BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Alice Marie Johnson returns to Birmingham for the first time after President Donald Trump commuted her life sentence and she was released from prison two years ago.

  • FILE – In this April 1, 2019, file photo President Donald Trump, left, listens as former prisoner Alice Marie Johnson, right, speaks at the 2019 Prison Reform Summit and First Step Act Celebration in the East Room of the White House in Washington. The 64-year-old African American great-grandmother spent 21 years in prison for a nonviolent drug offense before Trump commuted her sentence in 2018. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
  • This combination photo shows Kim Kardashian West at the Tiffany & Co. 2018 Blue Book Collection: The Four Seasons of Tiffany celebration in New York on Oct. 9, 2018, left, and Alice Marie Johnson during an interview on in Memphis, Tenn. on June 7, 2018. Johnson, who Kardashian West helped get out of prison, popped up on the reality star’s Instagram feed hawking her new shapewear line. Johnson kicked off a campaign for SKIMS that will feature 25 other real women who will speak to how SKIMS “empowers them to feel the best versions of themselves.” (AP Photo)
  • President Donald Trump reacts as Alice Johnson, an inmate whose life sentence was commuted thanks in part to the efforts of Kim Kardashian West, right, thanks the media while speaking at the 2019 Prison Reform Summit and First Step Act Celebration in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, April 1, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Johnson says she was in a very “hopeless situation” and she was able to “maintain hope.” Johnson had been sentenced to life in prison for her role in a Tennessee drug ring. She had served 21 years of a life sentence in an Alabama prison.

After being championed by Kim Kardashian West and others who argued her life sentence was too harsh, President Trump commuted it.

Describing George Floyd’s death as a “wake-up call,” she offered a message of hope:

“I bring a message of healing, a message also of justice, a message of peace for this nation.”

Alice Marie Johnson

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