Documentary on transformative power cont.

“I knew that I was gonna have to make sure that everything I did was to make sure that he has a better, brighter tomorrow,” she said.

In 2021, her company Authentic Voices Global officially launched as a platform that highlights marginalized voices and tells their stories. “It is a platform that highlights the audacity of everyday people daring to make a change no matter how big or small,” Whitney said.

Their latest work in progress is a documentary called Redemption Scholars, which they started in 2021 and follows the journey of three men who were incarcerated for years but were able to start their higher education programs while in prison.

“My biggest hope with this documentary is that we shift perspectives of the way that we see individuals who have experienced incarceration,” Whitney said. “That somewhere through this documentary, we provoke people to examine themselves and their perspectives and also to examine the educational system, and then be able to ask themselves, ‘where do I play a role in making a change?’”

Whitney said the project was inspired by her paternal uncle, Vernon Johnson, who was released from prison in 2020 after serving 12 years, and she recorded his