An Army of Normal FolksAntong Lucky: If You Lead for Evil, Imagine What You Could Do For Good (Pt 2)
As a teenager, Antong founded the Dallas Blood gang and ran the city’s roughest streets. This inevitably landed Antong in prison, where a man told him that if he could lead for evil, imagine what he could do for good. He now leads Urban Specialists, which has transformed the lives of 819 OGs like himself.
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with an tong Lucky. Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, I'm gonna tee this up for you, but I'm going to say to you what I've heard before. When the police put the blue lights on you in your car and you pull over and you don't do anything wrong, and you don't have any drugs, and you don't have a gun on you, and you ain't got a warrant, you got nothing to worry about. You're gonna get a ticket, but when you run, you should expect to get your ad kicked. I want you to understand playing devil's advocate here, Okay, I get I gere you. Likewise, there's no justification for the officers our tax dollars paid for to protect and serve our communities, to lie and trump up charges against somebody that don't exist. There's no, no, there's no excusing that. But that stuff would have never happened to you had you not been in that life anyway. So I'm yeah, yeah, that was advocate. But I'm gonna tell you something there's a whole lot of folks that will that are sitting there listening to us right now. Yeah, they're doing this, nodding their head, going you tell them, Bill, because that's real. I'm telling you, that's a lot of folks that think.
I do get Bill, I do get that that a lot of the choices I made put me in that position. But I still don't. But what I digress that is that's still not justification for an off to break the law to enforce the law. I tell your listeners that they can, you can. It's no justification. If you catch a person did wrong right and they broke the law, that person has to that person has to own up of that and to be accountable for that. But under no point, I don't care who the person is, what their background is. Nobody should at any time I text ole to pay for an offer to break the law to enforce the law. When you agree on that, or do you think it's at some points it's justifiable to break the law to enforce.
The law, I one hundred percent agree with you. But I think it's important that we take a minute to talk about those notions because they're real. Yeah, they are, all right, and I'm going to tell you something else. In a society where the news cycle continues to show us hordes of people rushing nordstorms and running out with rocks of clothes, we see walgreens shutting down in parts of Oakland and other parts because they can't even operate from the crime. We see repeated pictures of car thefts and car jackings and all that's going on in the world. There is a snap back pendulum effect and a certain segment of our society that unrighteously will sometimes justify those and those actions as a means of quote getting control. I'm telling you I don't agree with that, but there's people on listen to us right now that might and I want you to tell them why why we can't succumb to that.
Right, I totally divert on that, and I totally you know, my thought is this right, the eroding trust that exists dirty in against with community and law enforcement. It's because when we succumb to those type of notions where we suspend the law in the interests of our subjectivity or whatever.
We think it is our quote safety.
Our safety.
Right.
Yeah, that's that's the that's the term that's not right, that's not At no point Bill should somebody say, man, just because that's Bill and man, maybe he does a podcast, he says some stuff on that podcast that I don't like that. I'm why he's sitting in here. I'm gonna put some drugs in his car. And then when he go down the street, you know, my friend that's a police officer gonna pull him over, and now we're gonna we're gonna stick it. That's not right. Now. If now, if now, if Bill, if if Bill pulled off from here, and Bill have his own drugs in the car, illegal drugs in the car, that whatever you do with it, and they catch you dirty, then Bill got to deal with that. But I will be the first one to defend Bill. If that's it, the formal situation happened, I'll be saying that's not right. And I be on the front lines saying that that's not right because we can't never suspend that. We can't suspend law and order in the in the entriest of public safety. Law and order is what is what promotes public safety, is what ensures public safety, not the other way around.
One minute, Alex, here's my keys. Would you go watch my car for me. That just freaked me out a little bit. All right, just no, just no, no, no. What I want to say to you, is it also in my opinion, Yeah, if there's any inkling and an opportunity to rehabilitate those that are breaking the law, if they know in their mind and hearts of hearts that the very the very law that's got them locked up has corrupt. I even tried to rebuild. Take yes, So we actually through those actions, we actually are partied the perpetuation, man of chronic lawlessness.
Man, man, man, man, you hit that on Oh you hit that right on oath. We are party to the perpetuation of lawlessness when we do stuff like that. If justice, if true, justice, law and order in its most pureous sense, is not promoted because I think, I think crime is an issue that we all care about and we all want to see out of our society, et cetera, et cetera. Even those who probably been convicted of crimes have done time for crime, those who live in communities full of crime. We all that's something that's that don't discriminate against people race whatever. I think we all want that, and I think what makes us safer what is when we have a legal system that is no discriminate discrimination of people and law that lack stands on its own right. And so we have to always promote that. We got to always push that, you know, and sometimes it don't feel good because again, we see these images that we see on the nightly news day in and day out. We never stop to think, what do those images does to our subconscious How does it influence us to think? We don't never think about how the algorithms influence us to think. Because if I click on the video and it shows me something, I don't even have to define it. The algorithm's gonna continue to show me that from all over the country. And then we never stop to think about how do that purge you our perception? And I think our job as American citizens is to always, you know, do a background check on what goes into our minds.
We're gonna pick up chronologically for your story to get where we're especial. We're going there and we're gonna pick up where your daughter was born and you in jail, which irony of irony is no different than you when you were infant and your dad went to jail. So we're going to get to that, because I think that's a great place. But I got to say one more thing, Okay, because we've already talked about two societal conversations that people struggle with, and I want you to hear me. I genuinely think people on all sides. Now you got your ten percent on one side and your ten percent on the other side, that are just ridiculous. Ryan got time for either, but the eighty percent in the middle, maybe on two different sides of a conversation, but I genuinely think they're all looking for the same outcome. It's just trying to get there. I agree, all right, And we've talked about two of them. The third one I want to talk about is were those officers white or black?
They were black.
I did not know that.
I know you probably assumed that they were white, but they were No.
I'm going to tell you something what I used to assume. I think a lot of people would have assumed they're white, especially in Dallas. But I think the reforms that our society has got to get its arms around in terms of police and the work you're doing now, which is a quick spoiler alert, but we're going to get to it. All of that. I think there was a time that by and large they were seen as racial. By and large, they were seen as black and brown people being kept down by a largely white police force. Right, But I'm going to tell you something. One of the worst things to happen in this city about a year and a half ago, happened to Tyree Nick Nichols. I followed kay Tyree Nichols ran from the police, got pulled over, ran from the police. Tyree Nichols was into skateboarding and photography, had a family that loved him. He didn't have some long criminal record, wasn't a bangor he wasn't none of that. Why in the hell he got pulled over and ran for the police. I don't know.
I probably can surmise why he did.
He was scared.
He was scared. Understand all that, it's the algorithm.
Get it, understand But he ran for the police.
It's that.
Well, they caught him and they beat the hell out of him till he died. And then the paramedics showed up and kind of flopped his body around and said, here, man, have some water. You need to sit up and breathe. You're gonna be all right. And the man and the young man died. They killed him. Every officer was African America, right right. And I will tell you we're into a cultural issue that surpasses what used to be considered a racial issue. Do you agree with that?
Yep, I do.
That's a black gang banger talking.
No, I do. Look, I would, I would. I was the first when I when I was following that case, I was, I was one of the first holland for full accountability for that, you know, because I'm you know, I'm just about fairness. So full accountability for that, you know. And that was before I even knew the national at the office. That was full accountability.
But when I heard when I when the story broke, I didn't know or anybody, Yeah, I.
Want, before I even knew the nationally, I was saying full accountability just based on the facts and because because again but going back to what we said earlier that you know, at least, what I'm saying is he ran, he was scared for whatever reasons, you know, whatever whatever.
He should have got he should have got caught for running, yeah, and then taken care of.
Yeah, but not a death sentence. No, hell know, shouldn't be.
Even he should have even got one knuckle bomb. Look.
Coming from the streets in the hood. We I knew, like it's into it. We noticed like you run for the police're gonna get your butt kicked. You'll get your kicked. That's big.
We look, can I tell you something.
About that.
Let me be real with it, because I accepted that I'm white as white as yeah, all right, when I was a kid where I grew up, if I run from police, I was gonna get my buck kicked. We knew that. Well, we wouldn't know. What I'm saying is that ain't a black thing. That's just true. You've run from the.
Police, you're gonna get Yeah, yeah, that's that's that's that coming.
But you don't deserve to die.
Yeah, you don't deserve that. But you get ruffed up a little bit, and that's okay, you know. But I'd have been roughed up. But it didn't make me because I.
Just think it's interesting to understand that dynamic than only a couple of decades. Urban police departments are now predominantly or not predominantly, they have a greater percentage of black and brown officers than they do white and and this stuff keeps going on.
It's cultural.
It's cultural. It's cultural, no doubt about it. And we got to get past being defensive on one side or the other because of the color they are. We need to start recognizing, Look, this is a cultural.
The culture might be a Look, I do police training, right, so imagine me.
You're supposed to be talking about that.
I do police training to your point, right, And it's interesting, right because I have my as system go in and on the power on the projective, she would put it's a picture of me and my white prison, white suit, and then they got my bio on it next to it, right, And I would I would do this intentionally. I have rather go in set it up and I sit outside for five minutes by the time I walk in the room, because it's about addressing implicit biases right the class. So by the time I walk in the room, all the white office they read that old miss on your shirt right before I even talk. I can feel the tension, like, who in the hell that this guy in?
Right?
Because it because the assumption is that it's gonna be antagonistic, it's gonna be Black lives matter, it's gonna be against the police. Success that's the assumption going in. Halfway through. I can feel the tension doing this as I'm talking, because because it's not it's not antagonistic. It's not no agenda against police it don't you know, it's none of that. It's none of the stuff that they think is. But I'm making sense to I'm telling them the same thing I'm telling you. We got to check the information going out here. We gotta understand the algorithms and blah blah blah. That is not it's not racial stuff. It's all this stuff has increased fear that's been fited to us by looking at it over and over and over and over again. So by the time the end of the end of the the class, all these officers who were looking at me with some cold stirs right and face red as mug is coming up to me interior saying, man, we gotta work together.
See that's the whole point I'm trying to get to with all this stuff. And we're gonna pick up next where you left off. But it is so obvious to me the last twenty years of my life and the work that I've done that when we drop the preconceived notions that race is driving all this and start to understand it's a cultural and societal thing.
Man.
Is when we start to have chances to.
Say we're on the same page with that, we on the same page. I have a I have this turn called redemptive activism right where it's where it's basically saying that we have to be able to see the good. We have to be able to give people. We have to understand redemption right uh personal place or thing. We can't have a condemnation mindset most of the time in this society. It's a condenation mindset. You know, I look at you and I condemn you based off whatever I was in. I was in Vegas speaking at this sheriff there and they had the sheriff coming here. The head sheriff, now, Kevin mcmahll. That's my guy, my guy one hundred grand. But when I first met him, right he walked in, he had to you know, Vegas got them brown police tous on and I looked at him and got the sandy brown hair, and before he said a word, I said, man, that dude, that racist is hell? I know, I said, I said, I want to hear how long ago this this is about two or three years ago, about four years ago, I said that dude, racist head. I can just look at him and tell that's my mind thinking right. And when he when he talked, when he spoke right, I was like those officers, I was just telling you about right. And I had went up to him and I said, I said, I said, I said, Kevin, sir, you gotta apologize to you. So he looked at me. I said, man, before you said the word, I said, you probably the most racist moff. Yeah, I said, I apologize, man, and me and him, me and him been locked in every since. Man, because but that's that's how we do.
You know, that's how you've been an interviewed from a white boy from the South with an old miss shirt on. So you better watch yourself, all right. So now, yeah, but we do.
That as herman beings. We judge and we condemned, just based off. I got to get past that.
We'll be right back, all right. So you in jail and you got a baby, yeah from there all right.
I had made a commitment to myself that I wasn't gonna leave my I didn't want my daughter to sell what I felt because my father's away. That didn't feel good, and I felt like I lost that. I lost that when I got sentenced. But I went to jail being very self introspective because when the judge sentenced me, he said I was a minister society, right. I ain't understand that. In my mind, I said, how did you go from a talent and gifted student to your life speeding out of speeding out of head and got, you know, speeding out to a judge saying your minister society? How did that happen? I really wanted to know the answer to that. I was led back to the holding said. When I looked at my mother and seeing the disc us that she had enough face because she felt like she failed me, that was on my mind. My daughter was on my mind. My daughter was like I was like, man, she finna feed what I felt and how I felt. And I wouldn't wish that on no kid. And so I got to prison with that in my mind. Early in my sentence, man, I was coming out to chow hall thinking about having these thoughts. Because when I got to prison, all of the inmates were looking to me. They were cheering when I came in because they said, I'm I'm finna. I'm finna run everything.
You know.
They wanted me no g bluff. So we started this and now it grew it and grown so her I'm coming in. It's almost like a celebration. But they don't know that I'm thinking about my daughter. I'm mean, I'm I'm introspective right now. I'm doing a whole bunch of thinking. And so luckily for me, I was coming after chow Hall. I remember August in nineteen ninety seven. It was it was like one hundred and fifteen degrees. When I was coming down, this older inmate bring Dallas day one hundred and fifteen, so it was one hundred and thirty in the dorms. This brother walked up to me. He was older than me, and uh, he said, he said, this was exact conversation he said. He said, hey, little brother, I need to hogh at you. And in prison, when somebody said hey, little brother, I don't need high at you, you know, you got to figure out what that mean because that's a different things. That could have been a whole bunch of stuff. Right, So I got immediately, I got on the defense and he said no, now, he said, little brother, let me, let me just talk to you, he said. He said, man, I've been paying attention. I've been watching you. He said. All these men in this prison they paying hummage to you. They're falling out of place. They'll do whatever you asked.
Them to do.
I've been watching you. He said, Look, little brother, because I was probably I was nineteen twenty. He had to be thirty. He said, if you have the ability to lead these guys to do wrong, he said, little brother, you got the ability to lead them to do right. He said, you're a leader. And when he said that, you got to understand. My mind said at nineteen twenty years old, and this guy, I'm in the first time in prison, i ain't been here long, and what I'm dealing with and he say that to me. He said, you've been watching me and this and that, and then he said you're a leader. And when he said that, it resonated with me.
Right.
It resonated because my grandfather had once told me that. My grandfather at once told me that that I didn't understand, but it resonated for some reason with what my grandfather said many many and many years early early on, and when he said that, it kind of opened my eyes and then he began to you know, that relationship. He started to mentor me. He started to give me books to read. You know, he started me on this quest to rates. He gave me a lot of books. When I read Victor frankel Man Search for Meaning, Nathan Macall, Malcolm X Instructure, I read it, Everything under the Sun.
I read it every It's interesting because Malcolm X.
Yeah, the whole prison thing. Michael changed this night. De Troy ready changed this whole situation. Blah blah blah. Oh now y'all, so I was, I was. I was inspired by that. So I started reading, and so look, I started reading so much. They had this volunteer, not a chaplain, but a librarian. I'll never forget her. She was a little bittish, short white lady that was a volunteer. She wanted to state employee. I came to the library so much. Men and hub became good friends.
Right.
We would just talk about life. We just talked. She saw something in me, right, and she was encouraged me. She would encourage me. She motivated me. Now I'm in prison doing this, uh so much so that whenever the prison got new books, she was sent for me. First allowed me to get first DIBs, pick out what I want, folks. She put it out to the rest of the for the to the prison. That's how close we got in those conversations. Man, and I read like probably with fourteen fifteen hundred books the whole time I was in prison.
How many years I did?
Four years?
Four?
Yeah, I made so from the time I met Willie Ray Fleming August in nineteen ninety seven until I got till I got released.
What was your charge?
That charge that that officer sent me in forssion possession with the tent, possession with the intended deliver that charge was your Oh they gave me seven years and you got out for I got in four. Yeah, but I made so.
You had four years to read and reflect.
That's all I did. That's all I did. I from the day I met Willie, prison became college for me.
I cannot believe you're saying that. We interviewed, ironically enough from Las Vegas. Yeah, a guy named John Ponder.
That's my guy. I know John on board.
All right, Okay, Well it's funny because the guy that you thought was a racist probably as close to John. Okay, Yeah, I just small world anyway, he said that, uh that that that federal penitentiary was it was his bible, college man, and and the penitentiary for you was college.
It was Look, I would be literally anybody who's been in was locked up with me doing that time. There bar witness to this. I would have five six books at the table. They would brothers would have to come pull me from the table and say, man, you're gonna bust your brain. You gotta give it a break. And all day all I do is a well, look, I'm gonna tell you look look in prison. And I'm not kid you not Bill. I was in prison. This this is the birth of this work, right. I was in prison. As I was educating my if, I realized a lot of stuff that I didn't know. So I had this insatiable critter to go find it that I didn't want to not know something. So that that led me down a lot of paths that led me reading everything under the sun. And as I started to educate myself, I started to see differently, right, and then I started seeing the similarity of the brothers in here. You know a lot of everybody in here that had dropped out of school. They had these same kind of situations in their life. Except I started seeing that stuff right and started so and so this prison segregated. It's very you know, black s white messling segregator. You can't mix. And I used to say to myself, like, this is crazy. We can change this, right. So look, I was fortunate enough to have some money on my books. This, this is the birth of this work. I was fortunate enough. As I started reading, I started realizing all the stuff I was wrong. I started being accountable for everything I've done, just like you said. I wasn't mad that the police put the drugs on me. I had to accept the fact that I put myself in that situation that caused me. I accepted all that, right, and so I started saying, man, I got to educate these other brothers, right. And so I had money on my books. So at night when I spread, that's when we had a big bucket of food. We ain't eating out the childhod because nobody liked the child food. It was customary for you to throw it away, right. You just eat what the people you with. And I ain't like that. I didn't understand that, you know, because I eat. I'm different now. So when we would finish our food.
We got a whole bucket.
I would take the food, make bowls and go around the dorm to the people who weren't fortunate enough to make stoke. Hey, it ain't nobody turned down no food, not no spread that you made. So I would just feed people. I was just feed people. And that was against prison norms, right, but it's my stuff. I could do what I want to do. And so through that I started meeting people, right. And namely I talk about this in my book, which I think is perfect for this podcast. Is I met this guy who was the He was a high ranking member of the Aren nation, although a nation.
Right, So now look, y'all ain't even speak. Looking it ain't supposed to be talking, right, We'll be right back.
It ain't nobody gonna if you ain't got money on your books, you're not turning down no food. Not no food. You just seen somebody make that they come from the store, commissary.
So I do this.
I would do this to everybody. Hey man, hey, hey hey hey, getting different people, you know, crips, getting them food. And it just started the conversation because the first it was kind of day was skeptical, but then after why they saw like they was watching men and seeing that that was my heart. So I started talking to the a Ron guy. Right, Hey, your name was Jeff and his brother had wild his skinhead tattoos from he had all of his head all over his face, had swastikles, lightning boats, all that good stuff. But I'm educated now, so I don't judge them based off what I see on him, because now I know, I know differently now, so I don't judge him about that. So we stought that we used to have conversation, right we sit in the back of the day room. I remember because my people that knew me from the from you know, my neighborhood and all that. I remember the eyes, how they used to look at us. And we used to be in a corner. We've been in a full conversation talking this my friend now uh, and they would be looking at me like what the hell an tongue, what the hell he doing back there talking about vice versa.
But we had me.
Cause you know, some people can't get over that point. People he got, he got lightning boats on him, he got swaska. I said, I don't mean nothing, I don't mean nothing, but what I what I learned from those conversations, right, was just like I was saying earlier, man, when I was when I was a kid, and I had to put on these layers, see when I had to become a gang member and all that stuff. In my mind as a kid, I felt like I was protecting the little boy inside of me from a very very very harsh environment. So I had to be I had to amputate my personality and be what it said although inside of me. Just like when the judge said you're a menace. In my mind, I was saying, but Judge, you understand, that's not really who I am, really a good person. I just had to do that to survive in my neighborhood. That was going on in my head because in my mind, that's the duality that I'm talking about. That's not really who we are.
How many people in jail today do you think deal with that same do out?
I think it's a lot of people deal with that. They just not articulated enough to articulate that. But they all deal with it, right, they all deal with the exact same thing. That's what I found that talking to my Aron brother, what we started having the conversations, I feel like I understood that we cared about the same stuff that we won no different. And I realized that he put all those tattoos on him because he was trying to protect the little boy inside of him. He didn't hate black people, he.
Just had to.
This is what he had to do to protect him so he can get his stuff back out to his family. And that was some that information right that opened my eyes to a lot of stuff. So I stopped looking at people based off off these preconceived notions that we were just talking about. I started looking at people here. I started looking deeper into people. So when I started doing that, the crypt dude who I was probably shooting at that, he's probably shooting at me. Now look at him the same. I don't look at him based on his money or his label. Now I'm looking for the little boy that's inside of him, and I'm connecting with that person. See, because you can't hide that person. We all got that. We all put on these titles, we all put on these monicas, we all put on this stuff because we're just trying to protect the little boy inside of us. But if somebody connect with the little boy and say it's okay to come on that. It's okay, I understand. Then you see different, Then you see the humanity in people. You can begin to see the humanity and all people when you can look like you just said, he looked past the preconceived notions. We all have been conduct to look at people through the eyes of those preconceived notions. We constantly look at the news every night, and you constans see black people on the near doing this. Are you constant seeing some Trump stuff? And that becomes who we become. We become that, but deep down in besides, that's not who we are. That's just some stuff we packed on to be accepted into whatever we It's no different than me trying to be accepted into the gang or to the neighborhood. Then people being accepted into these ideologies and these ideas. It's not who we are as human beings. It's really not, and we have to pull back from that. We got to come back from down that path and start getting in touch with humanity. When we get in touch with humanity, then we're not judging, we're not condemning, we're not doing that. We're trying to look for ways to understand redemption and transformation. Understand people hard, and we see and past what the media and what people have projected for us to see.
I hear the man talking to me right now, and I have a hard time, in a difficult time in my mind's eyes, seeing an eighteen year old banging. I know, you've gotten the scratch where you beat the hell out of somebody or they beat the hell out of you in prison or before prison, when you're in the street.
I have. I've been in a situation like that, but in prison, I was fortunate enough I didn't have that problem.
I'm talking about before. Before Yeah, I mean, if you had friends getting shot, people shooting at each other and everything else.
But I'm gonna tell you when that stuff was happening, my conscience was still intact. See, I can remember. I can remember times that I that I prevented people from getting killed like literally I did because only because my conscience was intact. I had my I never see for me, I just put the clothes on, but the clothes never became me. I have some friends who put the clothes on and it became who they are. They lost theirself. They never regained back.
Can you regain that back once stuff's happening.
You can you can. You can't reg aim at, you can't regain it. I never lost conscious. I was just in my mind. I was just wearing this suit.
Other than full on sociopaths.
Other than full on social past difference.
I'm saying, forget that there's full on social passes just evil. Right, we ain't talking about them again. That stuff we talked about. We talking about other things that are in jail right now, you honestly believe with everything am in regards to what they've done. I go on and now hardened the streets of ben that that little boy is still inside.
Everybody, man, listen, I go into the prism right today as we speak. I was just in the prison made twenty first, taking the prosecutor down there to speak to some brothers. Something ain't never been done. And it done on me, I said, brothers made twenty first, nineteen eighty self. I got sentenced by a prosecutor twenty four years later. Here I am standing with a prosecute. It just done on me to delivery all of a message of change.
Right.
I talked to a lot of brothers in prison. I do my daughter, tell you you go with me. I talk to those brothers, and I can see the little boy, and then you feel me. I can cut through the bs and get to the boy, and I see that. See, they just hadn't been Nobody has been brave enough to say the stuff that I say. I'm brave enough to say it. I denounced my gang while I was in prison. That's something you just don't I wouldn't advise nobody that, looking back in hindsight, but I denounced my gang while I was in prison because I said to myself, and that's it. I said to myself, if I was crazy enough to represent this and it could have took my life, then I'm gonna be just as crazy to represent this, even if it have to take my life. I'm doing something right. I denounced my gang in prison. I'm just brave enough to say this stuff right. But I believe, I really believe. It's a lot of brothers, it's a lot of sisters who are incarcerated, who are not as articulate, but they that's not who they are. They just need somebody to say to the little boy and little girl and then come on, it's okay.
Well, what's the same place you did time? Beat?
Oh one, you and George Bato one you maximum security on it beat o one.
So you graduate from the University of bed Oh one four year degree.
Yes, indeed in psychology with a mind in philosophy.
I got it. Yeah. And then tell me how you got from that to urban specialists.
Man, I started to work in prison. Right before I got out of prison, I had this idea that I said, I want to go back to my neighborhood with this new information. It was kind of like Plato in the Republican We talked about the cave and he said, the one dude who escaped and come back to the cave, and he's trying to convince the people who never left. Hey, man, these things that we got proficient in naming, I understand the real form. I understand the real that's me. I'm that guy. I'm that guy. He said, imagine if you.
In order you evoked Plato in this conversation. Well done, sir, I'm that guy. I went.
I went back into the cave. So I looked at myself as going back into the cave to those people that's bound and saying, look what we got proficient at. That ain't what it is. I'm talking about the streets talking about this. We got good at the streets. We got good at the streets. It's not mainstream society. It's bad information. It don't lead none to destruction and death. Let me let me take you. Let me take you to mainstream society. Let me show you how to be an asset and a productive and a tax was a paying citizen. Let me let me show you what they looked like. Because they told us wrong, they gave us some wrong information. I'm here to tell you here, I'm Paul Revered. Hey, y'all got the wrong information. I'm trying to wake you up right now. The bridge is coming, so listen. So that's me right now, that's me. That's me to the neighborhoods right now. So I'm wagging people up saying hey, listen, said listen, it's okay to come on this side.
Right.
And so to your question, so I said to myself, I wanna go back to my neighborhood and make sure young people don't choose or have that duality, be able to articulate that in a way that people understanding and represent it, stand up for these individuals redemption and transformation. And so I was released, and I never forget. When I released, the brothers told me, they said, man, you're gonna go back to the neighborhood. It's in the numbers. You're gonna go back. You're gonna you're gonna come back to prison probably two years because you're gonna have an X on your back. You're not gonna beab to get people leave prison do in our country, right, they say, you're gonna accept the Las Vegas because of John John Ponda. Yeah, they said you're gonna come back. You're gonna you're gonna blah blah blah because you got a X on your back. And I looked them dudes in the eyes without blink and I said, Man, if the X, it's what get me out of opportunities, And I'm gonna spend the rest of my life making the X be what get me opportunists. And I left prison and I never looked back. Connected with old Marsha War, we did the first gang peace treaty in my neighborhood, Fraser Courts, and from that we began to work in the schools, We worked in the juvenile department, We worked in every facet of community that you can think of, hiring, getting people hired working with baby Mama, Baby Dad. We did everything right to uh fast forward to now.
Go hang on okay, Omar founded Urban Specialist, Yes, and then he passed Yes, and then you became the president. Yes.
One of the most smartest uh impact.
Tell me about him, son.
Perceptive individ was only three years older than me. And when I met him, he had so much wisdom.
And how did you meet him?
I met him because I was in the day room and he came on in the day room. I was in prison in my neighborhood, Fraser Courts, and he was with two of my cousins, who was in a gang with me, started a gang with me, and he was talking about ganging events and the sound of his voice and what he was saying was in tune with what was happening to me in prison.
Right.
I identified the sound, and so I wrote my cousin and said, man, whoever that guy that y'all went on the ners, connect me to him, whoever he is, connect because he because he in the right vein. But see, I didn't know at the time. They were telling him, Hey, if you want to do anything in his neighborhood, you got to get with our cousin. They were talking about me in prison, and they didn't know I was gonna come out. They didn't know what I was doing in prison because I had shut down the outside world and was really focusing on my transformation. They didn't know I was doing this stuff. And so when me and Omar met, he was telling me about what he planned to do and his ideas and all that good stuff. And it was the same. It was the same cadence. And I gave him some of my types up in prison and he read it. I remember he did, just like this. He looked over at me. Read some morning, he looked over at me. I didn't know him, he didn't know me. We used the exact same words to describe what we were doing, identical, and he looked at me and he said, he say, ain't no need to recreate in a will. Let's go to work. He taught me. He was the first person. He was the second person who believed in me as a person, right regardless to what I had first exactly, he was the first one to say, you have value regardless of what you've been through your past. Omar was the free world edition of the guy that I met at the childh who said to me, you have value regardless of what you've been through.
And that was.
Different, right, and he really believed that, he really you know, it was just that touch, It was that information, It was that wisdom that he had. That and the lessons that I learned riding with him twenty one year of shotgun and us talking every single day about how to better our community, our conversations for twenty one years about how to better community, how to better people, how to increase relations, et cetera, et cetera.
So in short, at the beginning urban specialist, it's really about gang intervention to get young men to think about things a different way.
Right, using people with lived experience, using the old usion, using ogg. We was training OG's to say, look, you got influence. If you get yourself together, you can change the generation of young people following you.
You guys even negotiated a truth betting blood and the crips.
Right, yeah, we did. We had over two hundred well, yes, two hundred and seventy seventy young people who sign a gang peace treaty who would add war with each other.
We'll be right back. So Omar passes, you call him Bishop Omar is his name bishop or is it bishop of title?
Yeah? Bishop of title. He was Omar when I first met him, but as he started growing in the ministry because he was a past he was a you pastor, and I just came a pastor and then became a bishop.
All right, yeah, so you took over, still kept doing these things. But then what I think is phenomenal. You met Eddie Garcia. Oh yeah, and to me, this is the magic of all of it.
Man, Eddie Garcia, Chief Edi Garcia. Let me put some respect on his name.
He is.
He's the man man. He one of the best police chiefs in the country right now.
He's the police chief in Dallas, the police.
Chief in Dallas. When he came to Dallas. He came to Dallas right when Omar passed, and so I didn't never meet him. He went around and met a lot of organizations who were doing the work, who they told him doing the work. But when Omar passed, I took a sabbatica. I was kind of I was grieving, So I was off the scene dealing with that, right because that was really tough on me. And so when I finally came back up for aeron me and Chief Chief Ediguarcia. We met, and we met. It was good. It was a good conversation. And and and he told some friends city leaders. Uh, he don't think I know what he told some people. He said, why y'all never told me about anytngue lucky and everything, especially like why y'all keep that from me?
Right, here's a quote from him. Yeah, when he was trying to figure you out. Yeah, you said, lawlessness, no matter where it's found, cannot be tolerated, whether it's an officer with a gun and a badge or a gang member with a gun and a rag, we have to hold them all accountable. From there, I was all ears to what he had to say. Such, Chief Garcia, can you tell me about that? Oh?
Yeah, that was because I was telling the chief man that at the end of the at the end of the day, it's about accountability for everybody, because I think all too often when when community members connect with law enforcement, they come from a slanted anti police perspective, and it can also be seen as covering and condoning for the people who commit crimes, break the law in our neighborhood. I want to be emphatic with Chief that I'm on the side of safety of law in order public safety that I don't make no excuses and I don't cover for people who break the law. They must be held accountable and that has to transcend across the board with officers as well. And I said, when you do that, when you have a standard that says we hold everybody accountable if they break the law. Going back to what I just told you about my story, we hold anybody accountable that breaks the law. We got to hold them accountable. It sets a proceedings and it sets a standard that wins. You try us between all the people who want to do right on this side of the of the al and all the people that want to do right on this side of that because it's people, contrary to popular belief, and neighborhoods who want criminals and people who commit crime prosecuted just as much as the people on this side. Oftentimes they voices don't get heard, and so it's my job to represent them. Because at the height of George Floyd, my neighborhood did surveys, and four neighborhoods we did over two thousand surveys asking particular questions about law enforcement and police and ninety three percent of the respondent said that they wanted more police in their neighborhood, that they loved the police. That was contradictory to what the talking here is on seeing INN and MSN and all the news stations were saying. So I got to represent those people in communities who are saying, now, we don't hate the police, we ain't mad at the police, DA da DA. Regardless of all of the stuff that was happening in the national news, the Tyresse Nichols and A maud Aubrey, Breonna Taylor, regardless of that, they were still saying, Now we're not saying defund the police or do away with the police. We're saying increase the police. And so it was my job to represent those people. And then the second thing is I told Chief Garcia that when we first met that I understand that some people in my neighborhood, Chief, they need a prison ministry to get right. And that's all I had to say. He understood what I was saying. I said, they need a prison ministry to get right. So I'm not protecting people. Some people got to go to prison to change, and I understand that, and I'm not protecting those people, and I think that was that there solidified our relationship and the fact that you know, I you know, one of the things I always say is that in order to get public safety, you gotta have a relationship between law enforcement community and has a bit real relationship, and that relationship can exist and thrive in this climate right here. We just gotta run out the voices that put us against each other, because again, it's people in the neighborhood. It's great police officers. I deal with them all the time. Who gets swept in by the narrative? Imagine a black police officer in this narrative, in that narrative, George Floyd narrative, who became a police officer to protect their community and rid their community of criminals. But then when they come to their community, they get met with hostivity because it's a narrative that's saying all police is bad. Who's talking for that officer. It's my job to speak for that office. Who's talking for the person in the community, who's saying, nah, I'm not saying to defund the police. I'm saying I need police because I know police in my neighborhood gonna keep me safe. That's gonna hit me out. So I gotta speak for that. I gotta speak for ultimately, Yes, I gotta bridge that gap.
So in being that bridge, you said something that is really interesting. I've talked to WHO a lot. Memphis has a lot of conversation about growing our police department and also, you know, all of the same thing every city does. I think the people on the quote defund the police side of things did themselves a really really really injustice because their marketing and their phraseology sucked. Defund the police, I could I could almost understand. Can you imagine the police retrain the police out to the police. But it's funny, but you said, because I've heard that over and over again that look, the truth is where my neighborhood is. You know, I am dealing with what kids with kids and families are doing, where the projects are. They're the last people that don't want law in order. I mean, they're the ones that are truly the victims of the greatest amount of crime.
There's some decent people in these neighborhood I just did it. Some neighborhoods here in Memphis. It's decent people in these neighborhood that exists I'm just saying that on the way here is they exist everywhere. Oftentimes they voices don't get put in the equation. It's always narrative driven on one side of another. But the people who are decent, people who want a honest living, who want to be protected and feel safe, they are often overlooked because of these talking heads who say I speak for them, and we got to pump them up.
So urban specialists basically started with trying to go in to cry to gang ridden neighborhoods and give gang members an idea in a different way of looking self and reach that little boy. What you still do, but now it is morphed into your partnering with the police. Yes, to bridge the gap between law enforcement and communities that have in some cases righteous fear of law enforcement. But get one another to see each other as human beings first rather than the badge and the neighborhood they're from, and basically have all of them unlock their little boys and girls.
Man, that's exactly what we're doing. That's exactly what everyone specialist does. It's it's reminiscent of Oh one we went to Russia. We've summoned over the rush. They have rush with their gangs a couple of years ago, and we had this guy who was out of interpret His name was Sasha. Sasha was a great interpreter. When I was talking to my Russian counterpoints, it's almost like I was talking directly to them on how Sasha was interpreting the feelings, the emotions, et cetera, et cetera. Right, Urban Specialists exists to be those interpreters for these conversations. Oftentimes you need people who can say, who can interpret in a way to the other side that they say, Man, I feel that, I understand that without judgment, right, and so Urban especially exists to do that. And so we we work with Chief Guard Sea, we work on our focus. We do a lot of stuff with the dpd UH, namely the focus the terrence, which is that's targeting individuals who are, by the metrics, are more most likely to commit crime, to reoffend. Right, who best to talk to that, to that group of people than somebody like me former game game, some might have been to prison. Who best to talk to that game to to that individual? So so relatability and you got credibility and credibility and were hiring those individuals and we're giving them services. So we got that. We got an entrepreneur. We're teaching urban entrepreneurship to young people and not just young people, older people as well, getting them their business together. We have our USC three Community Collaborator, Community Collaborative Change make a meeting where we bring in law enforcement, business, social entrepreneurs, nonprofits. Oh Jesus got them allel in the room. Because we believe it's magic when you bring people together in proximities. It's it's easy for me to judge you Bill from my safe space. It's easy to do that. But when I get to know you up close personally, we talk and having conversations and I know you and you know me. See, it ain't easy for somebody to say, Man, Bill ain't Now you can't say that Bill my friend. I know Bill and Bill good people. But that's the proximity. Our capability is bringing people together because we believe when we bring people together, magic happen. And we believe everybody has something to contribute.
Can you give me some measurables? Oh yeah, but you're a fact man.
We look, we didn't help. We didn't help over twenty thousand people since we've been in existence, and that's all that information on our website. We've catalyzed over twelve hundred ogs in the last two years. What catalyzed, well, we twelve hundred twelve hundred OG's all over Doubllas. We just did a class Tuesday night where we had oh we do this class, we bring them into our network.
My understanding is Dallas's crime rate is one of the few large urban cities that the crime rate has actually dropped right as a result of what you and Chief Garcia are doing.
Yes, yes, yes, and and we hope we can duplicate that around.
That's my question. Is scalable.
It's definitely scalable. But again, it's having conversations. It's having conversations with community and law enforcement in the way that things seen these conversations a lot of time. The conversations can't be in platitudes. It can't be in these relationships. It's not really we got to be able to sit down, like how man and you did this podcast and when you say, Man, I'm gonna tell you something, See, I want you to tell me something called You can't tell me nothing. You can't be honest with me and give it to me. How you feel it without editing, then you ain't being my friend. But if you say un tongue man, I'm gonna shoot something at you. Man, I'm gona see how you're gonna have this and it's highest coming out, then you my friend because I know well.
I guess you were you and our friends because you handled it judifully. Somebody wants to support I mean, gosh, there's nineteen thousand things somebody might want to do. But if they want to support urban Specialists, if they want to get in touch with you and say, hey, man, this needs to happen in Memphis. If they want to grow it, where do they find a tongue and urban specialists?
Okay, I'm gonna give out my personal my personal social media handles and tongue speaks. That's a N T O N G speaks. It's p E A K S. That's on our social media or the organization is at the E H E Urban Specialists on our social media or www. Dot Urban Specialists with a S at the end of specialist dot org. All you have to do is reach out. If you reach out, I promise we're gonna connect. And then lastly, but like I got to say this, I know you probably have something else, but you gotta go get the book, A Redemptive Path Forward. Anywhere they sell books, I promise you you got somebody in course rate of you got somebody's doing community work. I promised them. Once they read their book, they gonna understand that's the blueprint.
A Redemptive Path Forward. The subtitle from a cart incarceration to a life of activism and Tom Lucky looking clean on the front of this thing.
That's what I grew with her.
Yeah.
I don't know you. I think your publisher had you clean up. But now you uh Paul Revere with drugs.
Man, let me sign that this is your book. I appreciate you, man. I appreciate you.
Man.
I studied you on social media, so I already knew how this.
Interview Anti Lucky everybody. Urban Specialists changing lives in Dallas from a smart little boy who got sucked up into the streets and became the OG, now not just a gang member, but leading a gang, four years in prison, running, now running an organization called Urban Specialists that have changed their lives. So far, of twenty thousand people in Dallas have gotten twelve hundred former ogs into legitimate lifestyle has built a relationship with the Dallas Police Apartment, and Chief Garcia is changing lives and one of the few urban cities where crime is actually dropping as a result of this. If that is not the story of what a normal human being can do when the employees is discipline, discipline and his abilities, whereas passion is to change the world, a normal god doing extraordinary stuff.
Man, we just a normal guys.
Man. Man, thanks from coming from Dallas and telling me your story. Thanks for being with me. It is phenomenal and I am not at all surprised that you and John Ponder are tight because y'all cut from the same way. Man, with you, my guy, and I appreciate you being here, bro.
Thank you, man, I appreciate you. Thank you for what you do.
I enjoyed it, yes indeed, and thank you for joining us this week. If Anton, Lucky or other guests have inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by donating to urban specialists, bringing and talk to your community to help empower local change makers there, or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at Normalfolks dot us, and I promise I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, y'all, please share it with friends and on social subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it. Join the army at normalfolks dot us. Consider becoming a Premium member. There all of these things that will help us grow an army of normal folks. Thanks to our producer, Ironlight Labs, I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.
