KEWANEE, Ill. — “I stand here, not as an incarcerated woman, but as a Northwestern graduate,” Maria Garza said while standing under a tent-covered courtyard at the Kewanee Life Skills Re-Entry Center on Friday morning.
Garza spent about 12 years incarcerated in the women’s Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln and was released in 2021. She now works as executive director for READI Chicago and as an advocate for re-entry services.
She returned to the area Friday morning to join her classmates at commencement, where 18 incarcerated women made history as the first cohort of women to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University’s Prison Education Program.
“This road is not mine to walk alone,” Garza said. “Our education should not end with commencement, and today is about us, forever the first.” While Garza has been released, the rest of the class has release dates ranging from next month to a few years.
The graduates were joined by their grandparents, parents, children and friends. One attendee said she drove from Detroit to see her mom graduate…