Alfred Rivera was born in Brooklyn, New York, but he has deep roots in Puerto Rico. When he was 20 years old, he moved to Winston-Salem to live with family members after his mother died. Alfred lost his father to homicide when he was just four years old. Alfred spent several years incarcerated as a young man, and then In 1997, Alfred got sentenced to death in Forsyth County, NC, for a crime he did not commit. In 1999, he won a new trial, and after serving 22 months on death row, he was acquitted. However, about a year after his release, Alfred was arrested again and sentenced to life in prison. However, in 2019, he was rereleased under the First Step Act.
Alfred is a deep and introspective thinker. He talked with me about the power of manifesting his thoughts and beliefs. He also described how gaining knowledge of himself was the first step in helping him to understand the deliberate systemic design that was created to pave the way to prison, death, and destruction for Black and Brown people from marginalized communities.
Alfred now lives in Concord, NC, where he is starting a food truck business and working with North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NCCADP). Alfred is passionate about criminal legal reform and violence prevention among youth. He also believes other innocent people remain on North Carolina’s death row.
