Raittia Rogers’ childhood was filled with little moments of joy. But it was the moments of struggle that ultimately shaped her.
Rogers recently shared her story with students at Tulsa’s McLain High School, offering insight into the realities of her past.
She remembers walking to the neighborhood store with her siblings after their mother gave them money to get snacks. Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies and the chocolate-and-caramel-flavored Star Crunch were some of her favorites.
She can recall the time her mother found a Dallas Cowboys-themed starter jacket for her and put it on layaway. A generous couple bought the jacket outright after they saw her mother struggling with payments, Rogers said.
But moments like that were scarce, she told The Eagle.
“I grew up in a dysfunctional family, fighting, skipping school. I would go out with boyfriends and steal out of stores,” Rogers told students. “I was involved with a lot of things due to the way I was raised.”
At 21, after years of shoplifting, fighting and drug dealing, she landed in prison. Rogers served about three years for her role in a convenience store robbery, joining thousands of women incarcerated in Oklahoma in a state that has one of the highest female incarceration rates in the country.
Rogers told The Eagle she was able to mentally detach from the experience of being in prison, which inspired the title of her 2019 autobiographical memoir “I Broke Out of Prison.”
Embracing her past has propelled her into interview opportunities and speaking engagements. She visits schools throughout the year, talking to students about bullying and the circumstances she says led her down a path to incarceration.
She says her mission now is to “sow life and seeds of hope” and be the kind of model she didn’t have growing up to help teens avoid the path she ended up on.
Lisa Orange, a teacher at McLain, believes youth need to hear about redemption directly from people who redirected their lives from a destructive path.
“I do have some kids in this classroom going down that path. I just want to let them know … even though we make bad choices, there’s ways to redeem yourself,” Orange said.
But even with the zeal with which she tells her life story, Rogers says she understands her words won’t penetrate the spirit of everyone who hears it.
Her advice to students?
“Stay the course. Follow your dreams. But even if something happens in life and you fall, you still can get back up again,” she said.
That spirit of resiliency has fueled Rogers. Along with her book, she chronicled her journey in a pair of short documentary films and took home the Author of the Year award at the 2023 Women of Color Expo.
Now, she says she’s proud of the women she’s become.
“Tia was someone that was bold, crazy and didn’t care. That’s how I was raised,” Rogers told The Eagle. “Now, I have the same energy turned around for better things.”
