The Second Chance Chronicles w/ Chaddrick Thomas

  A Love Letter to Antioch Missionary Baptist Church By Chaddrick Thomas There’s a scripture in Proverbs that says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17). After more than two decades in prison, I can tell you with every fiber of my being that these words are not just poetry—they’re a living truth. For me, that truth has a name. It’s not just an idea or a concept. It’s a place. A people. A home. That truth is Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Plant City, Florida. I grew up in the pews of that little church on Horton Road. I sang in the choir, my voice cracking as a young boy trying to keep up with the seasoned saints. I didn’t know then what that church would come to mean to me. Back then, church was just Sunday tradition. It was fried chicken after service, choir rehearsal during the week, and Vacation Bible School in the summer. But now, as I sit in a cell surrounded by concrete and steel, I realize something I didn’t see befor...

  By Chaddrick Thomas Not all violence bleeds. Some violence shows up as eviction notices. Empty fridges. Unpaid medical bills. Over-policed schools and underfunded ones. Whole communities built like cages—and called “neighborhoods.” This is structural violence: The kind that doesn’t make headlines but shortens lifespans. The kind that doesn’t leave bruises but breaks futures. The kind this country is built on. Fanon Said It Best Frantz Fanon warned that oppression doesn’t always come with a gun. It comes with laws. Schools. Banks. Hospitals. He saw colonial systems that didn’t just dominate through force, but through design. And America? We’ve mastered it. Structural Violence Is the System as Weapon This violence is built into the blueprint: Redlining: Decades of denying home loans and wealth to Black families, creating cycles of poverty. Healthcare inequality: Black mothers dying during childbirth at triple the rate of white women. Education apartheid: Public schools in low-incom...

By: Chaddrick Thomas In every empire, violence flows downhill. It starts at the top—sanctioned, structured, praised—and crashes down on those with the least power, the least voice, the least protection. And in this country, we’ve built an entire system that not only tolerates that violence but depends on it to function. We call it “order.” We call it “discipline.” We call it “justice.” But what we’re really describing is vertical violence—violence from the top down. Fanon Told Us What It Is Frantz Fanon saw this in the colonies and in the streets of Europe. He called it what it was: “a systematized violence, directed from the colonizer toward the colonized.” And what is modern America if not a colony dressed in different clothes? Our courts, our cops, our schools, our hospitals—they’re not neutral. They reflect the power structure. And power, when unchecked, always uses violence to stay in control. What Does Vertical Violence Look Like Today? A police officer slams a teenager to the gr...

  By Chaddrick Thomas In the fall of 2003, I sat in a federal courtroom in Tampa, Florida, on trial for bank robbery. It was United States v. Chaddrick Thomas, Bobby Lamar Albritton, and James Range. Three of us on trial. Four former co-defendants turned government witnesses: Scotty Carpenter, David Vicker, Ava Jackson, and Nene Burns. The odds were already stacked. But nothing—nothing—could have prepared me for what happened next. My court-appointed attorney, Thomas Ostrander, fell asleep during trial. Repeatedly. Not Just a Quick Nap—He Was Snoring He didn’t doze off for a second. He wasn’t just tired. He slept. Hard. He snored in open court. He missed witness testimony. He missed cross-examinations. He missed pieces of my life being carved away one statement at a time. At one point, I nudged him awake and he jumped up shouting, “No questions for the witness, Your Honor!” But there was no one on the stand. The U.S. Marshal, Lisa Alphonso, saw it. The Court Security Officer saw it...