A perspective most
speakers can't offer.
At 13 years old, Yancy Singleton caused the accidental death of his best friend. What followed was decades of silence — a prison sentence, a system with no roadmap for someone carrying that kind of weight, and an identity that had to be rebuilt from scratch.
He served 10 of 11 years. No program. No peer. No language for what he had become. Reentry through Public Allies Connecticut gave him the first room where he felt he belonged — and the first place he ever spoke publicly about his trauma.
That experience became the foundation for everything he has built since: a career spanning workforce development, juvenile justice, community outreach, and program leadership — and a platform rooted in the belief that the people closest to the pain are closest to the solutions.
Yancy doesn't speak at rooms. He changes them. His story is not a backdrop — it is the argument. Every talk, training, and engagement carries the weight of lived experience and the craft of someone who has spent years turning that experience into something useful for others.