Time

Well, shit, so I was trying to figure out somewhere to put the camera.

Hold on a minute.

Today is, um, July 23rd.

And, uh...

a lot of things have changed since the beginning of this tape.

Uh, my husband is in jail.

I've been out now a week and a day...

after being locked up, uh, since May 24th.

But I know that despite how grim my circumstances may look right now,

everything is gonna be okay.

We'll come back.

A motorcycle.

We'll come back.

Stronger than before.

I'm pregnant with twins.

Let me get a shot of the twins.

Look there.

That's the twins at 22 weeks.

Move. Laurence, if you do not move...

Good morning...

six-year-old boy.

Good morning.

Today your first day of school, buddy.

Hey. Hey. Hey.

Good morning, Robert.

Today is August 24,

Remington's first day of kindergarten.

What you gonna do in kindergarten, Rem?

Do my alphabets,

then find me all the girlfriends I want.

Good morning, baby.

You can hear the ice falling.

And there are those ding-dongs in the cold.

Hey, Ding-a-ling Two and One.

Hey. Hey!

It's cold.

Go, Laurence!

It's crazy, babe!

Oh, my goodness. How much is that...

Okay.

- Planning on getting married anytime soon? - I am married.

- Are you? - Mm-hmm. To Remington's father.

When?

We've been married a year and a half now.

Almost a year and a half.

Where is he?

Uh, he's — he's, uh, out of town now.

And you know what, I don't want you up there

goofing off with them other boys, okay?

- Mm-hmm. - You pay attention.

Pay attention. Center. Pay attention.

That's your objective for today.

Uh-huh. Me and Jared don't run.

Where my head at, Remington?

There it is.

Boy, you better grow up to be a man.

With your cute self.

Well, Dad, this is the fall season.

Trees starting to turn colors.

Today is October 18.

October 18 is today's date.

I just want to show you these houses, Dad.

See which one we gonna get.

Yeah, see which one we gonna get.

Damn, they nice. They close together.

So, Pops, this is me. This is myself.

Back to you.

It's a beautiful day today, baby. I wish you could enjoy it with me.

My passenger seat is vacant.

Nigga, and just think, I met your ass when I was 16.

Sixteen years old.

Always knew there was something about you.

Ooh, boy, I love you, Robert.

I love me some Robert.

Girl, you got some kind of story.

Do you see this smile, Robert?

Do you know how hard I'm gonna be smiling when you come home?

Nigga, oh...

Nigga — What? Smiling?

Me and all my children are probably gonna walk around like this all day.

Nigga's jaw's gonna be hurtin' all the time.

Say what?

Sibil Fox did what?

I feel like a champion.

Mm, I like.

They call it the Big Easy, but truth be told,

without proper transportation, she can —

You know, as we're saying "proper transportation,"

we're zooming out, and then, "She can be hard as hell."

Right.

And, um — And then coming back to me

when I'm introducing myself, um —

Peace and love, family. I'm Fox Rich.

And as the wife and mother of six boys, um...

I know the importance of transportation.

As a wife and mother of six boys...

I appreciate the opportunity to serve

as your personal auto buyer at Rich Motors of New Orleans.

Cool.

I know what it means to need proper transportation

for you and your family to get around in.

Listen, truth be told,

a car is more important than a house, if you ask me.

'Cause — you can sleep in your car,

but, baby, you can't drive your house around.

Um, so that's — that's it.

Cool. So I think what we'll do is,

we'll get a shot of you saying all of that.

- Okay. - And then we'll also do —

And then you can even look over my shoulder

and we can kind of do the other stuff together and make sure that's right.

We can time it out —

What I wanted to do, too, was just be able to see

what I look like, hair-wise, lip-gloss-wise, um —

Yeah, sure, we can do that, too.

And see what the shot looks like real quick.

Yeah. It's gonna take me a second.

- We're gonna get the lights right for you. - Okay.

So I'm just gonna take a look at what we're working with here.

They may call her the Big Easy, but truth be told,

being in New Orleans without transportation

can be hard as hell.

- Awesome. - I think I need to roll my shoulders back.

- Let's try it again. - All right, do it one more time.

- Or as many times as you need, really. - Mm-hmm.

Step out just a little more.

I was born Sibil Verdette Fox

on August 18, 1971.

My mother was an educator, and my grandmother

was the housekeeper for Hank Williams' mother.

I came from a people who had a strong desire to have something,

to make something out of ourselves.

My mother...

she taught me from a very young age that the American Dream was real.

And she would say, "Sibil, you can make it if you try."

And so, here I was, a young girl from the urban city,

and I was determined to try.

There's the Rich family. What you think about that?

I met my husband Robert when I was 16 years old.

I had married my high school sweetheart.

We had purchased our first home,

put the deposit down on our first business.

We were about to blow up.

Getting close to Aunt Sandra's house.

And little does she know what's coming.

Mama.

There they go.

Ah, Sibil!

Surprise!

Little did I know,

my family already had everything we needed.

We had each other.

Listen, my story is the story

of over two million people in the United States of America

that are falling prey to the incarceration

of poor people and people of color.

So I'm asking you to come out and join me.

And I had one other thing. What was it?

Oh, we're gonna be going live. If you cannot make it tonight,

then I would ask that you catch the live broadcast

at 7:00 p.m. on my Facebook page,

because we will be posting live from the experience.

Listen, it's more than a conversation, y'all.

It is definitely the — an experience, and I hope you can meet me there.

Tulane University, 7:00 p.m. tonight

at the Rogers Memorial Chapel.

Peace and love.

Hey, you, come here real quick.

This is supposed to always line up.

Your belt is supposed to always line up with the seam of your shirt.

Who pulled the clothes out the dryer like that?

Ladies and gentlemen, if you will please join me

in giving your warmest Green Wave welcome

to my mother, your speaker for this evening, Fox Rich.

Let me get it clear from the start.

I know I didn't get away with nothing but my life.

September 16, 1997, my husband and I arrive

at Grambling Federal Credit Union.

Dang — That's what I said.

Why the hell did I do that?

What in the world was I thinking of?

Rob and I had a dream to open Shreveport's first hip-hop clothing store.

But we were struggling to make ends meet.

And what I remember during that time more than anything

was not wanting to fail.

And we had become desperate.

Desperate people do desperate things.

It's as simple as that.

When I dropped my husband and his nephew off...

to rob a bank...

immediately after they got out of the car, I knew.

We had entered into a world...

that we... would never forget.

At that time,

armed robbery carried a five- to 99-year sentence.

And on June 15, 1999,

my husband was sentenced to 60 years in prison

without the benefit of probation,

parole or suspension of sentence.

Sixty years...