members. “They have the example of other men in the program who are acting now as mentors. I 100% believe that people can change and they can redeem themselves. I wish society felt the same way and gave more chances to people coming out of prison.”

RAP serves only a tiny percentage of the prisoners released each year. The Georgia Department of Corrections reported 13,112 left the state’s penal institutions in 2022 — 918 of them from Fulton County.

Sumner hopes that the Georgia Department of Community Supervision — a state agency created in 2015 by combining the parole and probation offices — is beginning to fill the gap by providing reentry services to newly released prisoners.

Giving back

RAP members don’t just receive services from First Presbyterian, they also contribute to some of its programs to help others.

“Just watch a man who has done 25 years on a murder charge pound nails into a Habitat house on the weekend after working on his own construction job all week,” Sumner said. “The idea of being free to give of yourself when you’ve had your freedom taken away is a powerful, powerful thing. That’s a sign that you are on the road to real freedom.”

One example is Kelvin Boykin, 60. Employed to manage the orange cones on construction sites, he does handyman work on the side and applies his house-building skills to Habitat projects in his spare time.

In and out of prison since the age of 18, he has been a part of RAP’s leadership since shortly after his last release in 2010. RAP, he said, has made him feel “not so alone.”

Through the years he has faced up to his role in bringing about his imprisonment — a crucial step in overcoming bitterness. “I’m not angry with nobody,” he said. “I take full responsibility for my life.”

Likewise, with RAP’s support, he takes credit for his successes. “I love having a paycheck,” he said. “I made it with a clean conscience. I’m living now to do what’s right.”

With steady work he has saved money and, for the first time in his adult life, been able to travel around the United States and, most recently, to Dubai. In prison the idea of a vacation was unimaginable, he said.

But perhaps the greatest gift of his new life was his relationship with his mother, who died four years ago. After worrying about him for years, his mother knew he was finally at peace.

“She got a chance to tell me, ‘Son, I’m so proud of you,’” he said. “I think that’s when she decided it was OK to go to heaven.”

Learn more

For information on First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta’s Community Ministries, go to firstpresatl.org.