Inside the Only College Class in Texas To Help Prepare People for Life After Prison
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Calvin Green paced around the table again and again.
Green was reenacting his response to getting his first smartphone after nearly 26 years in prison for a group of prisoners at the John M. Wynne Unit in Huntsville.
“I was so scared. … The phone rings. I don’t know how to click open. I don’t know how,” he said. “I was going to literally take this phone and smash it because I was so frustrated.”
Alone in the living room of his first apartment after leaving prison, Green said he played Fred Hammond worship music and walked in circles for an hour.
Green turned back to his students to explain, his hands tucked in his pockets. “In my mind —”
One student nodded; he already understood. “You’re in your cell,” the student said.
“ — I’m in my cell,” Green repeated back. In that moment of peak anxiety, he said, he told himself, “I’m good, I’m good,” until he calmed down.
