Claude Hopkins is a native of New Orleans, and completed high school at Booker T Washington. He continued on to get an education at N.W. Missouri Community College, and is a welder and fitter by trade. In spite of all of his prior accomplishments, he was still a victim of our system of mass incarceration.
His involvement with The First 72+ comes from his personal experience of incarceration. Who knows better how to help those who were incarceration, than other individuals who have experience incarceration and re-entry firsthand. In Claude's words: "We fell down, but we got right back up". Claude's commitment to supporting formerly incarcerated individuals during re-entry is the definition of "Us Helping Us".