When Kemba Smith Pradia spoke this fall to a gathering of students at South Carolina State University, her candid talk about violence against women and the campus “hype” over drugs, sex and money resonated with students and faculty alike.
“By having enough courage to stand up and share her story, she empowered a lot of young men and women,” says Tiffany McMillian, a social work major at SCSU who was in the audience. “She was really real. (She) didn’t keep any secrets.”
Kemba Smith Pradia knows of what she speaks.
Ten years ago this month, Kemba Smith was wasting away in a federal prison as prisoner No. 26370-083. Used by others as a “drug mule,” the Richmond, Va., native, had pleaded guilty to her low-level involvement in a violent cocaine drug ring. She was serving a mandatory federal prison term of 24 1/2 years with no chance for parole. Her sentence was longer than that for many people convicted of murder, rape, robbery, fraud or arson, despite her being a first-time, non-violent offender and, in this case, having never used cocaine or benefited financially from the drug ring’s activities.
Smith lost her way early in college while trying to live the “fast lane” lifestyle of many of her peers. The fast lane led her into a relationship with a physically abusive boyfriend, a drug dealer who took her on a cross-country odyssey to elude capture by the authorities.
The fast life caused Smith to lie to her parents about school and her lifestyle and drop out of Hampton University. She would eventually break up with the boyfriend, now deceased, give birth to their son, Armani, while in custody and finally be deposited in the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Conn., to serve her sentence.
Smith’s “nightmare” was a case of a promising college student who became a poster child for the failures of a hastily written federal mandatory minimum drug sentencing law. In December 2000, during his final days in office, President Bill Clinton commuted Smith’s prison sentence to the 6 1/2 she had served.
