Shawanna Vaughn is the Founder and Director of Silent Cry Inc.; she hails from Bakersfield, California, and in the last thirteen years, she has made New York State her home with her two children. Ms. Vaughn is a zealous advocate for social justice, women’s health, and an advocate for children in the foster care system. Silent cry Inc is the product of the tears that ms Vaughn has shed while overcoming the pain and hardships of incarceration and the death of her brother Albert Phillips Jr. to gang initiation caused by a young man. As a former foster child and formerly incarcerated, Shawanna has been impacted by the aftermath of senseless violence and witnessed horrifying events when she was the “property of the state”. Vaughn has turned her tragedies into branches of healing; when she speaks, roses are breaking roots through concrete when it comes to her advocacy work, she puts on that velvet glove and stings like a bee.

Shawanna’s life has been a journey that has led her to many places and endless opportunities where she can use her voice for justice and for the people whose tongues are bridled. Her passion for spoken word, civic engagement, visual arts, and literature are branches that you will see in her labor of work. Vaughn holds membership with Peace and Justice Studies and Confined Arts Project. She has worked with Columbia University Business School and their law school on prison reform and criminal justice issues. As a cancer survivor and someone who has witnessed the health disparities in the medical field, Vaughn has protested the health disparities against women of color.

Post-traumatic prison disorder Shawanna W76337 is a bill that Vaughn is campaigning to get enacted, her core advocacy is speaking for the disenfranchised, especially when it is dealing with the mental health of those who are formerly incarcerated and currently incarcerated. When allowed, the opportunity to present the Shawanna W76337 bill is the focus. Vaughn is triumphantly marching through the battles with optimistic lenses and will continue to fight to answer the Silent Cries.