“We know the truth,” said Morgan, speaking Saturday evening (May 27, 2018) as part of a panel on mass incarceration and stereotyping. “We’re trying to present the truth to our community because we’re eager to serve. To whom much is given, much is owed.” Jerome Morgan puts it, “I went into prison at 17 and came out at 37.” He knew he was innocent the whole time, and it took 20 years before he was able to leave the penitentiary as a free and exonerated man .
Morgan’s 1993 murder case, in which the then 19-year-old New Orleanian was convicted of shooting dead a fellow teenager at a Sweet 16 party. Now freed, Morgan has joined with two other wrongfully and overly convicted men to preach the pitfalls of overzealous prosecution and how the image of black men as criminals worsens social, economic and racial marginalization.