Markey Coleman is a founding member of Voices From Within and a justice-impacted leader whose work sits at the intersection of public health, food justice, and community healing. Born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn and the youngest of five children, he was sentenced to 20 years to life at age 20 and spent nearly two decades in New York State prisons, including Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

While incarcerated, Markey helped launch Voices From Within and delivered his TEDxSingSing talk, Echoes of an Urban Desert, using the idea of community gardens to confront food deserts and bring generations together around a shared vision for safer, healthier neighborhoods.

During his 19½ years inside, Markey turned toward education and restorative justice, studying through Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison and Mercy College and later earning a Professional Certificate in Restorative Justice from Vermont Law and Graduate School.

Since his release in 2018, he has worked as a research support specialist and community health worker with the Research Foundation at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, focusing on the well-being of communities like the one that raised him. Through Voices From Within, Markey continues to use his story—and his commitment to healing “urban deserts” of opportunity, nourishment, and care—to help young people and communities imagine different choices and a different future.