We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah DeArmond. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.

Sarah, appreciate you joining us today. Day to day the world can seem like a tough place, but there’s also so much kindness in the world and we think talking about that kindness helps spread it and make the world a nicer, kinder place. Can you share a story of a time when someone did something really kind for you?

I’ve been Timothy McGruder’s legal advocate for five years. Timothy’s wrongful conviction case is the main one that my nonprofit has been focused on raising awareness for, as well as raising money in order to help pay for his legal bills.

Timothy’s son is the one who reached out to me, asking if I could look into his father’s case. When I agreed after looking into it and seeing such an outrageous miscarriage of justice, Timothy’s family welcomed me with open arms.

His son had told me, “You’ve given me hope and have helped get so much done.” That means a lot because I not only care about Timothy and his case, I care about his family very much. I made them a promise I won’t let them down and that Timothy will come home.

Timothy was excited to get to know me from the first day he called me. He would’ve had every right to have been skeptical of me. Which, to be fair, it’s not like he started spilling his whole life story immediately. Trust still needed to be built. Just noting that he was never dismissive when he was told that I wanted to help and has been a gentleman from day one.

Sadly, when someone has been incarcerated for decades, people closest to them fade away. Advocates see it happen all the time. I’ve reminded him a couple of times, “You know I’m not going anywhere, right,” and he’s always said, “I don’t even worry about that. I know you won’t. We’re cool!”

That’s always meant the world to me, that he knows I’ll never stop fighting for him, and am definitely not going anywhere.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My nonprofit is called Voiceless Behind Bars and our mission is to help those who have been wrongfully convicted, advocate to abolish and rebuild this racist system that the prison industrial complex was built upon, and to put an end to the death penalty.

I decided to name it Voiceless Behind Bars after Timothy’s son had reached out to me for the first time. One of the things he said to me about his father was, “He just wants to be heard.”

As soon as I read that, I froze. I began thinking to myself, “How many people are in prison right now, for crimes they didn’t commit, and no one is listening to them?”

That’s where the name of my nonprofit came from, Voiceless Behind Bars, because those very words, “he just wants to be heard,” have always stayed with me. Over time, I began understanding a lot more that once one is incarcerated, they’ve not only been silenced, but WE need to be their voices. Help the public understand their cases more than what the media told them and that these are human beings, not just prisoners.

While Timothy’s case is my nonprofit’s main focus, Voiceless Behind Bars has also been helping others who have been horribly impacted by the prison system.
One of them being my friend, Sirrena Buie, whose son Kedric, was murdered at a federal prison in Atlanta right before his sentence was about to be completed.

Voiceless Behind Bars helps as much as we can to help raise awareness towards other people’s cases, as well as advocating alongside other advocacy groups/organizations. It’s not a competition, we’re all in this together, and there’s plenty of room for everyone! Especially when we work together, we’re unstoppable.

We hope to take that advocating up several notches by providing more wrongfully convicted inmates with money in order to help pay for their legal expenses. (I also show receipts whenever we use donation money, always remaining transparent with our donors.)

As long as the word continues to get out, donations keep coming in, we’ll be able to continue to grow, and provide more financial support for Timothy, Kedric, and towards many more people who have been wrongfully incarcerated.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

Oh wow! This one was difficult, but we thankfully bounced back!

When it came to filling our business taxes, the accountant we had working on them each year, lead us to believe that everything was taken care of each year.
It wasn’t. He had completely mishandled them and we had our 501c3 revoked.

I was furious and after filing for an extension with the IRS, I made it clear that accountant would never have anything to do with our business taxes again, and that I would be filing them myself online from now on.

I was able to get us caught back up and have since spoken with the IRS on the phone a couple of times since then. Our 501c3 has been reinstated and as of right now, it will be officially updated online within 30 days.

A very hard lesson, but it’s been learned, and I’ll never allow that to happen again.
I’m very glad that I took control and refused to allow this to break a wonderful nonprofit that means everything to me, and most importantly, to many others.
I feel more empowered than ever, knowing that I can and will be handing everything, and the only other people I trust are the members of my nonprofit’s board staff.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

A friend of mine on TikTok, tagged me in the comments of a video in the fall of 2020, about an innocent man on death row named Pervis Payne. I was horrified once I learned about his case and immediately started doing research.
After I got more information, I made a series of videos (at the time, videos could only be 60 seconds max), about Pervis’ wrongful conviction, and how to help,

From there, I began spreading the word about other wrongful conviction cases as well as those who have been overly sentenced. This was during the 13 execution spree the Trump Administration was doing and that’s when I learned about the cases of Brandon Bernard, Dustin Higgs, and Billie Allen. While Billie Allen thankfully wasn’t one of the 13 people executed, it was still terrifying witnessing this in real time.

As hard as many of us tried, Brandon Bernard and Dustin Higgs were among the 13 people executed. Costing us, the taxpayers, somewhere between $11.7 million-$12.2 million dollars, and blood forever on our hands.

While those executions still hurt very much, I’ve continued to raise awareness for the wrongfully convicted and those who have been overly sentenced on social media. I’ve continued to raise awareness about Billie Allen’s wrongful conviction through social media, and will continue to until he’s freed.

By spreading awareness about these cases through social media along with a call to action, people reach out and help however they’re able to. Yes, there are naysayers, and always will be. That’s not just a social media thing, that’s life.

When people see that you stand by your word, aren’t afraid to stand for what’s right, you’ll always find others who will stand alongside you.

As for those who get angry? Well, when you make hateful people angry (especially the racist, red-pilled white men), that’s when you know you’re doing something right!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.voicelessbehindbars.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itssarahonly
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1Ca3JJDri3/?mibextid=wwXIfr
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/itssarahonly
• Other: www.tiktok.com/itssarahonly

  Threads: @itssarahonly

Image Credits

Death Penalty Action, Abolition Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, and Mandie Ledkins.