John Thompson

Overview

John Thompson spent eighteen years on Louisiana s Death Row for a crime he did not commit. He walked out of prison with ten dollars and a bus fare and he vowed to never go back. His intimate familiarity with what people experience behind prison walls as well as the great obstacles they must overcome after being released led him to launch Resurrection After Exoneration a New Orleans non profit helping innocent men reclaim their lives after being released from prison and death row. The plight of other inmates most of whom had like him grown up poor and black became a driving force of his life. In 2007 Mr. Thompson known to friends and colleagues as J.T. started Resurrection After Exoneration a residential and educational program for people leaving prison the same way they went in without money family or friends to help them. With a few small donations he bought and fixed up a run down building on the gritty edge of the French Quarter where tourist hordes fade quickly into the Treme neighborhood. It was a stable supportive environment for men with little experience of either a place where people were treated as though their lives mattered even when all their experiences with the criminal justice system had taught them the opposite. An Innocent Man Who Imagined the World as It Should Be New York Times Oct. 5 2017