Inmate on death row speaks to Brandeis crowd about music, religion and redemption  

In an unusual presentation at the Brandeis University Library on Tuesday, about 80 people listened to a convicted murderer speak from Wake County Detention Center in Raleigh, N.C.

Alim Braxton (also known as Rrome Alone) answered questions from the audience in what otherwise would have been an impossible conversation thanks to his co-presenter, Mark Katz, professor of music at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who brought Braxton’s voice to the room via his cell phone held to a microphone.

The two met in 2019 when Braxton sent a handwritten letter to Katz explaining his desire for technological support for what would become the first-ever album recorded by phone from death row. The exchange of letters evolved into a co-authored book, “Rap and Redemption: Seeking Justice and Finding Purpose Behind Bars” (2024). Their letters are now archived at the University of North Carolina in the “Alim Braxton Collection, 2019-2022,” and Braxton’s album is available on Spotify.

 “Alim Braxton accepts his guilt,” Katz wrote in the preface to the book. “‘I’m not innocent’ was one of the first things he said to me when I visited him in Central Prison in Raleigh in early 2020.”

Braxton murdered two men during a robbery spree in 1993 when he was 19 years old. Three years later, while serving two life sentences plus 110 years for those murders and for armed robbery, he killed a fellow inmate. For that crime, he was sentenced to death.

“I do not want to minimize his crimes or ignore his victims,” Katz wrote. “His crimes are indefensible, the pain of his victims and their loved ones incalculable. Those he has harmed owe him nothing. This book is not a plea for forgiveness.”

The question that hangs over Braxton is whether good can be salvaged from such a life. Braxton believes, Katz said, that through his good works, redemption is possible.

Braxton spoke to the Brandeis audience about his conversion to Islam, which saved him from despair and helped him find purpose. He spent 7 years in solitary confinement and, prior to 2016, was allowed only one ten-minute phone call per year. He said he had changed his life, his attitude, and his way of thinking.

“I see hope for what tomorrow may be for me,” he said.

Through his music and his writings, Braxton seeks to call attention to those on death row whom he contends were wrongly convicted. He wrote that during his time on death row, 35 people have been executed and seven were exonerated. Two of his friends, he claimed, are innocent, but don’t have the resources or voice to generate attention.

Braxton wrote in the book: “My friend Sabur is innocent. The man ain’t never killed nobody. One of the reasons I know is because when you actually kill someone you lose an innocence that you can never regain. And just talking to Sabur sometimes reminds me of the innocence that I once had. It’s a way of seeing the world that you never appreciate until it is lost. And once it is lost, it never comes back.”

Brandeis students are passionate about social justice

Incarceration is a topic that has generated significant interest on the Brandeis campus. The faculty-led Brandeis Educational Justice Initiative (BEJI) creates educational courses and programs for individuals who are currently or formerly incarcerated, and students participate in this work, according to the organizers of Tuesday’s event, Rosalind Kabrhel, chair of Legal Studies Program and director, BEJI, and Megan Moran, associate director, Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation, and program advisor, Community Engaged Scholars Program.

“Brandeis students are passionate about many social justice issues,” Kabrhel said, “but BEJI raises awareness about the particular harms of mass incarceration and promotes carceral reform on campus.”

Students formed a complementary student-run club called Carceral Awareness, Reform, and Education (CARE), which works with BEJI to host events and other activities related to prison reform. 

“Prison is a hidden world, making it easy to forget that those behind bars are human beings, navigating life’s complexities just as we do on the outside,” Kabrhel said. “I hope attendees recognize that community, hope, love, forgiveness, and triumph can thrive even in the darkest of places.”

Kabrhel added that she “was struck by how poised, sincere, and calm Alim was in spite of his circumstances and the circumstances of his participation, which was so deftly managed by Professor Katz.”

Students were moved by how expressive Braxton was when talking about his faith, according to Moran. One wrote to her afterward that it was particularly meaningful to hear the voices of Katz and Braxton as they spoke for incarcerated people who don’t have a voice.

The event was hosted by The Vic ’63 and Bobbi Samuels ’63 Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation and BEJI. Co-sponsors include the Brandeis University Library, Brandeis University Center for Spiritual Life, Basement Records, C.A.R.E, and the Muslim Student Association.