Testimony : ONE PERSON’S STORY ABOUT GANGS : ‘Those Who Have Made It Need to Come Back to Help’

The Rev. Carl Washington, 28, is a youth minister at St. Mark’s Missionary Baptist Church in South-Central Los Angeles. He won this year’s Reebok Human Rights Award for helping negotiate a truce between gangs in Watts and his efforts to seek nonviolent solutions to problems that give rise to gangs. In January, he will take up to 20 young people from South-Central to South Korea as part of an effort to bridge the cultural gap between the Korean and African American communities.

The gang truce that we have is only in a small portion of the Watts area. My hope is that we could bring a truce among all gangs.

Last year, we lost over 400 (people) to gang homicides alone and that is just devastating. It’s not so much dealing with the gang problem . . . it’s a human problem. Regardless of what color you are, you ought to be able to go anywhere in this city without the fear of your life being taken from you.

The biggest problem that (gang members) have is that people don’t care about them. They say that people don’t care and when you do reach out to them and express your concern and love, they stop and listen to you.

They need to understand that there is someone who cares. And that is what I took when I sat down with them and they asked me to (help negotiate a truce). I told them I had never been involved with gangs but that when I come to the table, I come with the love of mankind, period. I want them to know that I am willing to put my life at risk to bring about peace.

They are looking for someone to listen to what they are saying. The first thing most people think of about gang members is hoodlums, criminals, etc. And the gang members say, “Perhaps maybe I did walk that life, but I do deserve another chance.” That is the echoing cry that I hear in gang members: “Give me a chance.” (They want) to become a part of society, a productive part of society. “If I can get me a job, if someone will give me some skills and give me a job, I won’t have to (be a gang member).”

They have backgrounds that are devastating. Most of them get involved with gangs because they really just want to be a part of something. They are not recognized at all for anything, no schooling, no one will hire them. They are just stuck. They get involved in gangs because they figure “I need some money, some kind of way.”

I know the situation isn’t hopeless if I can bring two factions of gang members together. It was your paper that reported four months after the truce that homicides in the Watts area were down 30%. And I think it is a tribute to the young men who decided that they wanted to stop the killing.

Those young men have high respect for the clergy and for me because I’m in the same age bracket. I know they’d respect our more senior leadership in the clergy if they would actually get out there and work with the young men.

I would never write these people off. I have lived in housing projects here 23 years of my life. I know what they are faced with. I know the difficulties they have; some people don’t.

It is not just a weekend thing. It’s every day that those young men wake up and there are no jobs for them and they can’t read and write. They know it. And no one ever stops to say, “Let me see if I can help out.” No president from a local college from around the community would come over and say, “Perhaps I can do a program that would help.” They have the Maxine Waters Preparation School inside some of the housing projects. But other people have to take an active role.

I have no real understanding why I didn’t (become a gang member). I think it was pretty much God who chose to direct me in a totally different path. I just knew that I wanted to be a productive part of society and I didn’t want to be a menace. I think that those have come from that community and have made it need to come back, they need physically to come back to the community to give these young men encouragement. That is what is missing.

So I urge all of those who are successful to come back to our community and go to the community that they were raised in and just offer a helping hand. You don’t have to do it every day, but just showing up once a month would produce a whole new outlook. And some of these young men would work for success.

There should be opportunities opened up in the music industry, acting, production. They are doing a lot of movies now on gangs. They should ask the gang members to serve internships in these different movies. Economic development in our community has to be raised. I have been crying out over the years, asking people to step up to the plate and let’s start hitting some home runs. I am asking anyone--from corporate America to the mother who is just at home saying, “What can I do?”--to play a role. Everyone has a role to play. Everyone.

In the beginning (of the negotiations), I was fearful because we didn’t know each other. But I have no qualms now. I would welcome anyone to come see me and I will introduce them to the organizations or individuals that they could help. I welcome anyone to come and join in this struggle.

Don’t chalk these people up as though they don’t exist. There is hope for them and they deserve that opportunity to become a productive part of society.

To Get Involved, call the Rev. Carl Washington at St. Mark’s Missionary Baptist Church , (213) 974-2222, or Hands Across Watts, (213) 777-3150.