Karen Morrison: Shining a Light on Injustice

Karen was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and moved to the Bronx as a little girl. She knew early that she wanted to serve others and became a teacher. She graduated from Old Dominion University with a bachelor’s in Elementary and Middle School Education, then earned her master’s in Instruction and Curriculum.

In 2014 her world changed when she learned that Corey Jacobs, a dear friend from high school, was serving life without parole for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense. No prior convictions. No weapons, drugs, or large amounts of money found at the scene. He was sent away for life on the self-serving testimony of co-defendants who traded their words for reduced sentences.

Karen had no knowledge of the law or how clemency worked. She worked night and day advocating for his release. She watched Corey grow over sixteen years inside—from a young man who had hung with the wrong crowd into someone who took full responsibility, earned more than a hundred certificates, and became a positive force. She could not accept that a good man could be thrown away like trash. Life without parole is the harshest sentence short of execution. It declares a person beyond hope and beyond redemption. In Corey’s case it was grossly out of proportion to the crime.

After two years of relentless advocacy, President Obama granted Corey clemency. He came home. But Karen’s work was just beginning.

She began taking the complex cases most people would not touch. She worked alongside Brittany K. Barnett and others. During the pandemic she pushed compassionate release hard, knowing older and sick prisoners were especially vulnerable behind walls. She founded the nonprofit Fighting 4 Freedom and started taking donations while still cutting coupons to make ends meet.

Karen focuses on the ones the system has already discarded. She has learned that clemency petitions can sit for months or years. So she and her team bring clients’ stories into the light through the press and social media, building the public pressure that forces the process to move. “When you have people calling every day,” she has said, “people start to listen.”

That's what I really love about Karen. She treats her cases with urgency, like it's her own son or daughter or mom or dad locked up. She doesn't stop. She goes to war for her pro bono clients. She's a fighter.

The results are real. Fighting 4 Freedom has helped more than twenty-eight people regain their freedom. In early 2025 the organization secured five presidential clemencies. In January 2026 two of her clients walked out on parole in Virginia.

Karen still shies away from the spotlight. “This has never been about getting credit for myself,” she says. “The work I do is about reuniting families.”

She is a model of quiet, stubborn compassion. I’m honored to write about her.