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Emile DeWeaver is an award-winning activist from Oakland whose life sentence in prison was commuted by California’s Governor Brown after 21 years for his transformative work in prison.
While in prison, Emile was a culture writer, a journalist, and a community organizer who helped pass CA’s Proposition 57 and the Youthful Offender Parole Hearings Act (SB 260 and 261, Sen. Hancock).
Emile is a Soros Justice Fellow, an Uncommon Hero Awardee, a Just Leadership Fellow, a Center of Just Journalism Fellow, and a Canary Foundation Prize winner. He was featured on ABC News, in Fast Company Magazine, and in the San Francisco Chronicle and has more than 50 published works. His memoir, Ghost in the Prison Industrial Machine, is due out from the New Press in Fall 2024.
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