Loading...Gary Tyler was our guest speaker on Sunday, March 12, 2023. In this talk, he speaks about his story and experience, after 41 years of wrongful imprisonment, finding and creating beauty in the midst of a terrible situation.
When he was 17 years old, Gary was wrongfully convicted of murder in Louisiana by an all white jury and originally sentenced to death at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, aka "Angola" (at the time, he was the youngest person on death row in the US). He spent the next 41 years of his life at Angola. Throughout that time, he pursued education, volunteer service to others, and developed a passion for the arts - most notably, as president of the drama club, and directing a first of its kind coed outdoor Passion Play (as seen in the documentary "Cast the First Stone").
Gary was released in 2016 and now lives in Los Angeles, where he works as an artist and mentor for at risk youth.
