Welcome to Our American Stories. Today, we bring you a remarkable tale of connection and profound change. It’s about my friend, Mitchell Rutledge, known as Big Mitch – a man whose life path couldn’t be more different from my own. Born into poverty in Georgia, Mitch faced unimaginable challenges and spent forty-four years in Alabama prisons after taking a life. But this isn’t a story about innocence or excuses; it’s a powerful narrative about a man’s spiritual transformation while serving a life sentence, proving that growth and redemption can blossom even in the harshest environments.
Through weekly conversations that began with a single unexpected phone call, our unlikely friendship took root. You’ll hear Big Mitch himself describe the brutal reality of his decades in prison – a place he calls a “Den of Jackals,” where survival meant navigating a world of constant mistrust and danger. Yet, amidst this despair, Mitch found incredible strength, not just to endure but to thrive and help others. This is a testament to the enduring human spirit and the transformative power of faith, offering a hopeful message that even in the darkest corners of prison life, a new path of purpose can emerge.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
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story of my friend’s spiritual transformation while serving his life sentence. It’s also about a friendship. Only God could have engineered a friendship that began with a single Sunday morning call. Through these weekly conversations, I hope you come to know and love him as much as I do. Here’s our conversation on March tenth, twenty twenty-four, where Mitch begins by setting the scene for an original poem he later shares with us, called “Den of Jackals.” He compares prison life to living in a den of jackals. Everyone is out to get someone else, no one can be trusted. Let’s take a listen.
This is a free call from an incarcerated individual at Alabama Department of Corrections.
To accept this pre-call, press one. To refuse this pre-call, press two. Thank you for using Securus. You may start the conversation now. To “Den of Jackals,” I wrote that in nineteen ninety-six, February the first, nineteen ninety-six, and I wrote it at a time I was living in Tusail Down the home in prison. That’s where I did thirty-one years at, and, uh, that’s where the Death Row was at as well. And it was so treacherous in the sense that, you know, guys, the games that they played with each other, it was unfair, and it was the dog-eat-dog. You know, it’s on the strongest survived. And then they didn’t have no rule. Step on one, you know, like in my book I had gotten do called Big Grind. He said, “Well, I step on the weak. If I don’t step on, somebody else gonna step on.” So that’s, that’s the man, and I know him, and that’s, and that’s the life he lived. And, uh, and when he died in prison, you know, people celebrated, you know, it’s, you know, people were glad that he was gone. Officers as well. But anyway, the “Den of Jackals,” I was sitting down one night after I saw so much go on, and I knew a lot of the guys, and, and I said, “Well, man, I need to sit down and write about this and let people know what I see.” So this is what I came up with. And, uh, everybody knows what Jackos consist of, you know, in the concept of the jackals, but I’m talking about two legs. Jackson saw her. And when I go into it, and I said, campfire, I’m talking about, you know, the living area of where the guys were. They were. You know, four or five might be in a cell together, a four or five might be in a cubicle everywhere. Guys living in the dumbitoria, you’re sitting around talking. So I call that the camp. So here go: “I’m living in the den of Jackals. The jackals I’m speaking of are ones that walk upright. Every jackal performs dishonestly, and they’s these for his own on any other’s game. It’s a hard fight living this life with the jackals. Every jackal is trying to step on the other one or use the other one. It’s a game in the Den of Jackals. The only rule, there is no rule. Introducing young and innocent prey to the laws of the game that mistreat everything and everyone creates a monster. Innocence and fairness. It is only a children and the Den of Jackals. The only things they respect are lies, envag tell us say, hey, all of these things are welcome and a delightful pocket at in a campfire. In the Den of the Jackals, I am trapped in the Den of Jackals. Life is only given to the strongest jackals. The weakest ones become prey. It’s the beast from within their rules and the Den of Jackals.”
Locked up in a harsh environment, as Mitch was and is for so long, it’s easy for a man to lose his sanity. But with God’s lean on, Mitch managed to not only survive, but to help others thrive.
Because, you know, you’re, you’re wrestling with so many things, and you, you, you’re trying to stay focused, but you’re in the center of you. You’re in the storm, and you, you know, you’re just playing, and you’re trying to stay focused. You’re trying to keep your sanity because being it is alone, they say you go crazy. Is a lot of guys, you know, they just lose sight of a lot of things, and then they give up. This parent takeovers. So it’s so many things that attacked you in here, just ab being in here, and you have to ward those things off in there. And the only way I have been able to do that through the will of God, just through Jesus Christ, just, you know, being the center of my being, Jesus Christ bringing me through. He’s giving me wisdom, knowledge, understanding. He gives me faith. Well, He protects me as I walk through here, you know, He just, just, I’m up under His umbrella. So, and I thank God for that. That’s the only way you can make it in here. As long as I’ve been in here, here, there’s just no joke, right here.
And I’m telling you, and you’ve been listening to Big Mitch Rutledge’s forty-five years in prison. And this was our ninth week of conversation. It’s about an hour each week. Still to this day, having that hour conversation. I won’t have that hour conversation as long as Mitch is in prison, and hopefully one day, much longer conversations when he’s out. When we come back, more spiritual insight from a man who hasn’t been in civilian life for almost his entire adult life. Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch continues 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 again. 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’re back with Our American Stories and Episode Nine of Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch. While being locked up for over forty-four years, Mitch has met his share of interesting characters who go by names that are just as strange. Here’s Mitch on one of the more infamous faces to haunt the prison walls he calls home.
You have guys with nicknames, you know, all types of nicknames. Count Tractor was one of them. I met him. I was on with Death Row. He was in population. And when I got off Death Row, you know, I lived around him for a minute. But he had a notorious reputation. You know, it wasn’t good. And from my understanding, you know, he had killed several guys in prison. He and another guy killed, uh, younger guy because he, a young guy, wanted to let them rape him, so he killed him. Uh, he was, he, he was, you know, and, and, and even before I came to prison, I, I, his reputation, well, you know, in prison, was, uh, one like, you know, one spoke about as sh, you know. Uh, you heard his name before you came to prison. If you were anywhere living around or near the state of Alabama. Anybody that’d been to prison in state Alabama, you know, you heard guys talk about a guy named Count Tractor. It was always so. It was a year, every tang. Even, even before I met him. He got things that I heard about him, and he, he was, uh, the whole thing I could say, he was a wicked guy. He always hugged the wall when he walked. You know, he never walked in the center of the, uh, uh, h flow like everybody else. He always stayed close to wherever wall or inside he was. That’s, that’s where he, he hugged at. So dudes said, “Man, that’s Count Tractor right there.” So I said, “Oh, that’s him.” So, uh, and I looked at him. You know, he was walking, hugging the wall, you know, kind of slim, or real dogs can got kind of slam like about sixty-two, something like that. He had h in the front in the mouth where the two canines. Those teeth were out on. No teeth there, uh, on. The only things right there, the front two teeth, h three or four teeth before you get to the canines. They were out at the top. You know. I don’t know how you got the name Count Tractor, but, uh, that may have something to do with it. But anyway, I saw him before. So I’m going on the yard that particular day, and they taking their flow out there. We got to hang up, mind that back. So when we passed by him, you know, we got the officers with us and everything. You know. So he, you know, he looked and smiled. Well, you know, I gave the look, the ugliest look I can give him. It was a sincere ugly look. You don’t smile back, as he ain’t no reason to smile back. But, uh, yeah, he had victorious reputation.
Although Mitch encountered many dangerous criminals during his sentence, there was one man who stood out amongst the rest, a man who had become an inspiration to Mitch as he grew in his faith.
Yeah, he got named Big Pluck. He was about six foot. He, but he was. He was a humble giant, and he didn’t leave in guys, taking advantage of younger guys, and, uh, he, uh, if he saw something in your head, try to help you out. He was a good guy. His brother, one of his younger brothers, played football for the University of Alabama, and, uh, but he, he was. He was a really, really good guy. Far as what I mean by being incarcerated, with being locked up with him, he was about trying to help the young guys to stay out of trouble, and, you know, get your education and stuff like that. He, he did that. So that’s first; that’s what I eventually reflected on Big Pluck, how he treated us, and when I got myself situated, and, and, and found God, and then got on a new path and reinvented myself by the grace of God. And that’s what I need, you know, always try to be a, and continue to be a light into a dark path in which individual is walking, especially in here, you know. And, uh, he was God in environment like that, you know, and he did, and he stopped a lot of stuff. He stopped a lot of guys from getting raped. He stopped a lot of stuff, and he just was a, you know, he just was a shining light in that place. But at the same time, you, you, you, you had another guy that he called Boogeyman, and Pluck had to stop him several times, you know, from just, you know, he was just in a, a, he, he was on something else, you know, he was, he was about something else. He was about on the neggadive pill, trying to turn young guys out, and all kinds of other stuff.
And this next poem of Big Mitch’s that you’re about to hear, well, it humbled me to find out that our relationship had motivated him to write it. Let’s take a listen.
The poem that, uh, you motivated. You motivated me to write. Its title is “Kinship.” And, uh, I’m speaking of about the kinship that, that has allowed, the kinship that it is, is of Christ. The kinship that, that, that individuals that said that they believe in Him and that He’s their Lord and Savior. He, and we, have a relationship with Him. He’s our Father. So we have a kinship with each other. And that kinship is what brought mister cam it’s miss Norman, and every burden of Neigg ran on you and everyone else to each other’s lives, and, and, and, uh. That kinship also allowed you and me to be able to sit here and talk as we talk, and, and, and relate to each other because of that particular kinship. So what I did, Uh, I sat down and I came up with the title kinship. And I decided to try to elaborate as best as I could come up with something. So I’m gonna read it. So that’s the kinship that I’m talking about. So the title is “The Kinship”: “A kinship that disregards human wisdom; a kinship without the meaning of time; a kinship with profound visions; a kinship that carries the cup of compassion and mercy; the kinship that has no boundaries; unstoppable, sent forth to awaken the human spirit in order to allow them to hear a message. At the same time, a tin shield was standing the bone pools of a belief, of a belief grounded on Jesus Christ.”
And you’ve been listening to Big Mitch Rutledge’s share stories and insights from his forty-five plus years in prison ever since his early twenties, and he also did some time in his late teens, and in the end, never really had a family life and a home life. Prison has been his home almost his entire adult life. We get to learn about some of the characters there: Big Pluck, six-foot-eight, a giant of a man, as Big Mitch described him, and somebody he said, God-sent, angel-sent. He stopped a lot of stuff. And my goodness, to hear a poem written about, well, kinship, and the kind of kinship that we who call ourselves Christians get, that sort of shatters every conventional idea about who your brother and who your sisters are. When we come back, more of this remarkable story. Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch continues here on Our American Stories. And we’re back with Our American Stories and Episode Nine of Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch. Over as many years of reading, learning, and gaining wisdom, Mitch has discovered the profound importance of mindfulness. Mindfulness not only in mind, but in spirit. Let’s take a listen.
When you’re walking through life, be mindful what you’re reaching for, because everything you’re reaching for a good for you. And be mindful what you spend your energy on. Be mindful who you turn away, because the Scripture said, “Be careful for your turn away because you might be entertained.” And I aimedel you never know who God or sinuate, you know, how did in the streets, you know, or even in here, you know, you got guys walking around on the door looking for stuff off the ground to smoke and what have you. And, and, and guys oftentimes, you know, disregard them as though they are, they’re nothing. I don’t do that. What I’m gonna do is try to what I wrote right here is say I’m trying to carry the cup. I’m a pair of the cup of compassion and mercy. I got to, and, you know, it has been. And I will implore anyone to do that in any situation if you can be mindful, truly mindful, of what you do in life and how you treat people.
One of the great men and one of the great minds that inspired Mitch throughout his sentence was none other than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Here Mitch shares a bit of wisdom he learned by studying Dr. King’s earlier work.
Martin Luther King. He said, “God has set up the boundary for everything.” He said, “Now, uh, when God set up the boundary of gravity, due to the fact that it’s the instantaneous punishment for that violation, instantly, you understand that law boundary. But,” he said, “God, uh, sets up the boundary of morals. However, since it’s not instantaneous, man has the tendency to go further and further across the line of morals and morality until he’s just a ruse sight of God. Now he’s standing in presence of Satan.” And the Bible said that that’s when God turned him over to a reprobate mind. And, and, I, and I try to tell God that: be, be mindful. You understand, when you get on top of that roof, if you fall off of you won’t do that no more. You won’t get close to that no more. But when you’re doing things that you feel, there’s no punishment for it right now because it seems right or good. But God sets up boundaries for that. It’s myriad: what’s right, what’s wrong. It’s wasn’t happen. And if you go too far, which man oftentimes does, and you can’t come back, God just turns you loose. And when God turns you loose over with.
Mitch then decided to recite an original poem that he titled “Fighting Life.” It’s a story of all the obstacles placed in his path throughout his life, obstacles he had to fight through or overcome. Let’s take a listen.
The title of the poem is “Fighting Life.” There we go. While still in my mother’s womb, I was attacked by life because life had attacked my mother by the condition. Life had her conditioned to; however, all his life hit me while I was still in darkness and blind. I fought my way to the light, opened my eyes and let out a big yell to say, “I am here.” It attacked me through being fatherless, with eight-teenage mother, poverty, a crime field, it environment. I fought through that. I was not counted out. Next, it attacked me through the lack of education. First, being ignorant of my inner abilities, self-love, responsibilities to my family and environment, the world outside of my neighborhood. I fought through that. I was not counted out. Next, life attacked me through captivity by locking me away from the world I knew and loved. While still in captivity, it attacked through individuals just like myself with my background, poverty, fatherless. I fought through that. I was not counted out. Then life attacked me for my sanity, self-respect, integrity, morals, hope, self-love. I fought harder than ever before. I was still not counted out. Next, life fought me for my life, for my very soul. We fought for years, and just when life had me on my back, shoulders on the mat, it appeared it was all over. Life had won. I came up once again, back on my feet to fight once more. Then Life looked at me with fear and said, “I am tired of fighting you.” I said, “I am not tired of fighting you.” Life’s response was, “What do you want from me?” I said, “The same thing Jacob wanted from the angel of God, whom he wrestled with to daylight.” Life said, “I attacked you. I attack you, B.”
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