Writing My Wrongs

Have you ever wondered whether one moment of violence, fear, or rage can define your entire life—and what it might take to rewrite that definition? In Writing My Wrongs, Shaka Senghor invites you to look directly at this question by sharing the most intimate journey imaginable: his transformation from a nineteen-year-old convicted murderer into a writer, mentor, and advocate for redemption. His argument is simple but radical: no one is permanently defined by their worst act. People change when they are willing to examine their lives with brutal honesty, forgive others and themselves, and rebuild purpose through service and art.

The core of Senghor’s story unfolds through his years in solitary confinement—the period he calls both hell on earth and the birthplace of his rebirth. It’s within these cold, concrete walls that he faces his anger, fear, and guilt, and decides to begin writing as a way to examine what went wrong. For Senghor, writing becomes both healing and revelation; words become bridges between the broken boy he was and the mature man he is becoming. As a reader, you’re invited to walk those steps alongside him, revisiting the psychological damage of an abusive childhood, the false allure of the crack era, the meaning of forgiveness, and the liberating truth that self-reflection can spark redemption even after unimaginable mistakes.

The Context: Growing Up in Detroit’s Violent Streets

Before the crime that shaped his future, Senghor was a bright and thoughtful child from Detroit. He dreamed of becoming a doctor, but family instability and brutal beatings from his mother drove him to seek connection in the streets. In neighborhoods consumed by drug trade and poverty, the rules of survival replaced the rules of morality. At fourteen, Senghor was selling crack and surviving stickups from addicts. Each violent encounter hardened him—especially after being shot at seventeen. Fear disguised itself as courage, and paranoia masqueraded as strength. That psychological shift fueled his tragic decision to carry and eventually use a gun, resulting in the murder that sent him to prison.

Inside Prison: The Mirror and the Madness

In Wayne County Jail and later Michigan’s maximum-security facilities, Senghor sees firsthand how broken men build broken communities behind bars. Early chapters vividly depict the violent, dehumanizing logic of prison life—the rapes, stabbings, and hierarchies where respect replaces empathy and survival trumps morality. In these places, Senghor becomes a leader within inmate circles, but also a participant in the chaos. His years of rage reflect how trauma replicates itself: scared boys act tough, tough men act cruel, and the cycle continues. Eventually, more than four years in solitary confinement force him to stop running. In isolation, deprived of distractions, he faces the literal and emotional mirror.

The Turning Point: Writing, Reading, and Spiritual Awakening

Staring into a scratched steel mirror at Oaks Correctional Facility, Senghor begins to forgive—the people who humiliated him, the ones who shot him, and even his mother. But most important, he forgives himself. He starts writing letters, journaling, and studying philosophy and spiritual texts. Books become his mentors: The Autobiography of Malcolm X, As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, Houses of Healing by Robin Casarjian. Through them, Senghor sees that thought precedes action and belief fuels behavior. Each page shifts him from destructive thinking to introspection. Writing becomes not just survival but transformation—a process similar to what Viktor Frankl described in Man’s Search for Meaning: the discovery that even suffering can yield purpose when it’s reframed through consciousness.

Forgiveness and Atonement: Reconnecting with Humanity

Years later, Senghor writes a letter to his victim’s family, expressing remorse and understanding that no apology can undo what was done. This act marks the culmination of his healing: forgiveness as freedom. The power of compassion—first received through his victim’s godmother, who forgave him—is what ultimately reawakens his humanity. Her kindness shows him that love can exist even for a murderer, and that such love can reshape meaning and identity. Senghor learns that redemption is not denial of guilt but the full acceptance of it combined with purposeful living. His work mentoring young men after his release, writing books, and advocating for change are all modern extensions of this atonement.

Why It Matters to You

Whether or not you’ve lived Senghor’s experience, his message speaks to broader truths: trauma shapes choices, but awareness can reshape destiny. Everyone carries pain from childhood, failure, or loss; the difference lies in how we process it. Senghor reminds you that silence breeds violence, but reflection breeds wisdom. His story challenges social systems that punish but rarely rehabilitate—and forces readers to imagine what justice might look like if every “criminal” was offered the tools of introspection before condemnation. Ultimately, Writing My Wrongs isn’t just about crime and punishment. It’s about the universal human capacity to rise from our worst mistakes and create meaning out of brokenness.

Senghor’s journey begins and ends with anger. Anger becomes both his poison and his armor—a force that conceals pain but eventually drives self-destruction. He shows you what rage looks like when it’s born from humiliation, fear, and abandonment rather than hatred. This emotion drives his early life decisions, from selling drugs to carrying guns. After being shot, anger becomes a survival strategy; it’s easier to be feared than to feel fear. But in prison, he discovers that anger traps you more deeply than any cell bars.

Fear Behind Anger

In solitary confinement, Senghor realizes that anger is rooted in fear—fear of vulnerability, fear of disconnection, fear of appearing weak. This revelation mirrors James Allen’s insight in As a Man Thinketh that destructive emotions stem from destructive thoughts. Senghor understands that when he fired the gun that killed another man, it wasn’t rage driving him but terror. He was afraid of being killed again, afraid of seeming powerless. Those fears, unexamined, turned into aggression. His healing begins when he confronts fear itself, not the people who caused it.

Transforming Anger into Insight

Once Senghor begins journaling, anger becomes data. Every time he writes a letter about what sets him off—an insult from another inmate, a denial from the parole board—he returns later to read his words with an analytical eye. The pages become a mirror showing him that his emotions are patterns, not personality. By tracing those patterns, he learns to anticipate them and respond differently. He replaces violent reaction with reflection and patience. This practice turns his cell into a meditation space, showing that control begins in thought, not circumstance.

Breaking the Cycle of Violence

Through anger, Senghor illustrates a larger social truth: violence perpetuates itself through generations of unprocessed pain. His mother’s beatings and insults were not isolated acts—they were inherited behaviors born of her own suffering. When people are denied healing, they become transmitters of harm. Senghor’s transformation challenges you to face where your own anger comes from and to ask whether it serves or enslaves you. As he learns: “You can’t heal what you refuse to feel.”

Most people fear silence; Senghor eventually embraces it. His four and a half years in solitary confinement at Oaks Correctional Facility become the crucible of his transformation. Alone in a six-by-eight cell, stripped of all distractions, he confronts madness, despair, and revelation. To him, isolation is both torture and therapy. By describing the sensory deprivation—the stink of human waste, the endless banging of cell doors—he reveals how solitude forces the mind to become both enemy and teacher.

Madness and Survival

In the early years, Senghor nearly loses his sanity. He watches prisoners flood cells, smear feces, and howl for hours. He realizes how confinement destroys the human psyche when combined with guilt and hopelessness. Yet amid chaos, he decides not to join the madness. He adapts, creating a structured day: reading, exercising, and writing. Survival requires discipline—the kind Sartre or Frankl describe as transforming confinement into contemplation. Over time, rituals become meaning.

Solitude as Classroom

In his cell, Senghor turns isolation into education. He studies philosophy, psychology, African history, and religion. He writes essays, sets learning goals, and even administers himself exams. Each book he reads—from Malcolm X to Cheikh Anta Diop—expands his self-understanding and his sense of purpose. Prison becomes paradoxically freeing because he learns that true liberation begins within the mind. The real bars, he concludes, are built from ignorance and denial.

Discovering the Self Through Writing

In solitude, Senghor turns words into therapy. Journaling lets him map his emotions, translate pain into lessons, and rebuild identity. Writing becomes what meditation is for monks: a discipline of observing thoughts without judgment. When he later says writing saved his life, it’s not metaphor—it’s method. He learns that expression transforms suffering into wisdom, teaching him to forgive his past and imagine his future. His story proves that isolation can make or break you, depending on whether you use silence to escape or to evolve.

“I had to forgive the people I hated. Most important, I had to forgive myself.” This line marks the turning point in Senghor’s life, and it serves as the book’s spiritual centerpiece. Forgiveness for him isn’t abstract—it’s visceral, uncomfortable, and liberating. It begins as self-reflection in solitude and culminates in action: writing letters to all those who hurt him, including his victim’s family. Through forgiveness, Senghor discovers that redemption isn’t about erasing harm—it’s about releasing attachment to pain.

Self-Forgiveness

Senghor wrestles with guilt over taking a life. The moment he can say “I was wrong” without defensiveness becomes his rebirth. He recognizes that carrying guilt indefinitely is another form of ego—punishing yourself keeps you the center of attention. By forgiving himself, he transforms guilt into accountability. He can then contribute positively rather than self-destruct. It aligns with Buddhist teachings on compassion: when you release self-hatred, you quit projecting it onto the world.

Forgiving Others

He forgives his mother, who beat him; his shooters, who triggered his paranoia; his friends, who betrayed him. Each act of forgiveness lightens his inner load. The process mirrors therapy techniques of reparenting and emotional rewriting. Senghor proves that forgiving others doesn’t condone their actions; it reclaims your power from them. When you stop waiting for an apology, you set yourself free.

Receiving Forgiveness

The most powerful moment arrives when his victim’s godmother, Mrs. Weaver, writes him a letter saying, “I forgive you.” Her compassion pierces the wall separating guilt from humanity. Senghor realizes that forgiveness multiplies when shared—it becomes redemption through relationship. After her letter, he commits to living in service: mentoring youth, working with anti-violence organizations, and teaching that forgiveness heals both sides of tragedy. For him, freedom begins not with parole but with peace.

Senghor’s education—self-taught through books from the prison library—illustrates how knowledge can reconstruct identity. When he first encounters writers like Donald Goines or Malcolm X, he feels seen. Their stories of struggle and transformation show that brilliance can bloom in confinement. For Senghor, learning isn’t academic; it’s existential. He reads to replace street myths with historical truth and to discover his own significance as a Black man beyond violence and shame.

Discovering Role Models

Donald Goines’ gritty realism mirrors Senghor’s street life, while Malcolm X’s intellectual power introduces him to the idea that understanding, not aggression, breeds dignity. He reads history from African scholars and realizes that his heritage is rich, not inferior. This revelation punctures the internalized racism that had made him undervalue himself. Education becomes a form of spiritual emancipation.

Reading as Transformation

Books like The Autobiography of Malcolm X and As a Man Thinketh teach Senghor that actions arise from thoughts. Each reading session rewires his thinking. He stops seeing himself as a criminal statistic and starts seeing himself as a thinker, father, and teacher. This shift foreshadows his later mentorship work outside prison. (In modern psychology, this mirror process resembles narrative therapy, where reframing your story changes self-concept.)

Education as Empowerment

When Senghor begins teaching others in prison—organizing study groups, leading rites-of-passage programs—he realizes that power shared is power multiplied. Teaching restores his sense of agency. Through culture and literacy, he helps younger inmates see beyond aggression. His story reminds you that education isn’t just acquisition of facts; it’s transformation of worldview. As Plato’s cave metaphor suggests, true enlightenment means seeing not shadows on the wall but the source of light itself.

After two decades behind bars, Senghor’s relationship with Ebony Roberts—the woman he meets through letters and later marries—is both a love story and a test of his emotional growth. Loving while incarcerated demands radical vulnerability. In these chapters, Senghor shows how learning to love after trauma resembles learning a new language: patience replaces pride, honesty replaces fear. Their romance becomes a classroom for intimacy and trust under impossible conditions.

Connection Through Letters

Their relationship begins through correspondence initiated by Ebony’s work with a prison outreach program. Through letters, they share philosophies, insecurities, and dreams. The act of writing becomes emotional therapy. Ebony provides feminine strength and intellectual challenge—qualities Senghor longed for. Their written dialogue mirrors Martin Buber’s concept of “I–Thou” relationships, where genuine connection transcends circumstance.

Love as Mirror of Growth

Ebony’s patience tests Senghor’s ego. He learns to communicate rather than react, to admit mistakes rather than suppress them. Love forces accountability—the same principle that guided his healing. Even when the prison system transfers him repeatedly, Ebony’s letters and visits reassure him that emotional connection survives distance. Their bond proves that consistency, not ideal circumstances, builds real intimacy.

Freedom and Family

After his release, Senghor’s love with Ebony evolves into partnership: shared purpose, mentorship, and parenthood. Their son Sekou represents legacy—the new life forged from redemption. Senghor’s struggle to adjust to freedom, to technology, to employment, highlights how reintegration demands as much emotional maturity as prison demanded endurance. Love becomes not a reward but a continuation of his education. As he writes, “I learned that love is not what saves you; it’s what teaches you to keep being saved.”

Senghor’s story culminates in a broader vision of redemption—one that transcends personal healing to challenge America’s approach to justice. His life after prison is not about escaping punishment but transforming it into service. Redemption, as he defines it, means using your pain to alleviate the pain of others. Through mentoring youth, speaking at schools, and working with organizations like MIT’s Media Lab and #cut50, Senghor proves that a criminal past doesn’t forbid contribution; it demands it.

Purpose Through Service

After release, Senghor commits to helping young men understand the link between trauma and violence. He turns his own story into a cautionary but hopeful blueprint. As in restorative justice models (seen in the work of Howard Zehr), his focus shifts from punishment to reconciliation. Service becomes sacred: mentoring, writing, fatherhood, and community activism are his ways of making amends.

Reimagining Justice

Senghor challenges society’s fixation on incarceration over rehabilitation. His collaborations with social entrepreneurs and institutions highlight systemic change—from storytelling initiatives to educational reforms. He argues that America must learn to distinguish moral accountability from permanent condemnation. His success shows how human potential thrives when compassion joins correction.

Redemption as a Lifelong Practice

For Senghor, redemption isn’t achieved once and for all; it’s sustained daily through choices aligned with growth. By teaching, creating, and loving, he redefines freedom as contribution. His last words invite readers to imagine a world “where men and women aren’t held hostage to their pasts.” In that vision lies the book’s ultimate lesson: redemption is not exceptional—it’s possible for anyone courageous enough to rewrite their wrongs.