danielle ponder

Danielle Ponder grew up in a musical family. Her father, a pastor, has music pouring out of him, singing in church and at home on their piano. She had a family band, formed when she was 16 with her cousins in a house they all lived in together in the suburbs. But 16 was a pivotal year in Ponder’s world in more ways than one. “At the same age that I got my guitar, that was the same age my brother went away to prison for 20 years,” she tells SPIN. “He was there because of policy. One of the policies was mandatory minimums — and if these are policies, then there’s something we can do about it. We can change policy.” Years spent visiting her brother in the Attica Correctional Facility showed Ponder the clear flaws in the criminal justice system that put him there. That’s when she became intere...