Step into the remarkable life of Mitchell Rutledge, affectionately known as Big Mitch, a man whose journey began in poverty in Georgia and led to 44 years in Alabama prisons. His story, though marked by immense challenges, is a testament to profound spiritual transformation and an unlikely friendship with Our American Stories host Lee Habib. Born from a single Sunday morning phone call, this powerful connection blossomed across prison walls, revealing a soul of extraordinary depth and resilience. Explore Big Mitch’s world as he shares his unfiltered insights on life, faith, and the enduring human spirit, proving that hope can emerge even from the darkest places.
In this gripping episode, Big Mitch recounts the agonizing days spent waiting for his third sentencing—a critical moment where his life hung in the balance. Having faced a death sentence twice before, he vividly describes the isolation and profound reflection that led to a powerful realization: he had lived his life “in prison within the world, within the world.” Hear his raw, honest account and the deeply moving poem he wrote during that pivotal period, offering a unique window into a spirit grappling with its past and seeking a higher purpose. His words remind us of the incredible capacity for personal growth and an unwavering human spirit, even in the face of life-altering decisions.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 2: This is a free call from an.
Speaker 3: Incarcerated Individual at Alabama Department of Corrections.
Speaker 1: To accept this pre call,
Speaker 4: Press one; to refuse this pre call, press two.
Speaker 2: Thank you for using Securus. Start the conversation. Now, I was going back to be sentenced the third time.
Speaker 5: The first two.
Speaker 2: Times I was sentenced to death. The third time I go back, my lord, you tell me, said, ‘Well, Mitchell, the district attorney’s now gonna make any mistakes this time. It’s the last time.’ He said, ‘They put you back on death row this time,’ said, ‘well, it’s over with.’ He was just being honest with me. So I went in with that understanding. And if I went back on death rod this time, that I was down on death road because I had been on death road. He sentenced me to death in eighty-one. Then I get a new sentence in here, in eighty-five. And doing the closing arguments, the district attorney made him proper statement, and the Alabama Supreme Court gave me another sentence in the here and decided whether I should receive the death penalty of life for that parole. And during that particular trial, the jury came back and recommended life with that parole. However, the judge explained to me, and my lawyer said, ‘Well, the jury recommended life with that parole, but I had a final sense, though, so I’m gonna make my decision in two weeks.’
Speaker 5: So what they did.
Speaker 2: They took me in, put me in a four-man seve block. I stayed in there two weeks, and the only thing I could hear now the whole two weeks was a shower dripping, you know. And so I had my Bible with me, didn’t have anything else. I was trying to get a TV, you know, something to occupy the time. They’d give me something to think about while waiting to be resenting. So, anyway, while I sitting in there, I sitting there one day, and I’m just looking out the window because I have nothing to do. I shot down, and I said, ‘Wow.’ I said, ‘I’m, I’m in this world, but in actuality, you know, I never really…’
Speaker 5: lived in this world.
Speaker 2: It sounds crazy, but it’s true in the sense that I never really had any experience outside of just being in, you know, in prison, the neighborhood. That’s it: job, go, whatever. So I really don’t know. So I said, ‘Well, I’m in prison within a world. In this world. It’s a whole different world right here.’ So I said, ‘I’m in prison within the world, within the world.’
Speaker 5: So what I did.
Speaker 2: I sat down and I wrote this poem, and here it goes. As I sit within my world watching life go on, I see life as it really is. How? Because time has stood still for me. As I sit in my window within my world watching life. Life is not unkind, nor is it kind. Life is what man has made of it. Man has changed life into a game, or they cruel and other game man has created. As I sit and watch it, my heart becomes sad, my mind confused. My eyes cry because of what they see. My ears ache because of the pain they hear. My voice yearns, ‘I’ve stop, stop!’ but no one hears me. My hands reach out to all, but no one cares to take them. My leg and feet walk the trouble rows with you, but you refuse to acknowledge me. My body hungers for your love, or no love I’ve received. It could be said it is I who sits and waits within your world, but within your prison, within your world, because I was completed by man’s game. Now I sit and wait, waiting for the game to end, so that each one of us can live as life was meant to be lived. For those who come from end, get it be seen: I sit and wait.
Speaker 1: And you’ve been listening to Big Mitch Rutledge. And my goodness, what insights, what profound insights! ‘I’m in this world,’ he said, ‘But in actuality, you know, I’ve never really lived in this world.’ And that sounds crazy, but it’s true. I never really had an experience outside of just being in prison. And then, of course, that remarkable poem. There’s so much remarkable poetry coming from this man, and hearing him read it is just special. Having listened to it many, many months later… When we come back, more of Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, and I’d like to encourage you to subscribe to Our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed or want to hear again can be found there daily. Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It helps us keep these great American stories coming. And we continue with Our American Stories in Episode Ten of Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch. Getting by on death row wasn’t easy, but it was even harder to see someone Mitch knew and someone Mitch grew close to, finally face the consequences of their actions. Here, Mitch shares a bit about the first man he would see executed during his time on death row.
Speaker 2: John. I got to know him, who they executed him.
Speaker 2: He was one of the guys that we needed someone out there on the hallway to represent us, you know. If a guy seeking to say, uh, if a guy needed this and needed it, because the officers really didn’t have the time to just, you know, to come on the tears and do the things that need to be done.
Speaker 2: So we had to really, he’s like, you know, protest to get someone out there.
Speaker 2: So, uh, John, he agreed to come out there. And, uh, I really didn’t know him. I knew that he lived downstairs, and I knew of him, but I never really got to know him until he got out there and started working outside on the hallways for us.
Speaker 5: And, uh, at this time.
Speaker 2: I was staying in seven U-two, I think. And when he come upstairs, he had one sailing and myself.
Speaker 5: So I’m always in there.
Speaker 2: Pretty much exercising or whatever. Stay. I was shadowboxing, and I do not know how to box, but I was just shadowboxing as part of exercise. And he was stopping shadowboxing, and I was asking him, ‘Hey, man, what’s up?’ And he would repeat that thing to me, you know. And eventually we were, uh, he stopped asking me. One day he said, ‘Man, can you box?’ I said, ‘No, I can’t box, man.’ And, uh, so he said, ‘I thought that.’ He said, ‘I figured you couldn’t ’bout us,’ you know. So we started communicating with each other, and so from now we got to talking about…
Speaker 5: a lot of things were going on.
Speaker 2: You know, we got to be pretty cool. So, the first time for all of us, that execution is going to take place. Everybody up there for the same thing, but this is the first one that we have experienced. The guys that were up there with me, and it was like a year, a Philly, you know. And so, on Mondays, because the execution was taken out on, like, Thursday nights. So when we heard about it, you know, the Supreme Coast, after nine, it’s appeal, and they set a date for the execution. So it’s all your five for appeals. So we had an understanding that he was fighting for it. But eventually it came down to the point where the week had come, you know, the deadline was coming up. So that week before your deadline, they moved you out of your regular cell on Mondays. They come and get you on Monday, Monday morning, or sometime on Mondays, and they put you in the death cell.
Speaker 2: And, uh, well, they put you in the death cell. Then you don’t see the guys anymore.
Speaker 5: We don’t.
Speaker 2: We don’t see each other anymore. When they came and got him Monday and took him to the death cell, that’s when the realization of where we were at and what we were up there came to hit all of us in the vase.
Speaker 2: So, Wednesday, when they shaved his head… They’ll put you in the death cell Monday. Then they put an officer and right there in front of your cell to watch you, make sure that, you know, you don’t try to commit suicide or anything.
Speaker 2: So that Wednesday, when they took him around there to shave his head and everything, and we, we, uh, it was getting serious.
Speaker 2: And that Thursday, like, when they executed him.
Speaker 5: Now that’s when the…
Speaker 2: realization. It was so quiet up there that you couldn’t hear anything. You couldn’t hear anything, but you could, you know, by the electy children not being so far away from you and where we were. You know what I’m saying? Uh, you could smell the flesh. And, uh, it was, uh, it was just for every feeling and what it did. I think it really just resonated to everybody up there: ‘Hey, this is what you’re up here for if you don’t get off.’ And from that moment, it really just, like, just put a real, real bad taste in everybody’s mouth. And it taught us, I would say, about a week or two to really get over what really just happened, because we interact with this guy on a daily basis. And now, you know, they killed it. And so all of us are waiting for…
Speaker 5: the same time.
Speaker 1: Mitch next talks about the bonds that can form in the most unlikely of places and the brotherhood that the men on Mitch’s cellblocks share. Here’s Mitch on the bonds he formed during his time on death row.
Speaker 2: We knew everybody was going. We came to the conclusion, I guess it’s like when you’re going in the army and you fight for your country, you go to war: you know, everybody ain’t gonna make it out of it. So we knew everybody. We understood that; we just didn’t know who. But all of us had hosts and believed that we would be one of the ones that make it off death row.
Speaker 2: But we understood that everybody would not make it off. And that wasn’t necessarily an easy thing to really sit down and talk about where…
Speaker 5: an individual was that you got.
Speaker 2: To know, ‘Hey, man, some others ain’t gonna make it off here,’ and to have that understanding and agreement. So, what we did, we established a unique bond amongst each other.
Speaker 2: We, we, we helped each other out if we could. We, uh, we shared with each other with what we had. Even though there was time when here we’ll we’ll have altercations with each other, we would fight each other. That was time when individuals, you know, at ease, and got a knife and stab one another.
Speaker 5: You know, what have you? We’re…
Speaker 2: It was still prison, but we had unique. And that’s when we say a kinship, you know.
Speaker 2: We, we, we shared this possibility of the executed. We had that income.
Speaker 1: Mitch next shared an original poem of his about maintaining strength and focus on God to overcome the evil relentlessly tries to creep into his life.
Speaker 2: It was so much going on in the world, and, you know, and I was, you know, talking to guys about, you know, how we really have to just stay focused on God and stay focused on our spiritual journey, you know. And understanding that the enemy is not necessarily a big trying to creature with horns on the head; it’s a spirit that dwells inside of people. And so I said, ‘We, we got to stand strong at this time in our life in this spiritual warfare.’ So, anyway, I, I wrote this poem right here called ‘This Stand,’ and, uh, this way I started off with it. ‘God has closed the doors to my inner vision for some time. It is all his will. However, the door is opened once more, and the mysteries of life are clearer than ever. I see the erosion of evil as its truth to exist as the glory of God comes closer to it, close in its tombs that will steal it away forever, as it erodes gay House have begun to…’
Speaker 5: march harder to destroy order.
Speaker 2: It is mounting on high. It speaks to the Mius of babies to obtain sympathies. It comes in disguises, in all our and all our core failures, in order to deceive us and to believe in the things we know are wrong. It is standing on the pillars and foundation of righteousness, preaching lies, but the truth stands in defiance of it all. Actually, for the faithful ones to stand strong at the darkest hour, because morning is only a glimpse away.
Speaker 1: And a terrific job by the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hangli and our own Reagan Habib. And this conversation, well, it just kept getting deeper and more interesting each week that I proceeded with Big Mitch. And my goodness, that battle between good and evil, and how we can often see evil just winning with no end in sight! And here’s Big Mitch, locked away in a cell for forty-five years, and he sees things differently. He sees God in everything. The story of Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch, Episode Ten. Here on Our American Stories. This is Our American Stories. And up next, Joey Cortez brings you a story about a fictional character we all know and love: Superman, and how he would team up with a real-life undercover agent to take down a truly vicious villain.
Speaker 6: Over the years, Superman has fought many villains, including the KKK. Rick Bauers brings us the story of how the hero not only fought this villain in the fictional series, but also in real life. Here’s Rick with the backstory.
Speaker 4: The actual Superman character was created by two Jewish kids in Cleveland in the nineteen-thirties. And these two kids were high school students and they loved science fiction. They would hold up in their attic studio, reading science fiction magazines, books. They would go to the movies. You know, Kpe heroes like Zorro were doing great things on the big screen, and they were taking all of that in. And they started to create their own characters. And they created a character and a story called ‘The Reign of Superman.’ But in that first iteration, Superman was bad. He was an evil scientist, doing horrid experiments on homeless men during the Depression, and he had no real superpowers; he was just super evil. So they were creating some interesting characters, but there was always something about that character, that original Superman, that not quite right. So they put that on a shelf and let it incubate. And as Superman lore goes, one night, Jerry Siegel, one of these two young men who were struggling to get through the Depression, find work, and make it in the field of comic art, had an epiphany: ‘We have it backwards!’ What the world really needs is a good Superman. And that epiphany and the character that evolved from it came just as publishers in New York City were developing the first comic books. And the first comic books were actually compilations of newspaper strips: ‘Little Orphan Annie,’ ‘Popeye.’ And those newspaper strips would be put in books and sold for a dime of peace. But after the supply of newspaper strips had been exhausted, these publishers needed original content. And one publisher recalled this set of drawings that these kids from Cleveland had said with this character called Superman. And they were in a pinch to launch a comic book called ‘Action Comics.’ So they hired Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to put together thirteen pages of Superman stories for the original edition of ‘Action Comics.’ And before anyone really knew what happened, hundreds of thousands of those comic books had been sold, and the character that we all now know as Superman was born.
Speaker 3: Boys and girls, your attention, please: presenting a new, exciting radio program in…
Speaker 4: The nineteen-forties. ‘The Adventures of Superman on the Air’ was created.
Speaker 3: Master than an airplane, more powerful than a locomotive, impervious to bullets!
Speaker 2: Up in the sky!
Speaker 3: Look! It’s a bert! It’s a pinman!
Speaker 4: And a creative writer and producer named Bob Maxwell transformed Superman into a radio show from the Mutual Broadcasting System in New York, where actors, it sound effects people would create a radio program three times a week where Superman took on mad scientists and crime gangs and evil spectral beings.
Speaker 5: And it became a hit.
Speaker 4: So Superman was now in comic books. He was a strip in newspapers, he was a serial in the movie theaters, and he was reaching four million households three times a week through the radio. As World War Two comes, the creators use him more as a weapon against America’s enemies. So he’s taking on Nazi spies, he’s taking on German generals, and in one case, he actually took on Hitler and grabbed him by the scruff and carried him off to an international tribunal to be tried for war crimes. So Superman has become a meaningful character.
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