“I’m a Rastafarian-Quaker,” said Jondhi Harrell, easing back into his chair at the Friends Center, where the administrative office of Harrell’s nonprofit The Center for Returning Citizens (TCRC) is located.
“I know. It’s weird.”
Maybe at first, but comparisons between the two religions have been drawn before. The Atlantic in 2010 pointed to an excerpt from a 1966 paper on the Rastafari movement. Both Rastafarians and Quakers, the author writes, have notably refused to “modify their beliefs when confronted by a hostile society.”
Much like Jamaican Rastafaris and 17th-century Philadelphia Quakers, Harrell has refused to modify the beliefs he’s come to hold since returning home from prison in 2009. The nonprofit founder spent 25 years incarcerated for armed robbery. Eighteen years were in federal prison, 12 of those were spent “under the tutelage” of Black nationalist Mutulu Shakur.
Shakur’s guidance, Harrell said, created the “foundation” for the man he is, the beliefs he holds and the vision he’s striving to make manifest.
During the summer of 2011, I was reunited with my Abu & life long mentor, Dr. Mutulu Shakur. I had been serving 2 life sentences plus 30 years for conspiracy to possess crack cocaine, none of which were introduced in court nor found upon my person…nevertheless, I was given this time because of my ignorance of the drug laws, my inability to see into my educational, cultural and social background. Many people cannot remember or actually point to a particular individual or group of individuals that has helped them transition out of his or her negative past of immature decisions/choices. However, this is not my experience. Because for me it was Dr. Shakur who at the alpha of our much need reunion knew that he had to began educating me as to my ignorance, or I would become even more destructive than I was during such time as a teen high school drop-out, drug dealer, and so much more. 
I am the above addressed, Leonard A. Rollock, Jr., also known as Petey or Pete Rollock. I am 65 years young…and what I trust is significant as a former federal prisoner/defendant who spent over 25 years straight in various federal penitentiaries and lower level federal facilities is that I bear witness that inmate intellectuals who genuinely care for others become more efficient minded people at what naturally feeds their spirit…and that is providing service.
Eleven years ago today I got in a car in Connecticut and drove 26 hours to New Orleans. It was four months since Katrina and I was heading to the area to volunteer as an EMT with a relief organization founded in the wake of the storm. For six months, I volunteered as a medic at gutting sites as well as an intake provider at a free clinic. For six months, I was worn down by the devastation created by the storm and more so by the underlying social conflicts it magnified. When I got in the car in May of 2006 to return north I felt utterly faithless. Then, on the way out of town, I received a letter from Dr. Mutulu and felt a renewed strength of purpose for the first time since my arrival. “It is important work you are doing,” he wrote. “It is an important place and time.” After a week at home, I drove back to New Orleans and stayed for two more years. That was the first letter I received from Dr. Mutulu.
The Amsterdam News posted the following ‘
Whether the issue, topic, or subject is of revolutionary or political prisoner status, because the government has a way of mischaracterizing such titles, I feel it is best to know a person outside of what you may have read. I, myself have had the pleasure of meeting such a person who the government would prefer to never have to acknowledge or describe as a revolutionary or a political prisoner.