My side of the line
Lateefah Simon

By Rebecca JamesCourie
Editor-in-Chief

A very remarkable woman made a very remarkable speech Wednesday evening to a group of people who were brought to their feet in a standing ovation. The ovation wasn’t simply out of respect for her life’s work that she began at the age of 15, but it was because we were all drawn into her inspiring dream and, somehow, we needed her to know that.

After a nice reception and enjoyable dinner hosted by Scripps College’s Mallot Commons and orchestrated by Laurel Horn, Mallot Commons programming associate, folks sat back in their chairs and were completely blown away by the frank, funny, tender and passionate words of Lateefah Simon, director of the Re-entry Programs for the San Francisco district Attorney’s Office. She spoke about the “Transformative Power of Community Development,” and she spoke from experience.

Ms. Simon grew up in San Francisco’s Western Addition neighborhood, which she referred to as “the Harlem of the west,” where they didn’t have fathers, but had “amazing mothers.” Children didn’t play skip rope or double-dutch. Instead they were in a neighborhood where, across the street, they saw men engaging in drug sales. Young men grew up to sell drugs to women who looked like their mothers. And, Ms. Simon said, “We dated those men.” Then, when the police arrested these men, Ms. Simon said, “Men in blue took away the only men we knew.”

Her world was so convoluted that people would stop for a dog in the middle of a street, but they wouldn’t stop a child to find out why that child wasn’t in school. In this world, children would lie to authorities to protect their parents and found a sense of community with other children who had to do the same.

Ms. Simon’s first “amazing job” was at Taco Bell – an institution which first saw leadership qualities in her. At $4.50 an hour, Ms. Simon left school (noting that no one came after her to ask her to come back). She soon became the manager of the store.

But it wasn’t until she met a young college student who was working on a project, that Ms. Simon’s life took a remarkable twist. The college student got a grant that enabled her to take poor women, interview them and learn of their life’s experiences. But, she took it one step further and gave these women tools to begin a new life filled with hope because these women got paid for sharing their experiences.

At the tender age of 15, Ms. Simon joined this woman who had formed the Center for Young Women’s Development, and became a “freedom fighter for women who were fighting to survive.” There were no racial boundaries as all races came together as sisters. Young women were not demonized for being young mothers. Rather, the group created a “gospel of possibilities.”

Four years later, Ms. Simon became the executive director of the organization which now had a budget of $1.2 million. While Ms. Simon was with the group for the next 11 years, the group provided more than 3500 women with the tools to rebuild their lives, and it continues its quest still today.

At the age of 26, Ms. Simon won a MacArthur Fellowship – the youngest person ever to have received this award. She also received the Visions for a Changing World Award; San Francisco’s Woman of the Year award for 2005; and Oprah Winfrey’s first “Chutzpah” award in May 2004 O Magazine. Ms. Simon has also spoken to the United Nations and before the United States Senate. She left the Center to give in her desire for more knowledge and is now going to Mills College and works for the District Attorney’s office.

Today, at the age of 31, Ms. Simon is still making changes in the world – having now worked for the San Francisco District Attorney’s office for more than a year. In tow, she keeps her 11-year-old daughter by her side – “No, things weren’t perfect for me growing up,” she admits with a smile – and feels that her daughter is a “compass for truth,” as many children undeniably are when we see the world through their eyes.

At the District Attorney’s office, Ms. Simon works to provide formerly incarcerated young men and women with educational and employment opportunities. She helps to evaluate the harshness of a system that could send a person to prison who only committed a minor infraction. She has helped to take the blinders off a society that boldly puts all felons into one category, and has shown that circumstances do affect the judgments of others and that all circumstances must be reviewed.  Her program is a national model, which has reduced the recidivism rate for that population to less than 10 percent – meaning these young people are staying clean, getting jobs, and making a contribution to society.

Ms. Simon’s remarkable life is a testament to possibilities – a “gospel of possibilities” as she put it. Once we give people and their circumstances a second look – then, perhaps a second chance – they, too, can become something short of remarkable.