Our Story.
After years of being deeply involved in Transformational Prison Work,
Justice Advocacy, and Restorative Justice,
ALIGHT's founders recognized that many communities had failed to be served
by the restorative processes and programs that
we had created and been delivering in California prisons for decades.
In 2014, incarcerated people and prison administrators
at San Quentin State Prison
expressed an urgent need to address this failing,
particularly with the LGBTQ+ community.
At that time, San Quentin was preparing for a change
in designation and population demographincs that would include housing significantly more transgender and "sensitive needs" people.
Our team of Transformational Justice leaders began collaborating
with CDCR mental health professionals
and GSM (Gender/Sexual Minorities) service providers
to create the first restorative healing program specifically designed
to be intentionally inclusive and welcoming of LGBTQ people.
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That program, Acting with Compassion & Truth (ACT), was also designed to decrease gender-based aggression and violence against LGBTQ people through an educational curriculum for cisgender/ heterosexual incarcerated people.
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This design allowed ACT to created unprecedented opportunities for what Bryan Stevenson coined "the power of proximity" — and it soon led to deep healing for LGBTQ people, as well as extraordinary culture changes within the prison.
The successes and transformation that came
from introducing LGBTQ programming and education into a state prison
quickly led to requests from organizers, administrators, and leaders
from a variety of private and public sectors
to design restorative / transformative processes
for their workplaces, coalitions, clients, and courtrooms.
It also led to countless requests from incarcerated people
who felt they had also failed to be welcomed or served by Restorative Justice.
Many expressed feeling ostracized from work that is meant to repair harm
had caused them deeper trauma.
Our collective of diverse voices and lived experiences came together
to honor these requests by committing to bring the healing power of
Restorative Justice to people who have historically felt excluded from it,
as well as to people who never before knew the healing transformation possible
from this work born behind prison walls.
As we were sought out to expand into more communities,
the work grew considerably, so we felt our name should also grow
to express the entirety of our identity & purpose.
We wanted to honor ACT as the beginning of this journey,
while also acknowledging and lifting up
the many other meaningful projects
that we have seen be born from ACT
and all of the beauty that is created by people inside our prisons.
And we wanted a name that reflects who we are
— individually and collectively -
as well as the work that brings us all together.
We settled on ALIGHT,
which is a word with multiple definitions,
all of which speak so clearly
to who we are and the work we do,
both inside and outside the prison walls.
the work grew considerably, so we felt our name should also grow
to express the entirety of our identity & purpose.
We wanted to honor ACT as the beginning of this journey,
while also acknowledging and lifting up
the many other meaningful projects
that we have seen be born from ACT
and all of the beauty that is created by people inside our prisons.
And we wanted a name that reflects who we are
— individually and collectively -
as well as the work that brings us all together.
We settled on ALIGHT,
which is a word with multiple definitions,
all of which speak so clearly
to who we are and the work we do,
both inside and outside the prison walls.
