Overcoming Judgement to Build a Life-Saving Mission with John David Graham

Episode 023 — Overcoming Judgement to Build a Life-Saving Mission with John David Graham

When the world labels you as “unwanted,” “dangerous,” or “beyond redemption,” what does it take to stand your ground and build something that changes lives? In this episode of Overcoming Anything, host Anne Vryonides sits down with John David Graham, a man who faced fear, prejudice, and legal battles to create one of the most impactful reentry housing programs in the Midwest. John shares how he and his wife Kathy transformed opposition into opportunity, turning hostility into hope for thousands of formerly incarcerated men and women seeking a second chance.

John David Graham is the founder of Good Samaritan Home, a housing and mentoring program helping men and women rebuild their lives after prison, drawing on a lifetime of work as a minister, journalist, counselor, contractor, and community advocate. He is also the award-winning author of Running As Fast As I Can and credits the success of his work—and his life—to the unwavering support of his wife of 47 years, Kathy.

3 Key Takeaways:

1.Fear dissolves when you lead with integrity- Standing on your values, even when the community pushes back, builds long-term trust.
2. Small acts create big courage- It’s the thousands of daily moral choices that prepare you for life’s defining moments.
3. Redemption changes communities- When people are given structure, dignity, and support, transformation becomes inevitable.

Timestamps

00:00 — Welcome & John’s powerful life introduction
05:10 — From homelessness to founding Good Samaritan Home
12:30 — Facing community backlash, lawsuits, and racial fear
21:45 — The courtroom moment that changed everything
29:10 — How kindness rebuilt a hostile town
37:00 — Leadership, conscience, and moral courage
45:20 — John’s novel and storytelling as healing
52:00 — Where to connect with John & Good Samaritan Home

Links & Resources

John David Graham’s Website: https://johndavidgraham.com/
Good Samaritan Home: https://goodsamaritanhome.org
John’s Substack (social commentary): https://johndavidgraham.substack.com
John’s Book — Running As Fast As I Can: https://www.amazon.com/Running-As-Fast-Can-ebook/dp/B0CKK418FB/

Connect with John David Graham

Facebook: https://facebook.com/JGrahamAuthor
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jgrahamauthor
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jgrahamauthor

Books Mentioned & Recommended

Running As Fast As I Can — John David Graham,
Bonhoeffer (biography)
Biographies of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
John Lewis (biographies)
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich — William L. Shirer
Lonesome Dove — Larry McMurtry
The Nightingale — Kristin Hannah
The Winter Garden — Kristin Hannah
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue — V.E. Schwab

If this episode moved you, share it with someone who needs proof that it is never too late to rebuild a life, reclaim dignity, and make a meaningful impact. 

❤️ Anne

Disclaimer

The content of this episode is for informational and inspirational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy, diagnosis, legal, or medical care.

#OvercomingAnything #OvercomingAnythingPodcast #AnneVryonides #Podc

Transcript

Anne Vryonides 0:00

Welcome to Overcoming Anything, the podcast where we dive deep into stories of resilience, transformation, and growth. I'm your host, Anne Vryonides, and today we have an incredible guest who has overcome fear and prejudice. Joining me today is John Graham. He is the founder of The Good Samaritan Home, which is a housing and mentoring program helping men and women restart their lives after prison. Prior to that, he was a door to door salesman, a children's home counselor, a substitute school teacher, Chuck Driver, fireman. Building contractor, minister and journalist, sometimes the road home takes many twists and turns requiring the necessary time and experience to develop what he calls the care callous hands and tender Heart needed to write this story, so he gives all of the credit for his success of this good Samaritan home and the completion of his recent novel to his wife Kathy, of 47 years. He says that she has given me the strength to go on whenever the going seemed impossible. She has been and will always be my best friend. What a beautiful testimony. I love that. So other than your wife Kathy, is there any one quote or mantra that's helped kept you going through tough times in your life?

Dr John Graham 1:24

I didn't at the time, early on when I was going through. As you can tell, I've had numerous careers, false starts. I call them politely detours, but, I really didn't hit stride till I was 53 years old when I founded Good Samaritan Home. And what I learned out of that was that. We like to think that life is a sprint and we just run fast, run young, and we go to the head of the line and we're successful by the time we're 25. And Facebook paints it all as if we're all hard bodies and forever young. But the truth is that some of us run slow and some of us fall down a lot and we need a marathon. To keep, keep running through the long race. And that was the story of my life. I've determined that life is a marathon. And for those of us who have a limp, as long as we keep running, we eventually reach our goals. It just may take longer, but never quit running.

Anne Vryonides 2:21

I love that. I love that I'm in the marathon and I've had a few limps myself, so I know what it's like to just need to keep going and keep going. So let's go ahead and start at the beginning. So what is the most difficult thing that you ever had to overcome in your life?

Dr John Graham 2:39

There's so many I can make a long list. I was living in my truck. When I was single and it was repossessed when I met my wife. So I was homeless and I had no job of course. And, she married me anyway, even though her friend said, no, don't do it. Her pastor wouldn't marry us. Wow. People were taking bets that it wouldn't last. And as you can see, it has, so I give her a lot of credit for putting up with my. Not just early issues, but ongoing issues because we went from job to job state to state. In fact, when I was 53, we were facing homeless again because I had tried my hand at what I call being civilized, being a pastor in a, a small church, but being a pastor can be very politic. And, sometimes it takes somebody who's just nicer. And I guess I wasn't that nice, so I was let go. So I was homeless looking for an avenue 53 years old with a family, and that's when my wife and I said, let's take control of this and do what our passion is and our passion. That was always to help people who were struggling worse than us. And that's when we bought the oldest house in town. Started remodeling it as a homeless shelter and out of that, you know, that was not easy'cause there was no income obviously.

Anne Vryonides 3:59

Right. He

Dr John Graham 4:00

was working. So we were, when people were talking about retirement, we were starting over with no guarantees. And one thing led to another, and eventually we're able to grow that into, what is today, 21 houses that we use to help men and women coming from prison. And we have a staff of 10, but it took 25 years to do that.

Anne Vryonides 4:26

Wow, that's amazing. So what made this experience particularly challenging for you? Starting over at 53, seeing all your other friends talking about retirement.

Dr John Graham 4:38

Yeah, initially we were doing a homeless shelter and of course we were then asked by the Department of Correction, can you house someone coming from prison and we'll pay you a per diem? So that would be a way that Good Samaritan could survive. And we agreed to do that. And because they would also pre-screen for safety reasons. So we felt that this was not just a way to help good Samaritan, but also a way to help the community because these people are going to be released from prison. They've served their sentence, but they're homeless. And if you're homeless, the data is very clear that you're more likely to commit a crime. So this was a safety factor for the state, for the community, and we felt we could contribute. So what happened was when our first resident was coming. A newspaper heard about it and they asked me for an interview and I said, great. Maybe we can get the communities to be involved in helping.

Anne Vryonides 5:32

Right. Well,

Dr John Graham 5:32

the community didn't like the idea of somebody coming from outside of our outside of town coming in. And the truth is that race was a factor because, when you come from Cleveland, it's more than likely it's a black person because it's a large black. Community. And so they saw all their worst racial fears coming into this rural white community. And so there were immediately petitions passed around. There were calls to city council, there were council meetings, there were letters to the editor every day we were in the newspaper being, threatened. That's the best way to describe it. One, one 10-year-old girl even wrote that she was afraid to go to school because she thought that our residents would come and attack her in school. She's getting it from her parents. Oh,

Anne Vryonides 6:23

right. Oh my goodness. And,

Dr John Graham 6:24

and, this went on, on and on and on and one point in city council meetings where I went to try to explain what we were doing. We even had police protection. It was so intensely hostile that, we ended up suing the city. They ended up suing us and, three times.

Anne Vryonides 6:42

Oh my goodness.

Dr John Graham 6:43

And so, in time, each time we won those cases. But, the more important thing was how do you win the community because you can win the laws. And never win the community. And what we found was that, in winter we started doing things to make the community better, for example. I spent the house was very old and hadn't been repaired in 50 years, so I spent years remodeling that house into its 1879 Glory. Wow. With sweat equity. And I spent, I don't know how many months painting on a ladder, doing all the dental molding and all the, decorative eyebrows and all the Victorian colors, 30 feet in the air. And, and again, by then I was well over 55 years old. Kind of

Anne Vryonides 7:32

dangerous

Dr John Graham 7:34

leading that with an artist brush trying to paint these things.

Anne Vryonides 7:36

Wow. But

Dr John Graham 7:37

in the winter, we took a snowblower and cleaned everybody's streets, and the idea was that we will be the best house and the best neighbor without saying a word. And eventually the community. Not just accepted it. There were some people who actually came out and actually supported what we were doing, but it took about seven years.

Anne Vryonides 8:00

Wow. Before we go there, let's just go back, take a few steps back. Was there a specific moment when everything felt impossible? And how did that feel before you got to the point where you were able to win over the community?

Dr John Graham 8:14

The, first time we went to court. They were council meetings that were so intense and so hostile. People were screaming, they were filling the halls. The overflow rooms were filled. I've never seen so much hostility in one room. It's as close to racial animus as I've found. And it being a white man, I can never fully understand what it feels like to be a black man in a white America. But in that conflict, I got a glimpse of it because people would look at you and you could feel their hostility simply because of what you represent. And, in fact, we tried to help one guy, we went to the courthouse to help one guy, and he was mentally ill and he ended up trying to stab me in front of the courthouse and

Anne Vryonides 9:01

Oh my goodness.

Dr John Graham 9:02

Yeah. And so, you know, it was in, in your own town, you felt like you were under siege. But, when we going into court. The first time, and I'm, I'm not like Mr. Trump who loves to go to court. Number one, who can afford an attorney and every time they have to file a delay, months and months of delays, the bills add up and we had no money. But we went into court and we were, waiting to testify and we made sure that it was before a judge and not a jury, because we knew a jury. Would bring the community bias in.

Anne Vryonides 9:36

Right.

Dr John Graham 9:37

And, all I could do, we had to trust our faith that we were doing the right thing and whatever happened, we were not going to back down. And,'cause this was survival, if they shut us down, that, that was our livelihood at that point. Plus we had residents depending on us, and we walked into the, in the hallway, in front of the courtroom. After an hour, my attorney was with the judge and the prosecutor. They opened the door. The prosecutor walked out and left the courtroom, and my attorney came to me and said, they withdrawn their lawsuit. Uh, it's over.

Anne Vryonides 10:16

Oh my gosh. That's amazing. It's over

Dr John Graham 10:17

just like that. It's over. That's

Anne Vryonides 10:18

amazing.

Dr John Graham 10:19

We never actually got into the courtroom, but what they were doing, what we learned was. They were pushing and pushing, trying to bankrupt us, which is a common legal tactic,

Anne Vryonides 10:30

right?

Dr John Graham 10:31

Prosecutors do that all the time, with people who don't have resources. And, basically we're seeing a lot of that today in politics where people are being sued, and they end up taking, They compromise'cause they can't afford the legal fees. And the truth is that we found that many of our residents do the same thing. They accept a guilty plea when they're not guilty because they're threatened with 40 years and they don't have the defense. They don't have the wherewithal. And so they say, I'll take five years. And it sounds like a gift, but they're innocent.

Anne Vryonides 11:04

Yeah, that's scary. So that was

Dr John Graham 11:06

a real turnaround. It wasn't the end of our legal issues, but it gave me extreme confidence that we don't need to back down. And so who was that? Made all the difference.

Anne Vryonides 11:19

So who was there to support you and your wife when you were, feeling like threatened by the community and you kept going to, to court? Who supported you and like, how did you make it through that time? Just the two of you?

Dr John Graham 11:32

We, we did have a core group of supporters, but the most impressive group where my cheerleaders, they were a little group of ladies who were 80 years old.

Anne Vryonides 11:40

And,

Dr John Graham 11:40

They showed up in court. They showed up in the council meeting and sat in the front row. In fact, one lady, I think she was 85 years old, she was on a plane to go to Washington State to visit her daughter, and she read an article about what we were doing and she said to herself, I need to find out who that man is and I need to help him. From there on in, she became one of our primary, supporters and even a board member, eventually 85 years old.

Anne Vryonides 12:09

Wow. What a little earth angel.

Dr John Graham 12:11

Yeah, that, that was most impressive because the truth is it in a small town, it's very difficult to go against the community, particularly if you're part of the community, because your friends will disassociate you. You'll be isolated, you'll be ostracized. I had pastors come to me and say they couldn't support us because they have to be supporters of both sides, so they have to be neutral. Even though they knew it was a moral thing we were doing, they couldn't get involved in the politics. So, in many ways, it was these little ladies who had more input and more support than who we'd think would be the, moral supporters.

Anne Vryonides 12:51

I'm so glad that you found those, the group of ladies to support you because it obviously took so much courage and strength to do that because today people having difficulty standing up for what they believe in on social media, but let alone. In your own community where you have to go to the grocery and you have to go out and you have to engage with other people, and when it feels like everyone is against you and what you're trying to, the good that you're trying to do and the people you're trying to help, like how did you overcome that?

Dr John Graham 13:25

I remember going into McDonald's, standing in line when the lines were longer. And, I was just wanting to get a hamburger and, some lady staring at me and then she came up and got right in front of me and said, if one of your residents ever came near my granddaughter, I'd kill him, and then I kill you.

Anne Vryonides 13:43

Oh my gosh. And,

Dr John Graham 13:45

and I didn't know who she was and there was no reason for her to say that, but she was building on the fears that she'd been reading about. And I, I said, lady, I just want a hamburger. But you know that's what community fear is like. And, and ironically, we're seeing so much of that today with this idea of immigrants, outsiders, if they're coming to rape us, they're coming to steal from us, they're coming to kill us, and it's all based on fear. And it's 10, probably 10 times worse today because of the internet.

Anne Vryonides 14:14

Looking back now. Was there a single moment, or decision or action that made the biggest difference in you influencing the community and their perception of these, inmates that you were looking to house and help rehabilitate?

Dr John Graham 14:30

Yeah, I've thought a lot about that, Ann, and we like to think that when moments come, when courage is required or heroic response is required, that we'll simply stand up and rescue the somebody. But, we'll make the right decision, in a meeting or,, we'll confront somebody who's doing something and will be, do something heroic. But I found that the big incidents never occur. Without a thousand little incidences of doing the right thing, it, it might be, letting somebody through the red light when, when it's easier to pull in front of them. It might be helping somebody with a door or it might be helping somebody with a package that was too heavy or even something like, you're going through McDonald's and you pay for somebody behind you and just some act yes of. Humanity. And what that does is it gives you control that no matter what happens, that you are in control of your response. And so when the big decision comes, like we were faced, it was easier to make that because we knew in the small things we did the right thing. So I would say the Facebook says that you can jump in and be the heroic defender, but it doesn't happen that way. It's a thousand little preparation events.

Anne Vryonides 15:47

It's like that muscle that you go to the gym and you're doing the reps, you're doing the reps of kindness of, planting those seeds of goodness and hoping that the community can see the impact that, that you're having. So

Dr John Graham 16:01

that's a very good comparison. Very good. It takes a lot of exercising, goodness.

Anne Vryonides 16:07

Yes, yes. So what life lessons did this experience teach you?

Dr John Graham 16:13

I keep referencing politics, but what I'm most concerned with many people in leadership is that they make decisions by saying, I can't get reelected if I don't compromise here. I have to keep my job so I can continue doing the right thing, but it's those compromises that compromise our morality. So I've become very. Very, it's very hard for me to accept compromise on moral issues because I know that it's the, if, like Dr. King said, if you don't have something that's worth dying for, your life is not worth living and there are some things that are worth losing your job, there are some things that are worth. Losing a court case over and there, there are some things worse getting fired for. For example, I was told one time when I was a pastor that if you don't compromise this, you'll be fired. And I said that, I can't do that because it's not a moral response. And they fired me. And, I, the truth was that I felt freer than if I had taken that job and. I guess be numbed. My conscience. Yeah. What I can't handle is at the end of the day saying I kept my job, but I lost my conscience over it. I couldn't do that.

Anne Vryonides 17:30

Wow. I got goosebumps when you said that.'cause I feel the same way. I value my character more than my reputation because I have to live with me, and so I will always stand by my value. So that is so admirable because that's not easy to do today when there's so much societal pressure to be, do and have and act a certain way.

Dr John Graham 17:54

And to be candid, it's 10 times harder now with internet, with, social media. You know, I don't know if I could handle being 13 years old again because, and particularly a female, I have great sympathy for my granddaughters.

Anne Vryonides 18:06

Yeah. Amazing. So how has your life changed for the better because of this challenge of, influencing your community to overcome fear and prejudice of the people that you're housing?

Dr John Graham 18:18

What happened was, because we were able to get a contract with the Department of Correction'cause they desperately needed some stable housing and we needed some stable, income. And, together for the past, let's see, officially we started in oh seven, so that's 17 years, 18 years. We've been working with the Department of Correction and what we've done is that we've been able to. Not just have one house or two houses in our small town, but we expanded into the city of Dayton, which is in western Ohio. And there we now have 21 houses and that's where our 10 staff are located. So we have had 2,500 men and women come through our houses since we started, and these are people who are able to find stable housing with us, get a job. Ultimately get their own place, and if you do that, then you can stay out of prison. So I feel that because we were able to stand strong in the beginning, then we were able to help them stand strong later. So I don't wanna say I'm proud, but I'm just pleased to be part of that, that I could help somebody in some small way to turn their life around as I've turned my life around.

Anne Vryonides 19:35

Wow, you should definitely be proud. What you've done is an amazing accomplishment. So impacting 2,500 lives, and changing their lives for the better and giving them resources over 17 years. That is quite an accomplishment. So how does the community see you now? What is their perception of the Good Samaritan House 17 years after infiltrating the city?

Dr John Graham 20:03

I like to joke about it, but it's true. I can walk down the street now and they wave at me with all their fingers.

Anne Vryonides 20:09

That's funny, but sad. I'm glad, I'm glad you get all the fingers today.

Dr John Graham 20:15

And that, and I'll be candid, I've never been a person who needed a lot of, people to support me. I've been comfortable being alone and that's actually made it easier because many decisions that you make are the hard decisions that you have to make alone. I give credit to my wife because through it all, she could have pulled back and should have pulled back, as any reasonable woman would've done. But she stayed with me through it all. Through all the remodeling dirt, through all the pressure of politics, through all the financial desperation. There were times we had no money and yet we were able to just keep our eyes on the prize. And in fact, at one point she, when her parents passed, they got a small in, she got a small inheritance. Instead of keeping that, she used it to help me buy another house. Wow. Because we were desperate to grow and we used her inheritance for this work, and that was her choice.

Anne Vryonides 21:13

Wow. Thank you to Kathy. Thank you to you too. So if someone who's listening to this podcast today is going through Fear and Prejudice, what advice would you give them? Maybe it's not on such a large community scale, maybe it's on a smaller scale, maybe through, the workplace or maybe with a peer group. What advice would you give them?

Dr John Graham 21:38

Well, first of all, I would look within and say, what do you believe and why do you believe it? And where do you want to go with that? And if you are convinced that you know where you, who you are, then, it's like having the internal supports of a house. If you build them strong enough, when the winds blow, then you're able to withstand the wind. But if you don't know who you are. Then you will be blown over. So what I did quite a bit through the years,'cause it just didn't start with Good Samaritan home. This started back when I was, uh, we were facing Vietnam War draft back in 1968 and I had to look very heavily at what I believed about that war. So I did a lot of study in Dr. King and the civil rights movement. And what I found is that if you know what you believe and you know where you're going, you can withstand all the assaults. And, so even though I never marched with Dr. King. I certainly felt like he was marching with me when I went into city hall.

Anne Vryonides 22:43

I love that. So know what you believe in and know where you're going. To create that confidence within yourself. So if someone doesn't have that internal fortitude yet, or maybe they're like, I don't know what I believe, or I don't know where I'm going, and they feel lost any advice that you could suggest?

Dr John Graham 23:03

Well, along the road, I had several people who were my mentors. And, because you can't learn everything from books. You can't learn everything from your own experiences. Sometimes you have to call'em somebody and say, I, I need some advice. I need some feedback. Ironically, even when I was writing my book, I had to get an editor to come in and look at it and say, what is your advice on how to make this book better? And he was one third my age. He was 26 years old. And, he taught me how to edit and write emotionally. So I would say find somebody that you could not somebody that, is your best friend, but somebody that can be,, an advocate, a counselor, somebody can give you some honest advice.

Anne Vryonides 23:48

I love it. I love it. So is there a book that helped you on your journey that you could recommend to our listeners?

Dr John Graham 23:54

Well, I could recommend a lot of self-help books, but, I'll tell you what really, what I've enjoyed most is, when you read good fiction, like, Larry McMurtry wrote Lonesome Dove, which is a miniseries, but the book itself is a wonderful adventure on how to follow your dream. And it's a story of male comradery facing adversity and remaining true to your conscience. Or, another one is Kristin Hannah. She writes some excellent stories about women who are able to, be strong of character in the midst of adversity. Nightingale, it's about two women facing the Nazi invasion in France. And these stories were the basis of my own novel where I took fiction. To carry a moral message that people would read. You know, obviously there are lots of self-help books out there. I there periodically. I, I definitely read William Shire's,, rise and Fall of the Third Reis, but it's a thousand pages and you can't read that too often.

Anne Vryonides 24:50

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Those are great suggestions. We will link those in the show notes below. Dr. Graham. Thank you so much. This has been such an inspiring conversation. And thank you for sharing your journey with us. Where can people connect with you? Where can they maybe make a donation to the Good Samaritan House or, or find you on social media?

Dr John Graham 25:12

I wouldn't recommend any donation. We don't solicit support that way. Okay. But what I recommend is people go to my website, it's called John David graham.com, and there it'll link to Good Samaritan home. It'll link to Amazon. I would like you to check out my novel called Running as Fast as I Can. And the reason is it's not about the story alone, it's about the issues.'cause Daniel Robinson is fictional and he wrestles with, a family abuse. He wrestles with sexual abuse. He, his, he wrestles with homelessness. He wrestles with all the anxieties that you and I face in our own lives. And it's a story of love and forgiveness and it's a story of healing. And it's, there, I've gotten 33 awards for that book for literary fiction. And the most important thing is readers have written and said, I was Daniel. I felt Daniel's journey. So I would encourage people and you can even download two or three chapters free from Amazon. And if you want to, you can contact me through my, my webpage and I'd be glad to, answer some questions.

Anne Vryonides 26:19

Excellent. Excellent. We'll definitely include that in the show notes. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. And listeners, if you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might be facing a similar situation and they need to hear this message of hope. I'll see you next time on overcoming Anything.