First Lady Sharon Johnson and the First Fridays Club from Eastern Star Church at the COF House

Written By Michelle Daniel

COF was honored to host First Lady Sharon Johnson and the First Fridays Club from Eastern Star Church at our home today, September 29th. We offered a tour, snacks and an overview of our program and website. The visit was also special because our visitors presented COF with a check from First Lady Sharon Johnson’s Legacy of Grace Event in which Constructing Our Future was selected to receive the proceeds from the event’s silent auction. After Dr. Kim McElroy-Jones read a scripture, Matthew 25:31-46, Lady Sharon shared her heart and the hope and prayers that she has for the work COF does for women and Dr. Daniel was presented with a check for $27,190.00. We are so thankful for First Lady Sharon Johnson and the First Fridays Club leadership and belief in COF.

Michelle Daniel

Michelle Daniel Jones, ABD is a sixth-year doctoral student in the American Studies New York University. Michelle’s dissertation focuses on creative liberation strategies of incarcerated people. As an organizer, collaborator, and subject matter expert she creates opportunities to speak truth to power and serves in the development and operation of taskforces and initiatives to reduce harm and end mass incarceration. She has joined Second Chance Educational Alliance as a Senior Research Consultant and the Women Transcending Oral History Project as a co-researcher. and serves on the boards of Worth Rises and Correctional Association of New York and advisory boards of the Jamii Sisterhood, the Survivor’s Justice Project, The Education Trust, Urban Institute and ITHAKA's Higher Ed in Prison Project.

She is Executive Director of Constructing Our Future, a housing organization created by incarcerated women in Indiana. Michelle author and co-editor of the award-winning Who Would Believe a Prisoner: Indiana Women’s Carceral Institutions, 1848-1920, published by the New Press. As an artist, Michelle finds ways to funnel her research into theater, dance and photography. Her co-authored play, “The Duchess of Stringtown” was produced in 2017 in Indianapolis and New York and her artist installation about weaponized stigma, “Point of Triangulation,” ran in New York 2019 and 2020, Philadelphia 2021 with a public mural. “Makes Me Wanna Holla: Art, Death and Imprisonment, explores COVID-19 in prisons, ran in Chicago 2023 and producer on the film, Degrees of Freedom that premiered in 2024.

https://www.michelledanieljones@gmail.com
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National Council of Negro Women Indianapolis Chapter