00:00:00.220 --> 00:00:03.470
[police siren wailing]

00:00:09.241 --> 00:00:10.800
[gunshot blaring]

00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:12.900
- [News Reporter] Less
than a week after 16-year-old

00:00:12.900 --> 00:00:16.230
Ocean Conway was shot in the
head at the Patterson Houses,

00:00:16.230 --> 00:00:18.000
community members rally together

00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.429
to voice that they've
had just about enough.

00:00:21.429 --> 00:00:22.514
- [Protestor] Say that again!

00:00:22.514 --> 00:00:26.188
- It is not normal for
somebody to get shot

00:00:26.188 --> 00:00:29.426
in broad daylight and we walk
around here like it's normal.

00:00:29.426 --> 00:00:31.320
We have to do something about it.

00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:32.880
We have to stand up.

00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:36.575
This is where we work
at. This is where we live at.

00:00:36.575 --> 00:00:37.700
We have to wake up!

00:00:37.700 --> 00:00:39.660
- It is up to us to
put down the fear

00:00:39.660 --> 00:00:41.730
and that when we see
our brother and our sister

00:00:41.730 --> 00:00:44.070
on a path that's crazy for them,

00:00:44.070 --> 00:00:45.337
to pull them back in and say,

00:00:45.337 --> 00:00:47.070
"No, bro, don't do that.

00:00:47.070 --> 00:00:48.660
No, sis, don't do that.

00:00:48.660 --> 00:00:50.190
What's up? You
hurting, you hungry?

00:00:50.190 --> 00:00:52.080
Come get this plate of food."

00:00:52.080 --> 00:00:54.480
- We can't rely on anybody
else to keep us safe.

00:00:55.325 --> 00:00:56.940
We have to rely on ourselves.

00:00:56.940 --> 00:00:58.830
We gotta look out
for one another.

00:00:58.830 --> 00:01:01.983
- I, as a father, think about
the incredible amount of pain

00:01:01.983 --> 00:01:03.630
that that man must have felt,

00:01:03.630 --> 00:01:06.030
knowing that as a
father, as a parent,

00:01:06.030 --> 00:01:07.710
that I can't protect my kid.

00:01:07.710 --> 00:01:10.627
- [Protestor] Back in the
days we sit them down, say,

00:01:10.627 --> 00:01:13.200
"You that mad at each
other, you gonna fight it out?

00:01:13.200 --> 00:01:15.300
Then you gonna talk it out,
you gonna hug each other.

00:01:15.300 --> 00:01:17.280
You gonna go upstairs and eat,
you gonna come out tomorrow,

00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:19.140
you gonna play
ball on the court."

00:01:19.140 --> 00:01:20.180
That's what it's about.

00:01:20.180 --> 00:01:23.190
- Be running around talking
about, "This is my block."

00:01:23.190 --> 00:01:24.900
This is nobody's block.

00:01:24.900 --> 00:01:28.380
This here belongs to the
people that's in the community.

00:01:28.380 --> 00:01:29.880
- I realized that I was a fool

00:01:31.610 --> 00:01:33.870
by thinking that it's
okay to pick up a gun

00:01:33.870 --> 00:01:36.060
and shoot somebody
over a conflict.

00:01:36.060 --> 00:01:38.160
That shit don't
make you gangster.

00:01:38.160 --> 00:01:39.503
If you don't know that,

00:01:39.503 --> 00:01:42.570
look at the cowards shooting
up churches and schools.

00:01:42.570 --> 00:01:45.480
Are they gangster 'cause
they shot somebody?

00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:47.940
There's a system that's
waiting for our kids,

00:01:47.940 --> 00:01:49.860
it's called mass incarceration.

00:01:49.860 --> 00:01:52.500
- [Protestor] It is our duty
to fight for our freedom.

00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:54.630
- [Crowd] It is our duty
to fight for our freedom.

00:01:54.630 --> 00:01:56.190
- [Protestor] It is
our duty to win.

00:01:56.190 --> 00:01:57.510
- [Crowd] It is our duty to win.

00:01:57.510 --> 00:02:00.374
- [Protestor] We must love
and protect one another.

00:02:00.374 --> 00:02:01.410
- [Crowd] We must love
and protect one another.

00:02:01.410 --> 00:02:04.646
- [Protestor] We have
nothing to lose but our chains.

00:02:04.646 --> 00:02:06.240
- [Crowd] We have nothing
to lose but our chains.

00:02:06.240 --> 00:02:07.890
- [News Reporter]
Conway is fighting for his life

00:02:07.890 --> 00:02:10.290
at Lincoln Hospital
in critical condition.

00:02:10.290 --> 00:02:12.747
His parents hope
their message sinks in.

00:02:12.747 --> 00:02:14.370
- [Ocean's Mother] And I
wouldn't wish this on anybody,

00:02:14.370 --> 00:02:15.413
not even my worst enemy.

00:02:15.413 --> 00:02:20.413
- [Clarissa] I don't
know why we can't unite.

00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:24.393
I just don't know why we
can't unite, and that is a goal.

00:02:25.230 --> 00:02:27.597
And I'm always thinking
of ways, whether we do it.

00:02:27.597 --> 00:02:29.310
And you know, back in the days,

00:02:29.310 --> 00:02:31.620
they used to play
basketball together.

00:02:31.620 --> 00:02:35.010
Mott Haven, Mitchell, Patterson,
they all played together.

00:02:35.010 --> 00:02:39.090
So I don't know, at
what point did that stop,

00:02:39.090 --> 00:02:40.533
or was it structural?

00:02:41.963 --> 00:02:44.463
[eerie music]

00:02:51.480 --> 00:02:53.040
- [Felippe] Nobody
talks about the fact

00:02:53.040 --> 00:02:54.660
that public housing was a place

00:02:54.660 --> 00:02:57.093
where people lived
with their doors open,

00:02:58.020 --> 00:03:01.440
where the floors were so
clean you could eat off of them.

00:03:01.440 --> 00:03:03.210
Where you had
great youth programs,

00:03:03.210 --> 00:03:06.690
where people of all backgrounds
shared their food and music.

00:03:06.690 --> 00:03:10.053
Where people of all backgrounds
lived and learned together.

00:03:11.880 --> 00:03:15.120
No one talks about the
childhoods of successful individuals

00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:16.800
and legends in our society

00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:19.767
that came out of the
so-called projects.

00:03:19.767 --> 00:03:22.830
[emotional music]

00:03:22.830 --> 00:03:26.223
There are 341 projects
in New York City proper.

00:03:27.570 --> 00:03:30.330
The people who
lived in those projects

00:03:30.330 --> 00:03:33.273
have stories to tell,
seven decades worth.

00:03:34.620 --> 00:03:37.560
They tell what it was like
in one of those projects.

00:03:37.560 --> 00:03:38.393
The Patterson.

00:03:39.468 --> 00:03:42.301
[emotional music]

00:03:46.029 --> 00:03:49.696
[balls thudding repeatedly]

00:03:54.004 --> 00:03:57.087
[sneakers squeaking]

00:03:57.928 --> 00:03:59.178
- Chest Pass! Chest pass!

00:04:00.541 --> 00:04:04.260
There's a lot of myths about
growing up in certain areas.

00:04:04.260 --> 00:04:09.260
South Bronx at that time
was to me, a heaven haven.

00:04:09.990 --> 00:04:13.830
The myth was that
there was a lot of looting,

00:04:13.830 --> 00:04:18.830
robbing, stealing, cars
burning in the so-called projects,

00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:22.170
and I don't remember
ever seeing that.

00:04:22.170 --> 00:04:25.050
- People had this
impression of the Bronx

00:04:25.050 --> 00:04:30.050
as this place of growing
up hard on drugs,

00:04:30.300 --> 00:04:33.030
gang fighting, and death.

00:04:33.030 --> 00:04:34.890
It wasn't always like that.

00:04:34.890 --> 00:04:36.150
When I grew up there,

00:04:36.150 --> 00:04:40.560
it was a place of harmony,
friendship, peer study,

00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:43.260
both academically
and athletically.

00:04:43.260 --> 00:04:45.570
- I don't think the young
people now have a clue

00:04:45.570 --> 00:04:49.806
as to what it means to
grow up the way that we did.

00:04:49.806 --> 00:04:52.806
[upbeat jazz music]

00:04:53.670 --> 00:04:57.960
We had a special
comradery. We had love.

00:04:57.960 --> 00:05:01.770
We could go outside,
we'd sit on the benches

00:05:01.770 --> 00:05:03.150
till three in the morning

00:05:03.150 --> 00:05:06.390
with portable record
players and dance.

00:05:06.390 --> 00:05:09.990
- Well, The Patterson project
was kind of a special place.

00:05:09.990 --> 00:05:13.980
I think that the people
genuinely loved each other.

00:05:13.980 --> 00:05:18.360
It was a village experience,
and unless you grew up with it,

00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:20.790
you do not know what it was.

00:05:20.790 --> 00:05:24.030
If there had to be a theme,
they always had your back.

00:05:24.030 --> 00:05:25.910
- Although it was
a large project,

00:05:25.910 --> 00:05:27.780
it was just something,
I don't know,

00:05:27.780 --> 00:05:31.890
maybe it was the community
centers that we had at the time

00:05:31.890 --> 00:05:33.900
where we had places to go.

00:05:33.900 --> 00:05:36.900
We'd go to PS 18, go
to Patterson Center.

00:05:36.900 --> 00:05:38.670
Everyone got to know each other.

00:05:38.670 --> 00:05:42.360
It was just a closeness
in the Patterson.

00:05:42.360 --> 00:05:45.450
- My family immigrated from
Columbia, South America

00:05:45.450 --> 00:05:50.450
back in the early '50s,
and we lived in Manhattan.

00:05:50.610 --> 00:05:53.460
And shortly after that we
moved to The Patterson.

00:05:53.460 --> 00:05:57.540
So before my first birthday,
I guess it was in 1954,

00:05:57.540 --> 00:06:00.180
if you recall, back in the '50s,

00:06:00.180 --> 00:06:02.040
living in the project
was a really good thing.

00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:05.010
You got secure
housing, it was sturdy,

00:06:05.010 --> 00:06:08.640
and that's what prompted
my family to move to the Bronx.

00:06:08.640 --> 00:06:11.250
So we probably were
the only Colombian family

00:06:11.250 --> 00:06:12.690
residing in the South Bronx,

00:06:12.690 --> 00:06:15.750
which at that time
was the only Latinos,

00:06:15.750 --> 00:06:17.640
there were Puerto Rican.

00:06:17.640 --> 00:06:20.140
- 315 was one of the
first buildings that went up.

00:06:21.478 --> 00:06:22.620
And when we moved there,

00:06:22.620 --> 00:06:24.960
don't forget the
milkman delivered milk.

00:06:24.960 --> 00:06:29.663
And it was so clean.

00:06:30.870 --> 00:06:35.870
- I would say the safety
issue wasn't an issue.

00:06:36.120 --> 00:06:39.120
It's something that
you didn't think about.

00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:41.700
You didn't think about
having to lock your door.

00:06:41.700 --> 00:06:44.970
You didn't think about
someone walking up on you

00:06:44.970 --> 00:06:48.960
and threatening you, or
wanting to take from you.

00:06:48.960 --> 00:06:53.553
There was no safety
issue. It was comfortable.

00:06:55.560 --> 00:06:59.130
Comfortable living
without a care in the world.

00:06:59.130 --> 00:07:04.130
- I think my family was
probably one of the first families

00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:08.520
to move into 424 Morris Avenue.

00:07:08.520 --> 00:07:12.090
It's a place where I can
always say I can go home,

00:07:12.090 --> 00:07:13.740
and that's a good thing

00:07:13.740 --> 00:07:16.230
because some people
grow up in New York

00:07:16.230 --> 00:07:17.610
and they can't stay home.

00:07:17.610 --> 00:07:19.050
And still to today,

00:07:19.050 --> 00:07:22.830
I'm still involved with
many, many friends

00:07:22.830 --> 00:07:25.530
from my childhood age,

00:07:25.530 --> 00:07:30.270
which is basically
kindergarten all the way up until

00:07:30.270 --> 00:07:33.330
we are now all in
our '60s basically.

00:07:33.330 --> 00:07:37.590
- Whether we're Black,
white, Italian, Jewish, Hispanic,

00:07:37.590 --> 00:07:38.490
just got along.

00:07:38.490 --> 00:07:40.350
Whatever we had, we shared.

00:07:40.350 --> 00:07:42.210
- I knew I had a good life, okay?

00:07:42.210 --> 00:07:45.990
I had good parents, good
family. I was never hungry.

00:07:45.990 --> 00:07:47.700
Good schooling,
the teachers also.

00:07:47.700 --> 00:07:51.060
The teachers of PS 18
and Clark, they cared.

00:07:51.060 --> 00:07:52.200
They really cared
about the students,

00:07:52.200 --> 00:07:53.340
they knew about their students,

00:07:53.340 --> 00:07:55.320
they knew about
our personal lives.

00:07:55.320 --> 00:07:57.030
We were just so
fortunate and blessed

00:07:57.030 --> 00:07:59.790
when we came out of
The Patterson in the '50s

00:07:59.790 --> 00:08:01.320
to have all of those things.

00:08:01.320 --> 00:08:02.153
Because believe me,

00:08:02.153 --> 00:08:04.050
you wouldn't be sitting
here talking to me

00:08:04.050 --> 00:08:08.220
if I didn't have that kind of
foundation when I grew up.

00:08:08.220 --> 00:08:10.530
- They say it takes a
village to raise a child.

00:08:10.530 --> 00:08:12.270
That was like our village.

00:08:12.270 --> 00:08:14.250
Everyone knew everyone.

00:08:14.250 --> 00:08:16.470
We didn't lock our
doors back then.

00:08:16.470 --> 00:08:18.900
Everybody went in and
outta everybody's house

00:08:18.900 --> 00:08:23.430
and if someone else's
mother saw you do something,

00:08:23.430 --> 00:08:25.230
they could chastise you.

00:08:25.230 --> 00:08:27.030
- My father was a barber,

00:08:27.030 --> 00:08:30.840
and everybody knows Johnson
kid, but I don't know them.

00:08:30.840 --> 00:08:34.380
And you know, so you
just couldn't get away

00:08:34.380 --> 00:08:35.820
with a bunch of things

00:08:35.820 --> 00:08:37.980
that you thought you
could get away with.

00:08:37.980 --> 00:08:42.980
So it was sort of
like a village raising.

00:08:44.010 --> 00:08:46.620
- My father was a IRS agent.

00:08:46.620 --> 00:08:50.940
My mother, she was a
mender. She mended sweaters.

00:08:50.940 --> 00:08:55.247
And I think back then
you had to be a veteran

00:08:55.247 --> 00:08:59.220
affiliated with the service
to get into the projects.

00:08:59.220 --> 00:09:02.100
- My father was a World
War II Army veteran.

00:09:02.100 --> 00:09:04.830
He was part of the
369th Harlem Hellfighters.

00:09:04.830 --> 00:09:06.150
And my uncles were too.

00:09:06.150 --> 00:09:11.040
He saw action in Japan where
he was wounded by shrapnel

00:09:11.040 --> 00:09:15.300
under his eye, and that
score never went away.

00:09:15.300 --> 00:09:17.640
But he was an army veteran.

00:09:17.640 --> 00:09:19.380
And when he got outta the service

00:09:19.380 --> 00:09:22.380
and we were still living in the
huts, we moved from the huts

00:09:22.380 --> 00:09:25.500
to The Patterson
projects in around 1950.

00:09:25.500 --> 00:09:26.820
- When my father was a young man,

00:09:26.820 --> 00:09:30.600
he got very interested in drama.

00:09:30.600 --> 00:09:33.810
Became a very fine
actor, a very fine speaker,

00:09:33.810 --> 00:09:34.830
and that was interrupted

00:09:34.830 --> 00:09:38.070
by his being drafted into
the second World War.

00:09:38.070 --> 00:09:39.900
But he set a timetable
with my mother

00:09:39.900 --> 00:09:44.250
that if things hadn't
worked out in two years,

00:09:44.250 --> 00:09:47.220
he would try to get a
legitimate job in some other field.

00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:49.920
And he wound up getting
a job working for the army.

00:09:49.920 --> 00:09:51.690
- My mom finished high school

00:09:51.690 --> 00:09:54.840
and attended secretarial school

00:09:54.840 --> 00:09:56.250
and she was an athlete,
as a matter of fact,

00:09:56.250 --> 00:09:59.220
she represented Columbia
in the Panamanian games.

00:09:59.220 --> 00:10:01.560
So she represented her country,

00:10:01.560 --> 00:10:03.510
and that's what got my
older brother into basketball.

00:10:03.510 --> 00:10:04.680
My mother's short,

00:10:04.680 --> 00:10:06.780
but she was a basketball
player representing her country.

00:10:06.780 --> 00:10:09.660
So that had an
impact on my brother

00:10:09.660 --> 00:10:12.870
in terms of pursuing basketball,
and we were proud of her.

00:10:12.870 --> 00:10:16.950
My dad was a dentist,
and at that time,

00:10:16.950 --> 00:10:18.420
and all my uncles
and my grandfather,

00:10:18.420 --> 00:10:21.330
they were all
dentists in Columbia.

00:10:21.330 --> 00:10:23.340
But when they came here,
due to the language problem,

00:10:23.340 --> 00:10:26.880
they had to change
professions and then he became,

00:10:26.880 --> 00:10:28.560
believe it or not, an
aerospace mechanic.

00:10:28.560 --> 00:10:31.017
It was from one
extreme to another.

00:10:31.017 --> 00:10:32.227
And I remember him, Kenny saying,

00:10:32.227 --> 00:10:34.890
"You see that rocket going up?

00:10:34.890 --> 00:10:36.270
That was my
company who did that."

00:10:36.270 --> 00:10:39.570
- At the first, when we went
there, there was a lot of...

00:10:39.570 --> 00:10:42.690
There was mixture, but a lot
of whites. They moved away.

00:10:42.690 --> 00:10:44.400
I think there was a
temporary thing for them

00:10:44.400 --> 00:10:48.630
and a lot of them were not,
they were prejudice anyway,

00:10:48.630 --> 00:10:51.330
so they stayed in their
little group, and they went.

00:10:51.330 --> 00:10:53.400
So we were like
one big happy family.

00:10:53.400 --> 00:10:55.233
We meet a certain
time on the bench,

00:10:56.220 --> 00:10:59.610
sit on the bench with the
kids and let them play around.

00:10:59.610 --> 00:11:01.461
We didn't send
our kids out to play.

00:11:01.461 --> 00:11:03.813
When they went out
to play, we were there.

00:11:05.099 --> 00:11:07.290
Sat there while they played
and we watched them.

00:11:07.290 --> 00:11:09.180
We know what they
do and everything,

00:11:09.180 --> 00:11:12.240
and when we went
upstairs, they went upstairs.

00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:15.149
- Yeah, there was
always somebody's house

00:11:15.149 --> 00:11:18.311
or a floor that you
would hang out on.

00:11:18.311 --> 00:11:21.453
And then when it got to be
appropriate time, we went in.

00:11:23.340 --> 00:11:26.430
Usually when the lights
came on, it was time to go in.

00:11:26.430 --> 00:11:28.923
And each building
had its nucleus.

00:11:31.077 --> 00:11:33.917
And we used to like
to sing in the hallways.

00:11:35.061 --> 00:11:39.019
We did a lot of Doo-Wop.

00:11:39.019 --> 00:11:41.686
♪ For you, dear ♪

00:11:50.222 --> 00:11:54.805
♪ My love must be
a kind of blind love ♪

00:11:56.970 --> 00:11:58.860
- It all started here for me.

00:11:58.860 --> 00:12:00.930
It all started here in
these projects for me,

00:12:00.930 --> 00:12:03.000
like I said, I was four years
old when I moved here.

00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:06.090
And the majority of the people

00:12:06.090 --> 00:12:10.596
that I know in my life,
I know 'em from here.

00:12:10.596 --> 00:12:13.290
This was a world
within world here.

00:12:13.290 --> 00:12:16.080
- In the Bronx, in the '50s,

00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:19.680
there was predominantly,
the Blacks were a minority,

00:12:19.680 --> 00:12:24.210
and they had Jewish people,
Italian people, Irish people,

00:12:24.210 --> 00:12:28.020
and so mixing really
wasn't a problem.

00:12:28.020 --> 00:12:30.420
When there was
racial strife down south

00:12:30.420 --> 00:12:33.360
and they were still hanging
brothers with the Ku Klux Klan,

00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:37.200
I look out my window and see
everybody playing, it was cool.

00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:41.010
- I had more mothers, more aunts

00:12:41.010 --> 00:12:43.023
that weren't even related to me.

00:12:43.920 --> 00:12:48.920
And we had great teachers
that we grew up with.

00:12:51.090 --> 00:12:53.550
We had people
that were track stars,

00:12:53.550 --> 00:12:56.640
basketball stars,
we had all that.

00:12:56.640 --> 00:13:01.640
- Because the projects in
the '50s were decent housing

00:13:02.670 --> 00:13:07.560
and people living in
tenements, cold water flats,

00:13:07.560 --> 00:13:10.110
had bathrooms in the hallway.

00:13:10.110 --> 00:13:13.950
So this was decent for
everybody and affordable.

00:13:13.950 --> 00:13:16.130
- Everyone was looking
for better housing.

00:13:16.130 --> 00:13:19.710
It was after the Korean War,
Korean conflict, not a war.

00:13:19.710 --> 00:13:21.450
They lived in the Quonset Huts,

00:13:21.450 --> 00:13:24.480
which I believe was
on Bruckner Boulevard,

00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:28.170
which were dome-shaped
metal buildings

00:13:28.170 --> 00:13:30.270
that had corrugated
metal over them.

00:13:30.270 --> 00:13:32.850
From there, they
went to 3rd Avenue,

00:13:32.850 --> 00:13:35.340
lived in what they
called the railroad flats.

00:13:35.340 --> 00:13:36.450
Well, when you had an apartment,

00:13:36.450 --> 00:13:38.850
it was just straight down
and you had rooms off.

00:13:39.870 --> 00:13:42.060
And from there, The Patterson.

00:13:42.060 --> 00:13:46.563
So it was living conditions
and what they wanted.

00:13:47.730 --> 00:13:50.013
Everybody's looking
to live a cleaner life.

00:13:51.030 --> 00:13:53.100
- You know, when you get
these kind of places like this,

00:13:53.100 --> 00:13:56.040
the housing, this was a
great invention for poor people.

00:13:56.040 --> 00:13:57.570
All of the housing developments.

00:13:57.570 --> 00:14:00.390
I mean, from where we moved,
I figured this was something,

00:14:00.390 --> 00:14:01.223
you know what I mean?

00:14:01.223 --> 00:14:03.960
No gas, no electric, all
this is all built into one.

00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:06.360
You don't pay no gas,
you don't pay no electric,

00:14:07.560 --> 00:14:09.180
and this was heaven.

00:14:09.180 --> 00:14:13.950
- But I knew that I had
this extended family.

00:14:13.950 --> 00:14:16.173
And when you have
this extended family,

00:14:17.520 --> 00:14:20.723
we talk about the whole
building, and you go beyond that,

00:14:20.723 --> 00:14:22.650
you get the whole block.

00:14:22.650 --> 00:14:26.587
We had people that
just wanted to say,

00:14:26.587 --> 00:14:29.490
"I am looking out
for your interest."

00:14:29.490 --> 00:14:32.707
We had people that said to us,

00:14:32.707 --> 00:14:36.150
"You are going to be the best."

00:14:36.150 --> 00:14:38.400
It wasn't Black, it wasn't white.

00:14:38.400 --> 00:14:42.510
There was always a
place that you can find love.

00:14:42.510 --> 00:14:45.537
We had people that
wanted us to play music,

00:14:45.537 --> 00:14:47.280
and we had talent.

00:14:47.280 --> 00:14:52.280
They wanted people, us to
play basketball and we were tall.

00:14:52.680 --> 00:14:57.680
We had people that wanted
us to see, they believed.

00:14:59.880 --> 00:15:03.600
- Looking back, when I grew
up in The Patterson Projects,

00:15:03.600 --> 00:15:05.880
I mean, it was like
heaven every day.

00:15:05.880 --> 00:15:07.170
I mean, I couldn't wait...

00:15:07.170 --> 00:15:10.170
I enjoyed school, but I
couldn't wait to three o'clock

00:15:10.170 --> 00:15:11.550
or whenever it was after school,

00:15:11.550 --> 00:15:14.737
because it was after-school
program set up in PS 18

00:15:14.737 --> 00:15:16.953
where you could play basketball,

00:15:17.910 --> 00:15:22.910
wiffle ball, or it was dancing.

00:15:22.920 --> 00:15:26.460
We also had a club called
Granite Seeds Boys Club.

00:15:26.460 --> 00:15:30.930
That really taught me
about team, sportsmanship,

00:15:30.930 --> 00:15:32.850
and just competition.

00:15:32.850 --> 00:15:36.810
So, I mean, we always had
something to do after school

00:15:36.810 --> 00:15:39.690
and it stayed with us through
the weekends or whatever.

00:15:39.690 --> 00:15:41.100
We had a lot more options,

00:15:41.100 --> 00:15:43.740
and it was a different
time, different era.

00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:47.520
- You had Mon Haven
Church, Congregational Church,

00:15:47.520 --> 00:15:50.280
St. Rita's, St. Jerome's.

00:15:50.280 --> 00:15:52.830
Those are the
churches in the vicinity

00:15:52.830 --> 00:15:54.210
and everybody went.

00:15:54.210 --> 00:15:57.360
On Sundays, growing up,

00:15:57.360 --> 00:15:59.040
my parents made us
go to Sunday school.

00:15:59.040 --> 00:16:00.480
I had to go to Sunday school.

00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:04.122
If I wanted to go to
the show at 12 o'clock,

00:16:04.122 --> 00:16:06.510
you had to be in Sunday school.

00:16:06.510 --> 00:16:07.950
My mother didn't
necessarily make us

00:16:07.950 --> 00:16:11.370
go to church every Sunday,
but I had to go to Sunday school.

00:16:11.370 --> 00:16:16.200
That played a big part in
how people raise their children.

00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:18.600
- Yeah, you have to have
some kind of moral conscious

00:16:18.600 --> 00:16:23.600
growing up that even if
your parents' not right there,

00:16:23.760 --> 00:16:26.300
you know God is
watching, [laughs] so...

00:16:27.570 --> 00:16:29.793
That morality that was put on us.

00:16:30.780 --> 00:16:32.670
- My father, he wasn't
really in the church,

00:16:32.670 --> 00:16:35.370
but my mother said, "They
have to go, they have to go."

00:16:35.370 --> 00:16:37.950
So I made my first
communion confirmation.

00:16:37.950 --> 00:16:38.783
I went through the...

00:16:38.783 --> 00:16:40.400
And even got kicked
outta Catholic school

00:16:40.400 --> 00:16:42.000
in the fifth grade.

00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:45.120
- We also had rooms
in the community center,

00:16:45.120 --> 00:16:47.940
which was PS 18, where
you can listen to music,

00:16:47.940 --> 00:16:49.440
R&B, Latin.

00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:53.910
Coming from the
Patterson projects

00:16:53.910 --> 00:16:55.920
and having little money,

00:16:55.920 --> 00:16:58.830
we got to do and
enjoy stuff for free.

00:16:58.830 --> 00:17:00.570
But it was a day program,

00:17:00.570 --> 00:17:02.520
evening program
and a night program.

00:17:02.520 --> 00:17:04.190
And we spent a lot of time

00:17:04.190 --> 00:17:07.680
in those type of
environments to keep us safe.

00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:10.260
- Oh man, we didn't have
none of this nonsense.

00:17:10.260 --> 00:17:11.880
Wasn't no gang fights
and all that kind of stuff.

00:17:11.880 --> 00:17:14.130
We had nothing to do
with that, we was athletes.

00:17:14.130 --> 00:17:18.150
We played ball, ran
track, played anything.

00:17:18.150 --> 00:17:19.710
Anything basketball or softball,

00:17:19.710 --> 00:17:20.640
that's what we played coming up.

00:17:20.640 --> 00:17:23.100
So we wasn't into
that gang stuff.

00:17:23.100 --> 00:17:25.770
I was very lucky that I
came in with the right people.

00:17:25.770 --> 00:17:28.350
But we didn't have
time for none of that.

00:17:28.350 --> 00:17:31.563
I mean, when we came up, we
had parties down at the center,

00:17:32.460 --> 00:17:33.780
went there after school.

00:17:33.780 --> 00:17:35.370
You know, there's so
many things that we did

00:17:35.370 --> 00:17:37.290
that kept us so busy,

00:17:37.290 --> 00:17:38.910
we didn't have time
to do nothing else.

00:17:38.910 --> 00:17:40.680
You know what I
mean? But play ball.

00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:42.210
And by the time we
finished playing ball,

00:17:42.210 --> 00:17:44.220
we was laid out,
man, we was so tired,

00:17:44.220 --> 00:17:46.320
couldn't go out, you
know what I'm saying?

00:17:46.320 --> 00:17:50.670
- Going to the night
center was the highlight.

00:17:50.670 --> 00:17:53.490
And unfortunately,
these kids don't have that.

00:17:53.490 --> 00:17:56.190
They don't have
that unity like we had,

00:17:56.190 --> 00:17:58.590
we stuck together like glue.

00:17:58.590 --> 00:18:00.990
But a lot of us
married one another

00:18:00.990 --> 00:18:03.300
because the fellas
from the projects

00:18:03.300 --> 00:18:04.650
was not letting the girls

00:18:04.650 --> 00:18:07.380
get involved with fellas
outside the projects.

00:18:07.380 --> 00:18:11.196
And the girls were not
letting any girls come in.

00:18:11.196 --> 00:18:12.356
[bright music]

00:18:12.356 --> 00:18:14.523
♪ Darling ♪

00:18:16.200 --> 00:18:20.580
- He was the newspaper
boy and he lived in...

00:18:20.580 --> 00:18:22.710
His building and my
building were connected.

00:18:22.710 --> 00:18:24.840
But he used to sell the newspaper

00:18:24.840 --> 00:18:28.020
and he used to come to my
door every evening and talk to me.

00:18:28.020 --> 00:18:30.320
I used to slam the door
on him, but anyway...

00:18:31.500 --> 00:18:32.467
My aunt used to say,

00:18:32.467 --> 00:18:33.990
"George is such a nice boy,

00:18:33.990 --> 00:18:35.370
why do you give him a hard time?"

00:18:35.370 --> 00:18:36.203
Blah, blah, blah.

00:18:36.203 --> 00:18:39.180
And as I got older,
I did see the ones

00:18:39.180 --> 00:18:40.740
that were standing on the corner,

00:18:40.740 --> 00:18:42.030
the ones that I could tell

00:18:42.030 --> 00:18:43.980
weren't really gonna
amount to anything.

00:18:43.980 --> 00:18:46.350
He always had a job.
Always, always, always.

00:18:46.350 --> 00:18:50.430
He sold newspapers. He
worked in the supermarket.

00:18:50.430 --> 00:18:54.000
He was just always
busy, busy, busy working.

00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:57.240
And one day he asked
me to go to the movies

00:18:57.240 --> 00:18:58.830
and we went to the movies.

00:18:58.830 --> 00:19:02.100
And first we started
off as just friends.

00:19:02.100 --> 00:19:06.540
And I was friends with his
cousin, a female cousin of his

00:19:06.540 --> 00:19:08.460
that lived in the house with him.

00:19:08.460 --> 00:19:10.830
And she and I were
very good friends.

00:19:10.830 --> 00:19:13.050
And a lot of times she
and I would go to parties

00:19:13.050 --> 00:19:15.300
and she'd say, "I'm gonna
tell George to go with us."

00:19:15.300 --> 00:19:17.130
I was like, "Yeah, okay."

00:19:17.130 --> 00:19:20.520
And then he'd walk me
home, 'cause it was late,

00:19:20.520 --> 00:19:22.650
and just one thing
led to another.

00:19:22.650 --> 00:19:25.290
Next thing I know, we
were boyfriend and girlfriend.

00:19:25.290 --> 00:19:29.133
I cannot even tell you how that
happened. I don't even know.

00:19:30.060 --> 00:19:35.060
But we got married January,
1967. He was 20, I was 19.

00:19:37.710 --> 00:19:40.560
And this year will be 45 years.

00:19:40.560 --> 00:19:43.800
- I was outside the building
and I was playing Lotes,

00:19:43.800 --> 00:19:46.290
a famous game that
we all enjoyed playing

00:19:46.290 --> 00:19:48.180
and were experts at.

00:19:48.180 --> 00:19:51.690
And he came by and
he just started talking.

00:19:51.690 --> 00:19:56.217
He had his bicycle, a
10-speed, and we started talking.

00:19:58.110 --> 00:20:00.060
- And I offered
to let you ride it.

00:20:00.060 --> 00:20:01.710
- And he offered to
let me ride his bike.

00:20:01.710 --> 00:20:04.143
- My brand new bike
that I let nobody ride.

00:20:05.070 --> 00:20:07.050
- [Cheryl] I was 13 at the time.

00:20:07.050 --> 00:20:10.293
- Yeah. We had this
acquaintance for way back then.

00:20:11.340 --> 00:20:14.487
Someone asked me, I said, "I
got her before she got smart."

00:20:15.600 --> 00:20:17.460
I was lucky. [Cheryl laughing]

00:20:17.460 --> 00:20:22.460
- We all felt like we had kind
of a middle class existence.

00:20:22.770 --> 00:20:26.130
We did the same thing
all the Americans did

00:20:26.130 --> 00:20:27.870
in terms of watching television

00:20:27.870 --> 00:20:29.730
and watching "Leave It To Beaver"

00:20:29.730 --> 00:20:32.100
and watching Walt Disney.

00:20:32.100 --> 00:20:35.403
We did all that, but
we had the specialness,

00:20:36.514 --> 00:20:38.190
but we looked out for each other.

00:20:38.190 --> 00:20:40.940
[relaxing music]

00:20:54.140 --> 00:20:55.900
- I think the best thing though

00:20:56.790 --> 00:21:01.790
was that we had available to
us, the teachers after school.

00:21:02.670 --> 00:21:04.620
You get outta school
at three o'clock,

00:21:04.620 --> 00:21:06.417
went back to
school at five o'clock,

00:21:06.417 --> 00:21:09.810
and you could stay in the
school until nine o'clock.

00:21:09.810 --> 00:21:14.810
And we had music, play
basketball, get tutors,

00:21:16.770 --> 00:21:20.283
Mr. Bonnemere, he
was a musical teacher.

00:21:22.680 --> 00:21:26.190
Floyd Lane, he wasn't
a teacher in my school,

00:21:26.190 --> 00:21:28.833
but for the sports aspect of it.

00:21:30.578 --> 00:21:33.060
Then there was Mr. Cozzens.

00:21:33.060 --> 00:21:35.493
In junior high school,
he was a track coach.

00:21:36.780 --> 00:21:39.930
Whatever was available
in the school in the daytime

00:21:39.930 --> 00:21:41.883
was available to
you mostly at night.

00:21:43.463 --> 00:21:47.760
And we had a lot of
good musicians come out.

00:21:47.760 --> 00:21:50.493
If you wanted to play
drums or any instrument,

00:21:51.540 --> 00:21:53.400
so you could pursue a lot.

00:21:53.400 --> 00:21:56.310
- But it was a
outreach that we had

00:21:56.310 --> 00:21:58.440
that we can go in
for three, or four,

00:21:58.440 --> 00:22:00.307
or six hours that
people could say,

00:22:00.307 --> 00:22:02.250
"I know where my
son or daughter is.

00:22:02.250 --> 00:22:04.627
I know where my grandson
or daughter is," okay?

00:22:04.627 --> 00:22:07.980
"I know where my dad is,
he's watching basketball," okay?

00:22:07.980 --> 00:22:09.510
Without being outside.

00:22:09.510 --> 00:22:11.190
And people always
say, "Hanging out."

00:22:11.190 --> 00:22:13.260
I mean, you could
hang out indoors too.

00:22:13.260 --> 00:22:16.770
But this was a way
of communicating,

00:22:16.770 --> 00:22:19.170
releasing the tension
and stuff like that.

00:22:19.170 --> 00:22:22.560
Whether you play
ball, you play ping pong,

00:22:22.560 --> 00:22:27.560
you play pool, you listen to
the African dance music, okay?

00:22:27.810 --> 00:22:31.050
You listen to Latin music,
you watch people do Latin.

00:22:31.050 --> 00:22:33.810
You did arts and
crafts in the rooms,

00:22:33.810 --> 00:22:36.340
because it was
something that was done

00:22:37.230 --> 00:22:39.270
and most importantly,
there were teachers,

00:22:39.270 --> 00:22:42.000
like Mr. Bonnemere was a teacher

00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:44.370
who taught music in the school.

00:22:44.370 --> 00:22:45.930
He was a part of your
community center,

00:22:45.930 --> 00:22:50.130
so he saw you for six
to eight hours in that day.

00:22:50.130 --> 00:22:52.297
So you had to give him
that ultimate respect.

00:22:52.297 --> 00:22:55.547
[relaxing piano music]

00:23:01.047 --> 00:23:02.735
- Mr. Bonnemere.
- Mr. Bonnemere.

00:23:02.735 --> 00:23:04.470
- Mr. Bonnemere.
- Mr. Bonnemere.

00:23:04.470 --> 00:23:09.470
- Mr. Bonnemere was my
band teacher, my music teacher.

00:23:10.260 --> 00:23:13.470
He was hardcore.

00:23:13.470 --> 00:23:18.470
He was, as some of the
people would say, "No joke."

00:23:20.940 --> 00:23:25.200
But he was loving, he loved
the music, he loved the kids,

00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:28.470
and he wanted us to be the best.

00:23:28.470 --> 00:23:30.540
He was a professional musician

00:23:30.540 --> 00:23:33.580
and he had taken this gig

00:23:34.740 --> 00:23:36.840
to teach a bunch of young kids

00:23:36.840 --> 00:23:39.990
in junior high school
how to play music.

00:23:39.990 --> 00:23:43.410
I learned how to read
music with Mr. Bonnemere.

00:23:43.410 --> 00:23:45.240
But not only did I
learn how to read music

00:23:45.240 --> 00:23:48.000
and play music
with Mr. Bonnemere,

00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:53.000
for Mr. Taylor, who was the
other music teacher at Clark,

00:23:53.820 --> 00:23:55.500
I sang in the chorus.

00:23:55.500 --> 00:23:57.960
So we would start off playing

00:23:57.960 --> 00:24:00.453
the "Star Spangled
Banner" for assembly.

00:24:01.710 --> 00:24:03.630
We would play whatever music

00:24:03.630 --> 00:24:05.550
that Mr. Bonnemere
assigned us to.

00:24:05.550 --> 00:24:07.890
There was a great
tune called "Tambore,"

00:24:07.890 --> 00:24:10.533
which was a bolero, which was,

00:24:11.520 --> 00:24:15.504
whenever we played that,
people went nuts, it was crazy.

00:24:15.504 --> 00:24:19.004
[upbeat orchestral music]

00:24:26.730 --> 00:24:29.730
- PS 18, who knew it
was public education?

00:24:29.730 --> 00:24:33.240
We just knew we were there.
We were treated very well.

00:24:33.240 --> 00:24:36.090
Mr. Wincop was the principal.

00:24:36.090 --> 00:24:39.780
Ms. Rosenthal was
the assistant principal.

00:24:39.780 --> 00:24:42.300
Our principal
would play the piano

00:24:42.300 --> 00:24:44.220
and we would all be in the school

00:24:44.220 --> 00:24:46.410
and singing the school song.

00:24:46.410 --> 00:24:50.170
♪ John Peter Zenger
is the school for me ♪

00:24:50.170 --> 00:24:52.440
♪ John Peter
Zenger, John Peter- ♪

00:24:52.440 --> 00:24:56.010
I mean PS 18, we
would be frantic in there.

00:24:56.010 --> 00:24:58.470
He's playing and
we're singing and oh,

00:24:58.470 --> 00:25:01.170
it was just a
wonderful place to be.

00:25:01.170 --> 00:25:05.310
- Mrs. Rogans, she made
sure that I had things to read.

00:25:05.310 --> 00:25:07.320
She wouldn't restrict me

00:25:07.320 --> 00:25:10.170
to what my presumed
grade level of reading was.

00:25:10.170 --> 00:25:12.090
She'd give me whatever
it was I was interested in

00:25:12.090 --> 00:25:13.710
and felt I could read.

00:25:13.710 --> 00:25:16.863
So all of a sudden I started
reading way above grade level.

00:25:17.730 --> 00:25:22.080
And also I had the reinforcement
of the love of the teacher.

00:25:22.080 --> 00:25:23.820
And that was the
first time I realized

00:25:23.820 --> 00:25:25.080
there had been a tremendous jump

00:25:25.080 --> 00:25:27.600
in my understanding of the world.

00:25:27.600 --> 00:25:30.270
But that was the first
time I really understood,

00:25:30.270 --> 00:25:33.090
really had a sense of
what it meant to develop.

00:25:33.090 --> 00:25:36.420
And development is really
what human life is about.

00:25:36.420 --> 00:25:40.457
- Everybody feared Mrs. Saires.

00:25:40.457 --> 00:25:43.050
Mrs. Saires was no joke,

00:25:43.050 --> 00:25:48.050
'cause Mrs. Saires would
not allow you not to be the best

00:25:48.330 --> 00:25:51.870
and she would not
take no for an answer.

00:25:51.870 --> 00:25:56.073
She monitored me because I
think that she really loved me.

00:25:57.360 --> 00:26:01.503
And like she said, "Every art
exhibit that you gonna be in,

00:26:03.570 --> 00:26:08.570
every art exhibit, I want
Michael Singletary in."

00:26:09.240 --> 00:26:12.898
And I always won, always.

00:26:12.898 --> 00:26:17.193
- In PS 18, they
graded you on civics,

00:26:18.660 --> 00:26:20.163
as well as other things.

00:26:21.060 --> 00:26:26.060
But civics helped us
understand the nature of politics,

00:26:27.930 --> 00:26:30.540
because people would
run for class president

00:26:30.540 --> 00:26:33.000
and class vice president.

00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:34.440
In junior high
school, for example,

00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:39.180
Ray Hodge ran for, I
think school president

00:26:39.180 --> 00:26:40.260
or something or other.

00:26:40.260 --> 00:26:43.743
And Frank Braille
was his manager.

00:26:44.760 --> 00:26:49.680
So we had that kind of incentive.

00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:53.910
We were given that
incentive to exercise.

00:26:53.910 --> 00:26:55.770
- I was friends with Ray Hodge.

00:26:55.770 --> 00:26:58.503
It would've been appropriate
if Ray was now Obama.

00:26:59.923 --> 00:27:02.490
In other words, Ray
was like, he just was...

00:27:02.490 --> 00:27:06.030
And he ran for class
president I recall, and won.

00:27:06.030 --> 00:27:11.030
I made his campaign
paintings and pictures

00:27:11.730 --> 00:27:13.590
and helped him with
his campaign speeches.

00:27:13.590 --> 00:27:15.326
I became his Ted Sorenson.

00:27:15.326 --> 00:27:17.460
[Ray laughing]

00:27:17.460 --> 00:27:20.730
Well, I have to say,
if I was the Obama,

00:27:20.730 --> 00:27:25.730
then every campaign
manager that Obama had

00:27:27.960 --> 00:27:32.313
would not measure
up to Frank Braille,

00:27:33.330 --> 00:27:35.220
would not measure up.

00:27:35.220 --> 00:27:38.340
- People were really
competitive academically.

00:27:38.340 --> 00:27:42.420
Guys went to Dewitt
Clinton High School.

00:27:42.420 --> 00:27:45.840
Frank and Danny took
the test for Bronx Science.

00:27:45.840 --> 00:27:48.540
They took Frank.

00:27:48.540 --> 00:27:50.970
Danny wound up going to Clinton.

00:27:50.970 --> 00:27:54.480
I would say that we all kind
of looked up to each other.

00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:59.010
Frank Braio, Danny Georges, Ray,

00:28:00.630 --> 00:28:02.970
these were all really,
really brilliant people.

00:28:02.970 --> 00:28:05.460
I hung with a group of
people, men and women,

00:28:05.460 --> 00:28:08.670
because Victoria
Archibald, and Vita Jameson,

00:28:08.670 --> 00:28:11.100
few others, Merle, Russell,

00:28:11.100 --> 00:28:13.140
they were all very,
very smart people.

00:28:13.140 --> 00:28:17.550
Getting a 65, which is
passing grade on any test,

00:28:18.720 --> 00:28:22.650
if you got anything below
that, you would get laughed at.

00:28:22.650 --> 00:28:27.150
Danny, and Ray, and
Frank, those were all...

00:28:27.150 --> 00:28:30.180
I think that's why
they were so popular.

00:28:30.180 --> 00:28:31.980
Well, Frank is a PhD.

00:28:31.980 --> 00:28:36.273
Ray became involved in
energy, and energy sales.

00:28:37.170 --> 00:28:41.223
Bubba is now a community
activist and leader.

00:28:42.155 --> 00:28:45.420
[upbeat music] ♪ They're
playing basketball ♪

00:28:45.420 --> 00:28:47.433
- Patterson was nice
when it came to the sports.

00:28:47.433 --> 00:28:49.500
That's where most of my
friends, on the basketball court,

00:28:49.500 --> 00:28:51.540
we used to go to the big park.

00:28:51.540 --> 00:28:53.280
Used to look forward to
getting up in the morning

00:28:53.280 --> 00:28:54.510
and heading to the big park.

00:28:54.510 --> 00:28:59.510
- Basketball was a rite of
passage. It was no joke.

00:28:59.760 --> 00:29:04.143
That's how you earn your
warriorship, that was me.

00:29:05.490 --> 00:29:08.643
The one thing about The
Patterson project was competition.

00:29:09.540 --> 00:29:13.350
We had competition.
We beat everybody!

00:29:13.350 --> 00:29:16.760
We beat Kareem, we beat all

00:29:16.760 --> 00:29:20.670
of the major
players that came in,

00:29:20.670 --> 00:29:25.670
because it was no joke, we
was no sleepy town, we had pride.

00:29:27.948 --> 00:29:29.850
- The one big influence
in the projects for me

00:29:29.850 --> 00:29:32.490
as far as playing ball was Tiny.

00:29:32.490 --> 00:29:35.670
I used to admire, just
watching him was amazing.

00:29:35.670 --> 00:29:37.560
You know, knowing
where he came from

00:29:37.560 --> 00:29:40.290
and knowing what he
can do on the ball court,

00:29:40.290 --> 00:29:43.230
that was something
that I admired.

00:29:43.230 --> 00:29:45.720
And that's how I got
hooked into playing ball.

00:29:45.720 --> 00:29:47.190
- [NBA Announcer]
From the Boston Celtics,

00:29:47.190 --> 00:29:50.330
number seven,
Nate "Tiny" Archibald.

00:29:50.330 --> 00:29:54.450
- And I think a lot of us
who were searching for,

00:29:54.450 --> 00:29:56.490
I call it identity, okay?

00:29:56.490 --> 00:29:59.490
Basketball was a
way of an escaping

00:29:59.490 --> 00:30:02.400
that type of so-called
negative environment

00:30:02.400 --> 00:30:04.260
that was outside.

00:30:04.260 --> 00:30:08.190
- The community center
director, Mr. Floyd Lane,

00:30:08.190 --> 00:30:11.130
who was a collegiate
star basketball athlete

00:30:11.130 --> 00:30:14.250
at City College
in the early '50s,

00:30:14.250 --> 00:30:16.710
he became center director.

00:30:16.710 --> 00:30:18.720
Many professional athletes

00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:21.150
would come through PS 18,

00:30:21.150 --> 00:30:22.860
would sit down and talk to us

00:30:22.860 --> 00:30:25.770
about the importance
of staying in school,

00:30:25.770 --> 00:30:27.960
getting a good education,

00:30:27.960 --> 00:30:30.960
and basically keeping
your nose clean

00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:32.610
and staying outta trouble.

00:30:32.610 --> 00:30:34.170
- I knocked everybody down.

00:30:34.170 --> 00:30:37.503
I mean, if I felt you
near me, you went down.

00:30:39.330 --> 00:30:42.063
It's just automatic, you know?

00:30:43.530 --> 00:30:45.150
I had no fear.

00:30:45.150 --> 00:30:48.903
And then my time
was also with Kareem.

00:30:50.040 --> 00:30:53.520
We call Lew Alcindor,
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar later,

00:30:53.520 --> 00:30:55.290
and that was my time period.

00:30:55.290 --> 00:30:58.350
So he got all the
spotlight, you know?

00:30:58.350 --> 00:31:01.217
And I can remember them
taking him out of the park,

00:31:01.217 --> 00:31:06.217
'cause he was too valuable,
but we all played together.

00:31:06.480 --> 00:31:08.280
- I remember a
game the first time

00:31:08.280 --> 00:31:13.280
I saw Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,
and he was Lew Alcindor,

00:31:13.860 --> 00:31:17.800
he played a game against
some of the older guys

00:31:20.040 --> 00:31:22.410
in our projects,
and it was packed.

00:31:22.410 --> 00:31:23.340
I mean, everybody was there.

00:31:23.340 --> 00:31:25.440
We had heard about Lew Alcindor

00:31:25.440 --> 00:31:28.470
down at Powell
Memorial High School,

00:31:28.470 --> 00:31:30.540
Catholic High
School in Manhattan.

00:31:30.540 --> 00:31:33.930
And he was like, he could
block your shot, he could dunk it.

00:31:33.930 --> 00:31:36.270
He could change the whole game

00:31:36.270 --> 00:31:37.950
just because he was on the court.

00:31:37.950 --> 00:31:41.580
I mean, he was only, I
think 17, 16 or 17 then.

00:31:41.580 --> 00:31:44.880
He was controlling a
game against grown men.

00:31:44.880 --> 00:31:46.770
- Kareem came to The Patterson,

00:31:46.770 --> 00:31:49.890
but he came because
of Eric, Eric Brown,

00:31:49.890 --> 00:31:52.143
'cause they went to
Power Memorial together.

00:31:53.010 --> 00:31:57.270
And Eric was on
St. Rita's with us.

00:31:57.270 --> 00:32:01.440
So we wanted to play the seniors,

00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:03.240
but the seniors were bigger.

00:32:03.240 --> 00:32:07.290
So Eric put a call in to
have Kareem come up.

00:32:07.290 --> 00:32:09.840
So we could say that the seniors

00:32:09.840 --> 00:32:14.430
never beat us when we had Kareem,

00:32:14.430 --> 00:32:16.980
because, one,
they couldn't score,

00:32:16.980 --> 00:32:20.790
and, two, when
Kareem got the rebound,

00:32:20.790 --> 00:32:22.530
they couldn't stop
us from running.

00:32:22.530 --> 00:32:25.680
So it's just like, clean it up
and go, clean it up and go.

00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:27.280
- A lot of players came through.

00:32:29.130 --> 00:32:31.260
Kareem came through, Chamberlain,

00:32:31.260 --> 00:32:32.550
Wilt Chamberlain came through,

00:32:32.550 --> 00:32:35.190
all kinds of players
came through.

00:32:35.190 --> 00:32:38.010
Basketball is a
microcosm of life.

00:32:38.010 --> 00:32:41.310
In other words, the things
that you're faced with

00:32:41.310 --> 00:32:45.810
in playing the game,
obstacles, different situations

00:32:45.810 --> 00:32:47.710
that you have to
deal with, et cetera,

00:32:49.350 --> 00:32:50.910
similar kinds of things come up

00:32:50.910 --> 00:32:52.710
in as far as your
life is concerned.

00:32:55.440 --> 00:32:56.883
So I equate the two.

00:32:58.979 --> 00:33:01.812
[emotional music]

00:33:14.310 --> 00:33:16.923
- I think coming into the '60s,

00:33:18.060 --> 00:33:20.880
things started to change
a lot in the project.

00:33:20.880 --> 00:33:22.440
Drugs started coming in.

00:33:22.440 --> 00:33:24.930
You seen good people go bad

00:33:24.930 --> 00:33:27.210
and you still never
turned your back on 'em.

00:33:27.210 --> 00:33:29.310
You might watch
'em a little bit more,

00:33:29.310 --> 00:33:31.410
but you never turned
your back on 'em.

00:33:31.410 --> 00:33:35.430
- The drugs first came
into the community by 1967.

00:33:35.430 --> 00:33:40.020
It came from, I don't know
where, but it came fast, swift,

00:33:40.020 --> 00:33:43.230
and it just destroyed
a bunch of people.

00:33:43.230 --> 00:33:45.570
You know, the people
that I was hanging out with,

00:33:45.570 --> 00:33:47.220
the boys that I was
hanging out with,

00:33:47.220 --> 00:33:48.753
my boyfriend at the time,

00:33:51.240 --> 00:33:54.870
him and all of his
friends got strung out.

00:33:54.870 --> 00:33:56.940
They were A
students some of them.

00:33:56.940 --> 00:34:00.193
He was an A student
headed for greatness.

00:34:05.070 --> 00:34:07.200
And so many people there.

00:34:07.200 --> 00:34:10.890
Athletes, we were
headed for greatness,

00:34:10.890 --> 00:34:13.290
they were headed for
greatness, they were destroyed.

00:34:13.290 --> 00:34:16.227
The project was destroyed
and it started around 1967.

00:34:16.227 --> 00:34:18.840
I don't know where
the drugs came from,

00:34:18.840 --> 00:34:19.950
I just know they came.

00:34:19.950 --> 00:34:24.367
- The worst thing that ever
happened, the doors locked.

00:34:24.367 --> 00:34:25.833
[doors slamming] [locks clicking]

00:34:25.833 --> 00:34:30.833
Thievery came very
heavy, and the projects

00:34:35.910 --> 00:34:40.910
stopped being the projects,
'cause nobody cared.

00:34:43.380 --> 00:34:44.793
Nobody cared.

00:34:46.230 --> 00:34:51.230
- In 1967, I was attending
Clark Junior High School

00:34:51.540 --> 00:34:55.050
and I was attending classes

00:34:55.050 --> 00:34:56.910
with students from
the neighborhood,

00:34:56.910 --> 00:34:59.670
and they were hanging
out, they were getting high.

00:34:59.670 --> 00:35:02.070
I would see them in
the park nodding out.

00:35:02.070 --> 00:35:05.850
I would see them in the 18
community center nodding,

00:35:05.850 --> 00:35:07.440
they appeared to be lost.

00:35:07.440 --> 00:35:09.750
- I started smoking
marijuana at 15.

00:35:09.750 --> 00:35:12.060
I got cut from the
basketball team.

00:35:12.060 --> 00:35:13.890
One of my boys I
was running with,

00:35:13.890 --> 00:35:17.460
he said, "Do you sniff heroin?"

00:35:17.460 --> 00:35:18.720
I said, "Ah, man, I don't know.

00:35:18.720 --> 00:35:19.890
I sniffed a little bit."

00:35:19.890 --> 00:35:20.850
He said, "Well,
come to my house."

00:35:20.850 --> 00:35:24.330
So I started going in Harlem
on 144th Street, 143rd,

00:35:24.330 --> 00:35:26.430
and we started
sniffing baby pounds.

00:35:26.430 --> 00:35:28.560
I'm sniffing after
school for a while.

00:35:28.560 --> 00:35:31.110
This went on for
like about a month.

00:35:31.110 --> 00:35:33.450
And he said, "You
feel like selling some?

00:35:33.450 --> 00:35:34.283
You want to try it?"

00:35:34.283 --> 00:35:36.630
So I knew so many
people that got high,

00:35:36.630 --> 00:35:38.460
so I said, "Yeah,
gimme a package."

00:35:38.460 --> 00:35:41.520
So I picked up a package
and I brought it around my boys

00:35:41.520 --> 00:35:44.040
and sold out in
less than an hour.

00:35:44.040 --> 00:35:46.860
- I joined the Air Force in 1966.

00:35:46.860 --> 00:35:51.810
My first overseas tour
was in '67 for six months.

00:35:51.810 --> 00:35:55.173
And when I came back
home to the Patterson,

00:35:56.010 --> 00:35:58.080
things had changed quite a bit.

00:35:58.080 --> 00:36:00.840
There wasn't as much activity

00:36:00.840 --> 00:36:02.590
on the streets as
there used to be.

00:36:03.780 --> 00:36:06.033
I had started
hearing rumors about,

00:36:07.710 --> 00:36:09.780
well, one particular
friend of mine

00:36:09.780 --> 00:36:10.860
who was thrown off the roof

00:36:10.860 --> 00:36:14.490
from one of the 13th story
buildings, it was about drugs.

00:36:14.490 --> 00:36:16.140
How? I don't know.

00:36:16.140 --> 00:36:18.663
But it was about
drugs, that surprised me.

00:36:19.560 --> 00:36:23.520
I knew neighbors who
had started taking drugs

00:36:23.520 --> 00:36:26.670
and who were stealing
from the apartments

00:36:26.670 --> 00:36:29.460
whose doors were
open or unlocked.

00:36:29.460 --> 00:36:33.420
So as a result of those
kinds of things happening,

00:36:33.420 --> 00:36:36.210
people started closing
and locking their door.

00:36:36.210 --> 00:36:40.710
Before that it was, I
mean, it was way open.

00:36:40.710 --> 00:36:44.280
- And I saw people make a
lot of money and get killed,

00:36:44.280 --> 00:36:46.383
I never saw that
when I was growing up.

00:36:48.510 --> 00:36:53.430
I never saw people get killed.

00:36:53.430 --> 00:36:55.770
I had friends of mine

00:36:55.770 --> 00:37:00.770
who got thrown off
of roofs from friends.

00:37:01.800 --> 00:37:05.940
We was in Boy Scouts together,
we did everything American.

00:37:05.940 --> 00:37:08.703
We tried to make it real.

00:37:10.860 --> 00:37:15.010
It was the most outrageous

00:37:16.050 --> 00:37:19.860
because we didn't
know it was so sneaky.

00:37:19.860 --> 00:37:21.723
- Then I came back in '68,

00:37:25.020 --> 00:37:27.543
it was even more
intense, you know?

00:37:29.160 --> 00:37:33.003
And now I hear about
guys being strung out,

00:37:34.380 --> 00:37:38.520
and that's when people started
telling me about Guy Fisher,

00:37:38.520 --> 00:37:41.280
and his connection
with Nicky Barnes.

00:37:41.280 --> 00:37:45.690
That I could not believe
because I knew Guy growing up.

00:37:45.690 --> 00:37:49.350
We were in the same grade.
We went to Clark together.

00:37:49.350 --> 00:37:51.840
And I just knew him
as a really nice guy,

00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:53.820
Guy and I never had a problem.

00:37:53.820 --> 00:37:57.210
So when people were telling
me that he was selling drugs

00:37:57.210 --> 00:38:00.090
or being involved, I
could not believe it.

00:38:00.090 --> 00:38:02.070
I just did not believe it.

00:38:02.070 --> 00:38:05.370
- [Narrator] Barnes had placed
Guy Fisher on the council.

00:38:05.370 --> 00:38:07.860
He was 25 years old.

00:38:07.860 --> 00:38:09.120
- [Reporter] This is what
the government alleged.

00:38:09.120 --> 00:38:12.630
Each of the individual partners
in the Barnes Syndicate,

00:38:12.630 --> 00:38:13.980
they would have their own crew

00:38:13.980 --> 00:38:15.990
of men who would
distribute the heroin

00:38:15.990 --> 00:38:17.430
to various small dealers.

00:38:17.430 --> 00:38:21.090
- From what I understand,
they just dealt with Manhattan.

00:38:21.090 --> 00:38:24.027
Now maybe some other people
have had experiences with him

00:38:24.027 --> 00:38:25.860
but I don't know.

00:38:25.860 --> 00:38:29.580
But from what I understand,
their main target was Manhattan.

00:38:29.580 --> 00:38:34.580
- I know Guy Fisher from
back when we grew up.

00:38:35.520 --> 00:38:39.753
I know Guy Fisher in the
era when he was in the street,

00:38:40.590 --> 00:38:44.760
and I know now Dr. Guy Fisher.

00:38:44.760 --> 00:38:48.180
I know that since the time
that he's been incarcerated,

00:38:48.180 --> 00:38:50.550
he's been a role model inmate.

00:38:50.550 --> 00:38:53.520
He's been an inspiration
to other people.

00:38:53.520 --> 00:38:54.990
I know that there's
a lot of people

00:38:54.990 --> 00:38:57.210
that have reached
out to speak with him.

00:38:57.210 --> 00:39:00.420
I have letters personally
that he had written me.

00:39:00.420 --> 00:39:02.940
I have letters that he
had written to my church

00:39:02.940 --> 00:39:05.340
encouraging them to support me.

00:39:05.340 --> 00:39:07.260
- Guy Fisher, he's a nice guy.

00:39:07.260 --> 00:39:10.260
People don't know that.
He's a very nice guy.

00:39:10.260 --> 00:39:12.540
I think the society
failed Guy Fisher.

00:39:12.540 --> 00:39:14.910
They did not
recognize his talents.

00:39:14.910 --> 00:39:18.540
Talent will find its way,
one way or another.

00:39:18.540 --> 00:39:22.710
And so whatever he was exposed to

00:39:22.710 --> 00:39:27.690
in terms of
gangsterism and drugs,

00:39:27.690 --> 00:39:30.510
he used his
intelligence for that.

00:39:30.510 --> 00:39:33.270
- [Narrator] But in 1978,
Fisher hatched a plan

00:39:33.270 --> 00:39:37.860
to rebuild both the
Apollo and his reputation.

00:39:37.860 --> 00:39:40.470
- He said, "Man,
it ain't about drugs.

00:39:40.470 --> 00:39:42.820
It ain't about that no
more. Forget about that.

00:39:43.806 --> 00:39:45.540
It's about being
legitimate, man."

00:39:45.540 --> 00:39:49.020
And he went back to the project

00:39:49.020 --> 00:39:52.950
and got us younger
guys from the project

00:39:52.950 --> 00:39:54.937
and put us all to work
around the Apollo.

00:39:54.937 --> 00:39:56.700
- [Speaker] "The Apollo
Theater represented

00:39:56.700 --> 00:39:59.520
one of the few things that
we could share as a people,

00:39:59.520 --> 00:40:02.400
and I took pride in
being a part of the Apollo,

00:40:02.400 --> 00:40:05.130
its history, and its new life."

00:40:05.130 --> 00:40:07.230
- [Narrator] In May of 1978,

00:40:07.230 --> 00:40:10.830
the Apollo held a grand opening
weekend under its new owner

00:40:10.830 --> 00:40:13.050
with Ralph McDonald
headlining the show.

00:40:13.050 --> 00:40:15.750
- You had to be there to see it.

00:40:15.750 --> 00:40:18.127
I mean it was just electronic.

00:40:18.127 --> 00:40:20.010
- [Speaker] "The applause
and standing ovation

00:40:20.010 --> 00:40:22.560
the audience gave
Ralph was enhanced

00:40:22.560 --> 00:40:24.930
when Ralph explained
that the Apollo Theater

00:40:24.930 --> 00:40:26.577
was now owned by a Black man."

00:40:27.660 --> 00:40:29.880
- Even though they
talked about Guy Fisher,

00:40:29.880 --> 00:40:33.330
he was part of Patterson
Projects no matter what.

00:40:33.330 --> 00:40:37.380
And I know he's in jail
doing many, many years,

00:40:37.380 --> 00:40:40.353
but when you talk of
Patterson, people always relate.

00:40:41.460 --> 00:40:43.410
Guy Fisher came
outta that project.

00:40:43.410 --> 00:40:44.397
And you know what,
when they say that to me,

00:40:44.397 --> 00:40:48.420
and I say it proudly, "Yes,
he did come from my projects."

00:40:48.420 --> 00:40:50.400
- That's what make
the Patterson Project

00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:52.890
what it is, you know?

00:40:52.890 --> 00:40:54.480
Even though you're doing wrong,

00:40:54.480 --> 00:40:56.370
somebody gonna
be there to help you.

00:40:56.370 --> 00:40:58.770
Somebody gonna be
there to try to console you,

00:40:58.770 --> 00:41:01.980
somebody gonna try to
give you some more direction,

00:41:01.980 --> 00:41:05.591
and that's how I was brought up.

00:41:05.591 --> 00:41:08.700
[distant chatter]

00:41:08.700 --> 00:41:11.823
- Yeah, you coming in wall
to wall tree top tall, baby.

00:41:12.747 --> 00:41:14.843
- [Guy Fisher] That's what
I'm talking about. That's great.

00:41:14.843 --> 00:41:17.490
- You got a lot of folks here
that want to say hello to you,

00:41:17.490 --> 00:41:18.840
so they going to
do it in a group.

00:41:18.840 --> 00:41:21.163
Man, y'all can scream at him now.

00:41:21.163 --> 00:41:23.830
[crowd yelling]

00:41:25.322 --> 00:41:27.338
- [Guy's Daughter] Hey, daddy!

00:41:27.338 --> 00:41:29.912
- [Guy Fisher] Aw man, hello!

00:41:29.912 --> 00:41:31.658
- Hi, grandpa.

00:41:31.658 --> 00:41:32.730
[everyone chuckling]

00:41:32.730 --> 00:41:36.255
- [Guy Fisher] Aw, little
old lady. How you doing?

00:41:36.255 --> 00:41:38.055
- Good.
- You alright?

00:41:38.055 --> 00:41:41.418
- Yes.
- What you doing?

00:41:41.418 --> 00:41:42.812
You still a cheer leader?

00:41:42.812 --> 00:41:44.412
- I'm here for you.

00:41:44.412 --> 00:41:45.930
[everyone groaning]

00:41:45.930 --> 00:41:48.730
[everyone applauding]

00:41:48.730 --> 00:41:50.550
- [Guy's Daughter] Hi, daddy.

00:41:50.550 --> 00:41:53.340
- He could have been CEO

00:41:53.340 --> 00:41:56.460
of any one of the
Fortune 500 companies,

00:41:56.460 --> 00:41:58.650
and in a minute, very nice.

00:41:58.650 --> 00:42:01.320
I mean, he was always nice to me.

00:42:01.320 --> 00:42:03.420
You know him, he was a nice guy.

00:42:03.420 --> 00:42:08.420
And I'm sorry that
this society failed him.

00:42:09.390 --> 00:42:11.880
- It's no fun in jail, you know?

00:42:11.880 --> 00:42:14.250
And when they put
them handcuffs on you

00:42:14.250 --> 00:42:15.447
and they got 'em behind your back

00:42:15.447 --> 00:42:17.497
and they stuffing
you in that police car,

00:42:18.360 --> 00:42:20.880
all that pimp,
all that highlight,

00:42:20.880 --> 00:42:23.130
all that player stuff
is out the window.

00:42:23.130 --> 00:42:25.140
You alone, you know?

00:42:25.140 --> 00:42:28.860
And I always say, "When
a man blows out the candle

00:42:28.860 --> 00:42:32.190
that God has given you to
see your way through life,

00:42:32.190 --> 00:42:34.740
you left to sit in
your own darkness

00:42:34.740 --> 00:42:37.380
with only your errors
to keep you company."

00:42:37.380 --> 00:42:40.770
And I was sitting in my
darkness with my errors

00:42:40.770 --> 00:42:42.960
and it's not a nice place to be.

00:42:42.960 --> 00:42:45.180
- Everyone has a choice.

00:42:45.180 --> 00:42:47.790
And whatever choice you choose,

00:42:47.790 --> 00:42:49.740
you are the one
that has to pay for it.

00:42:49.740 --> 00:42:52.410
- Drugs came into Patterson,

00:42:52.410 --> 00:42:57.410
I lost a lot of friends
that passed away.

00:42:57.540 --> 00:42:59.550
They got the virus afterward.

00:42:59.550 --> 00:43:02.463
- Drugs took a lot of my
friends away from me.

00:43:06.060 --> 00:43:09.903
A lot of my family
member, my sister,

00:43:13.230 --> 00:43:14.253
cousins,

00:43:17.310 --> 00:43:18.143
husband,

00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:29.040
tons of friends, I lost them.

00:43:29.040 --> 00:43:32.370
You know, all the
people in the project

00:43:32.370 --> 00:43:37.370
that died from drugs, it just
affects you in a really bad,

00:43:38.340 --> 00:43:40.503
affected me in a really bad way.

00:43:41.640 --> 00:43:44.080
You know, to lose
them at a young age

00:43:45.240 --> 00:43:48.690
when you know how
bright and brilliant they are,

00:43:48.690 --> 00:43:53.523
male, female, family
members, friends,

00:43:55.980 --> 00:43:57.780
it's like a waste.

00:43:57.780 --> 00:44:02.780
It's like life was not fair
to us in The Patterson

00:44:03.450 --> 00:44:05.820
when we had so much promise.

00:44:05.820 --> 00:44:09.840
There was so many people
who could have achieved so much

00:44:09.840 --> 00:44:13.860
for this society and
for their own selves,

00:44:13.860 --> 00:44:17.853
but their lives were cut
short because of the drugs.

00:44:21.510 --> 00:44:24.840
- When I came back from
my second tour overseas,

00:44:24.840 --> 00:44:27.060
ran into a friend of mine
named James Blakeney.

00:44:27.060 --> 00:44:29.250
And Blakeney, much to my surprise

00:44:29.250 --> 00:44:32.370
was selling the Red
Book of Chairman Mao.

00:44:32.370 --> 00:44:34.470
And he sold it
to me for a dollar.

00:44:34.470 --> 00:44:36.723
And I wasn't really interested.

00:44:37.800 --> 00:44:40.140
Being in the service, you
get kind of brainwashed,

00:44:40.140 --> 00:44:43.440
so the whole
Marxist Leninist thing

00:44:43.440 --> 00:44:45.330
wasn't really my cup of tea.

00:44:45.330 --> 00:44:48.600
But because it was
my friend Blakeney,

00:44:48.600 --> 00:44:51.057
I said, "Okay, yeah,
I'll take it, you know?"

00:44:52.530 --> 00:44:54.870
But when I came
back to The Patterson,

00:44:54.870 --> 00:44:59.870
I also started reading Palante,
the Young Lord's newspaper.

00:45:01.620 --> 00:45:04.350
The Black Panther party
paper was being sold,

00:45:04.350 --> 00:45:07.620
but not as readily as Palante.

00:45:07.620 --> 00:45:08.920
And I liked Palante a lot.

00:45:09.870 --> 00:45:12.420
- When death
becomes close to you,

00:45:12.420 --> 00:45:15.967
when you see Fred Hampton
killed in his bed and people say,

00:45:15.967 --> 00:45:18.090
"Well, we'll have
to decide in court

00:45:18.090 --> 00:45:19.770
whether or not he
was killed in his bed

00:45:19.770 --> 00:45:22.050
or whether or not he
wasn't," when it was clearly.

00:45:22.050 --> 00:45:25.890
And the head of the Afro
Policeman's Association in Chicago

00:45:25.890 --> 00:45:28.890
even has admitted
that it is plain murder.

00:45:28.890 --> 00:45:32.460
These are not abstractions
people, these are facts.

00:45:32.460 --> 00:45:37.460
- I admired Felipe Luciano
and Yoruba Guzman,

00:45:37.710 --> 00:45:39.210
all of them cats, man.

00:45:39.210 --> 00:45:41.010
I knew they were
a gang at one time,

00:45:41.010 --> 00:45:45.833
but now they were political,
and I admired them for that.

00:45:45.833 --> 00:45:46.666
[crowd yelling]

00:45:46.666 --> 00:45:49.569
- We want Black power!
We want Black power!

00:45:49.569 --> 00:45:51.450
- [Crowd] Black power!

00:45:51.450 --> 00:45:56.403
- My radicalism started
to kick in, in 1968.

00:45:57.600 --> 00:46:02.600
And that was the year
that Mr. Rosenstein

00:46:03.960 --> 00:46:08.550
sent me to Mount Holyoke
College for the summer,

00:46:08.550 --> 00:46:11.520
for the ABC program.

00:46:11.520 --> 00:46:14.430
And when I went
to the ABC program,

00:46:14.430 --> 00:46:16.440
we were exposed
to all types of things.

00:46:16.440 --> 00:46:18.330
It was at Mount Holyoke College,

00:46:18.330 --> 00:46:21.900
which is one of the seven
sister schools, one of the IVY's.

00:46:21.900 --> 00:46:25.680
When I came home, I cut my hair,

00:46:25.680 --> 00:46:29.760
It was in this great big
afro, and nobody knew me.

00:46:29.760 --> 00:46:32.103
No one knew me,
'cause I had changed.

00:46:33.360 --> 00:46:36.997
I had changed, and
I came home to work

00:46:39.210 --> 00:46:40.923
to make my community better.

00:46:43.140 --> 00:46:45.783
And that's how I got into,

00:46:46.830 --> 00:46:50.430
I looked for organizations
to join at that point

00:46:50.430 --> 00:46:54.210
and that's when I went to
the other side of the projects

00:46:54.210 --> 00:46:56.763
and they were
having a rally outside.

00:46:57.660 --> 00:47:02.660
And Smooch was out
there doing a poem they had,

00:47:04.267 --> 00:47:08.100
"Die nigger, die,
die," all of this stuff.

00:47:08.100 --> 00:47:10.680
And I'm like, "Whoa."
- Dying all the time.

00:47:10.680 --> 00:47:12.330
Went back up to Harlem,

00:47:12.330 --> 00:47:14.160
heard a school teacher say,

00:47:14.160 --> 00:47:18.037
"Nigger's sure are dumb,
almost like they're dead."

00:47:18.037 --> 00:47:21.300
"Die, nigger" everywhere
you go, niggers dying.

00:47:21.300 --> 00:47:23.847
Niggers been dying for 400 years.

00:47:23.847 --> 00:47:28.500
- Woo-see Mootu,
and I mean all of them,

00:47:28.500 --> 00:47:30.810
they were all out
there, Dogo, all of them.

00:47:30.810 --> 00:47:32.250
They were all out there.

00:47:32.250 --> 00:47:34.650
And they were trying to raise

00:47:34.650 --> 00:47:37.020
the consciousness
of the community.

00:47:37.020 --> 00:47:41.550
And I was like, "Wow, we
got something going here."

00:47:41.550 --> 00:47:44.400
And that's how I got
involved with them.

00:47:44.400 --> 00:47:48.083
We did a sweep up over
there by St. Rita's Church

00:47:49.980 --> 00:47:54.720
right there on 145th Street
at that part of the projects.

00:47:54.720 --> 00:47:58.500
And that's when I
bonded with Dogo.

00:47:58.500 --> 00:48:01.860
Dogo was my first
husband, [laughs]

00:48:01.860 --> 00:48:04.530
which everybody in the project
knows as Charlie Kechum.

00:48:04.530 --> 00:48:07.080
And so that's when we bonded.

00:48:07.080 --> 00:48:11.070
And I joined that organization,

00:48:11.070 --> 00:48:13.230
which was the Black
United Strength.

00:48:13.230 --> 00:48:16.110
We started reading
and educating ourselves

00:48:16.110 --> 00:48:18.610
and trying to educate the
people in the community.

00:48:19.590 --> 00:48:23.910
Juan tu gente formed
from Morris High School,

00:48:23.910 --> 00:48:25.590
that's where it started.

00:48:25.590 --> 00:48:29.010
I was president of the
African American Society.

00:48:29.010 --> 00:48:32.190
We merged with
the Hispanic Society,

00:48:32.190 --> 00:48:34.353
the Puerto Rican Society.

00:48:35.430 --> 00:48:39.030
And then we named
it Juan tu gente.

00:48:39.030 --> 00:48:43.440
Huey Newton had come
out with his 10 point program

00:48:43.440 --> 00:48:44.820
and things like that.

00:48:44.820 --> 00:48:48.930
And there were people that
would start to listen about that.

00:48:48.930 --> 00:48:50.460
So that's when the split came.

00:48:50.460 --> 00:48:52.110
Some people wanted to just remain

00:48:52.110 --> 00:48:55.410
culturally into
African Americanism,

00:48:55.410 --> 00:48:56.430
and then other people wanted

00:48:56.430 --> 00:49:00.663
to get into more of
the revolutionary side.

00:49:02.252 --> 00:49:05.502
[emotional jazz music]

00:49:27.330 --> 00:49:29.700
In the project, the
consciousness movement

00:49:29.700 --> 00:49:31.533
and the drugs were side by side.

00:49:32.550 --> 00:49:37.050
They were trying to figure
out who was gonna win.

00:49:37.050 --> 00:49:41.610
Well, most of the people
in the Black United States,

00:49:41.610 --> 00:49:43.773
some of them got
caught up in drugs.

00:49:44.970 --> 00:49:47.850
- When you have people of color

00:49:47.850 --> 00:49:51.210
becoming aware of themselves,

00:49:51.210 --> 00:49:54.390
what's going on
around them, rising up,

00:49:54.390 --> 00:49:56.400
it becomes a threat to society.

00:49:56.400 --> 00:50:00.630
That society has to
find a way to suppress it.

00:50:00.630 --> 00:50:05.630
There is no easier way
of suppressing an uprising

00:50:07.800 --> 00:50:09.543
than to offer a lot of money.

00:50:10.470 --> 00:50:11.553
- The drugs won.

00:50:13.950 --> 00:50:18.900
- What they did, and as
you look at all these films

00:50:18.900 --> 00:50:23.900
that are based on Frank
Lucas or Nicky Barnes,

00:50:23.940 --> 00:50:28.020
that was attractive
because the money gains.

00:50:28.020 --> 00:50:30.783
The money gains of the 1970s,

00:50:31.920 --> 00:50:34.353
it was about rich white
boys making money.

00:50:35.370 --> 00:50:38.880
And our thing was like,
"Let's make money too."

00:50:38.880 --> 00:50:40.920
We wanted to compete.

00:50:40.920 --> 00:50:43.383
- It was a microcosm
of this society.

00:50:45.120 --> 00:50:46.560
They were just
trying to find a way

00:50:46.560 --> 00:50:50.730
to just wipe out
the consciousness.

00:50:50.730 --> 00:50:52.730
They wanted everybody
to remain ignorant

00:50:53.880 --> 00:50:57.240
and just go about their
lives as they had been before.

00:50:57.240 --> 00:50:59.400
- In the '60s, the powers that be

00:50:59.400 --> 00:51:01.200
knew that we had a problem.

00:51:01.200 --> 00:51:04.050
First, we had methadone
clinics on every corner.

00:51:04.050 --> 00:51:09.030
We had Vietnamese veterans
coming back, totally spaced out,

00:51:09.030 --> 00:51:12.150
and bringing a kilo of
something with them.

00:51:12.150 --> 00:51:16.560
You had gangsters coming
out that couldn't relocate,

00:51:16.560 --> 00:51:18.060
and you had people
that just couldn't get a job,

00:51:18.060 --> 00:51:20.040
so there was programs for them.

00:51:20.040 --> 00:51:21.463
And when they cut the programs,

00:51:21.463 --> 00:51:24.150
the people that run
the programs knew

00:51:24.150 --> 00:51:27.540
that the kids of these kids
needed more programs.

00:51:27.540 --> 00:51:30.990
But instead of building
programs, they built more prisons.

00:51:30.990 --> 00:51:32.250
So what does that tell you?

00:51:32.250 --> 00:51:37.250
- Crack came in in
the '80s, it was horrible.

00:51:37.260 --> 00:51:40.080
I mean, we had
heroin, we had cocaine,

00:51:40.080 --> 00:51:42.300
but when crack cocaine came,

00:51:42.300 --> 00:51:46.920
and that was the straw
that broke the camel's back.

00:51:46.920 --> 00:51:50.130
People were defecating
in the hallways,

00:51:50.130 --> 00:51:53.283
they were getting twisted faces,

00:51:54.120 --> 00:51:57.180
children being hurt, and
killed, and abandoned.

00:51:57.180 --> 00:52:02.180
That didn't happen until
this crack came in the '80s,

00:52:03.480 --> 00:52:07.020
destroyed a whole
bunch of people.

00:52:07.020 --> 00:52:10.740
So they sent this
cheap mind-altering drug

00:52:10.740 --> 00:52:14.610
somehow into the community,
and they criminalized it.

00:52:14.610 --> 00:52:17.010
You got much more time for crack

00:52:17.010 --> 00:52:19.800
than you would
for regular cocaine.

00:52:19.800 --> 00:52:23.500
And it was just a racial
discrimination. Simple.

00:52:25.590 --> 00:52:27.030
- You know, the great increase

00:52:27.030 --> 00:52:28.500
in mass incarceration
in this country

00:52:28.500 --> 00:52:30.840
wasn't really in violent
crime categories.

00:52:30.840 --> 00:52:33.060
It was this misguided
war on drugs.

00:52:33.060 --> 00:52:34.970
That's where the dramatic
increases have come

00:52:34.970 --> 00:52:36.543
in our prison population.

00:52:36.543 --> 00:52:38.250
[audience applauding]

00:52:38.250 --> 00:52:41.190
And we got carried away
with the rhetoric of punishment.

00:52:41.190 --> 00:52:42.750
And so we have three strikes laws

00:52:42.750 --> 00:52:45.000
that put people
in prison forever.

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:48.330
- They locked the door
on a whole generation

00:52:48.330 --> 00:52:53.330
and generations of kids
who had a place to go.

00:52:54.600 --> 00:52:56.430
- What we had available to us,

00:52:56.430 --> 00:52:58.713
if they still had
that available today,

00:53:00.270 --> 00:53:01.830
half the stuff that's
going on in the streets

00:53:01.830 --> 00:53:02.663
wouldn't be going on

00:53:02.663 --> 00:53:04.530
because the kids would
have some place to go.

00:53:04.530 --> 00:53:08.820
We had a place to
go, summer, winter, fall,

00:53:08.820 --> 00:53:10.923
after school, in the summer.

00:53:12.300 --> 00:53:14.733
I mean, to go to
camp for three weeks,

00:53:15.720 --> 00:53:17.430
commune with nature,
learn how to row a boat,

00:53:17.430 --> 00:53:19.983
shoot a bow, shoot a BB gun,

00:53:20.847 --> 00:53:23.373
learn how to make
a zip gun, you know?

00:53:27.570 --> 00:53:32.340
Money, I don't know
what drove everything,

00:53:32.340 --> 00:53:35.370
but as education
became expensive,

00:53:35.370 --> 00:53:38.550
there were those who were
before us who got a free education

00:53:38.550 --> 00:53:40.860
and were able to go to college.

00:53:40.860 --> 00:53:45.860
And then as more
minorities started graduating

00:53:46.050 --> 00:53:49.316
or getting ready to go to college,
things became an expense.

00:53:49.316 --> 00:53:50.887
[crowd chanting]

00:53:50.887 --> 00:53:51.720
- [President Reagan]
Listen for a minute,

00:53:51.720 --> 00:53:53.790
what I'm trying to tell you is,

00:53:53.790 --> 00:53:57.600
I can't do a thing for
you if I don't get elected.

00:53:57.600 --> 00:54:00.030
- And I'm asking that you join me

00:54:00.030 --> 00:54:02.670
in reducing direct
federal spending

00:54:02.670 --> 00:54:07.670
by $41.4 billion
in fiscal year 1982.

00:54:07.853 --> 00:54:10.980
[audience applauding]

00:54:10.980 --> 00:54:12.450
- The federal government,

00:54:12.450 --> 00:54:15.270
the city, and the state
government, all three,

00:54:15.270 --> 00:54:19.563
I hold responsible for letting
the projects deteriorate.

00:54:20.550 --> 00:54:22.650
If they had maintained them

00:54:22.650 --> 00:54:25.881
the way that they were maintaining
them while we were there,

00:54:25.881 --> 00:54:27.750
they would still
be in good shape.

00:54:27.750 --> 00:54:30.480
They must have cut the funding,

00:54:30.480 --> 00:54:33.930
they must have cut the
personnel, they failed.

00:54:33.930 --> 00:54:36.930
As far as I'm concerned,
well, as far as I know,

00:54:36.930 --> 00:54:40.170
I don't think that
that support system

00:54:40.170 --> 00:54:42.870
exists anymore in the projects,

00:54:42.870 --> 00:54:44.280
where you have the
afterschool centers.

00:54:44.280 --> 00:54:46.560
They cut the funding
for that for sure.

00:54:46.560 --> 00:54:48.360
I remember one
time, my mom and I,

00:54:48.360 --> 00:54:53.220
we went on AM New York
and Mayor Koch was there,

00:54:53.220 --> 00:54:57.810
and I said to him, "Please
fund this community centers."

00:54:57.810 --> 00:55:01.590
I said, "If you fund that, then
you would have less money

00:55:01.590 --> 00:55:04.470
to pay out for the jails later."

00:55:04.470 --> 00:55:09.470
So he didn't listen, they
still kept the funding cut.

00:55:10.200 --> 00:55:13.323
It was very important
because parents had to work,

00:55:15.750 --> 00:55:17.680
things like that,
and some parents

00:55:20.430 --> 00:55:23.700
didn't have the expertise
that their children needed,

00:55:23.700 --> 00:55:25.560
but other people did.

00:55:25.560 --> 00:55:28.710
- There have to be interesting
afterschool programs

00:55:28.710 --> 00:55:31.290
that help kids cultivate
the talents they have.

00:55:31.290 --> 00:55:33.060
After school
programs are cut back,

00:55:33.060 --> 00:55:35.010
enrichment programs
are being cut back.

00:55:35.850 --> 00:55:38.490
The first thing you do if you
want to destroy a democracy

00:55:38.490 --> 00:55:40.140
is you destroy its school system.

00:55:41.490 --> 00:55:43.320
And you could see clear signs

00:55:43.320 --> 00:55:46.140
that things were
being cut back on,

00:55:46.140 --> 00:55:49.110
and every year
there are cutbacks.

00:55:49.110 --> 00:55:52.537
But the ideology
and the rhetoric say,

00:55:52.537 --> 00:55:53.970
"That we are doing
everything we can

00:55:53.970 --> 00:55:55.140
to improve our school system."

00:55:55.140 --> 00:55:58.320
It's ideology, it's rhetoric,
and none of it is true.

00:55:58.320 --> 00:55:59.400
- When we were growing up,

00:55:59.400 --> 00:56:01.650
all the community
centers were open,

00:56:01.650 --> 00:56:03.000
and those community centers

00:56:03.000 --> 00:56:06.750
were either board
of Ed or housing.

00:56:06.750 --> 00:56:08.370
All of those are closed now.

00:56:08.370 --> 00:56:13.370
So if anything can
be said about that,

00:56:14.010 --> 00:56:16.050
and where we are going with this,

00:56:16.050 --> 00:56:19.050
I would just say that
they need to open up

00:56:19.050 --> 00:56:21.570
all the community centers, okay?

00:56:21.570 --> 00:56:24.690
They need to open up
all the housing centers,

00:56:24.690 --> 00:56:28.290
because before they were open,

00:56:28.290 --> 00:56:31.260
we had less crime,
we had less gangs.

00:56:31.260 --> 00:56:34.080
Even though we still had
'em, we had less of them.

00:56:34.080 --> 00:56:37.620
Now they building
places to house our kids,

00:56:37.620 --> 00:56:41.190
and they don't come in
and go out, they stay there.

00:56:41.190 --> 00:56:42.900
- They deprived our children.

00:56:42.900 --> 00:56:45.390
What was present
in the time period

00:56:45.390 --> 00:56:48.510
that we've been
speaking about Patterson,

00:56:48.510 --> 00:56:51.300
all the houses,
Woodstock, forest houses,

00:56:51.300 --> 00:56:54.360
all the places, after
school centers, et cetera,

00:56:54.360 --> 00:56:55.920
evening community centers,

00:56:55.920 --> 00:56:57.720
those were the things
that were prevalent.

00:56:57.720 --> 00:57:01.080
Those were the
activities and the programs

00:57:01.080 --> 00:57:02.680
that were going on at that time.

00:57:03.630 --> 00:57:07.020
You cannot find those programs

00:57:07.020 --> 00:57:09.810
in any abundance at this point.

00:57:09.810 --> 00:57:12.030
Board of Ed,
Department of Education,

00:57:12.030 --> 00:57:14.010
whatever you wanna
call them, et cetera,

00:57:14.010 --> 00:57:18.660
have let the communities down
tremendously, in my opinion.

00:57:18.660 --> 00:57:22.440
And these young people
who need all this guidance,

00:57:22.440 --> 00:57:25.860
who need the help
of the instructors

00:57:25.860 --> 00:57:27.690
and the people to guide them,

00:57:27.690 --> 00:57:31.830
so that they can have
successful lives, decent lives,

00:57:31.830 --> 00:57:32.883
they're not around.

00:57:34.680 --> 00:57:37.560
- [Reporter] Today we
announce what is believed to be

00:57:37.560 --> 00:57:41.040
the largest gang takedown
in New York City history.

00:57:41.040 --> 00:57:43.920
We have charged 120 defendants

00:57:43.920 --> 00:57:47.580
in two rival Bronx street
gangs with racketeering,

00:57:47.580 --> 00:57:50.790
narcotics, and firearms offenses.

00:57:50.790 --> 00:57:53.460
In addition, the charges
include allegations

00:57:53.460 --> 00:57:57.300
of multiple murders,
attempted murders, shootings,

00:57:57.300 --> 00:58:00.300
stabbings, and beatings
committed in furtherance

00:58:00.300 --> 00:58:01.920
of federal racketeering
conspiracies.

00:58:01.920 --> 00:58:04.230
- [News Reporter] Exclusive
video obtained by News 4

00:58:04.230 --> 00:58:06.540
heavily armed federal
agents and police

00:58:06.540 --> 00:58:08.913
raid several Bronx apartments.

00:58:11.250 --> 00:58:15.060
Nearly 50 arrests, members
of two rival street gangs

00:58:15.060 --> 00:58:16.807
who law enforcement sources say,

00:58:16.807 --> 00:58:19.650
"Turn the Patterson
houses into a war zone

00:58:19.650 --> 00:58:22.530
hearing the echoes
of gunshots every day."

00:58:22.530 --> 00:58:25.320
- You hear it like
it's right next door.

00:58:25.320 --> 00:58:26.730
- Gunshots?
- Yeah.

00:58:26.730 --> 00:58:27.563
- [News Reporter] These moms

00:58:27.563 --> 00:58:29.460
forced to keep
their children inside

00:58:29.460 --> 00:58:32.040
saying the turf war
has made life difficult

00:58:32.040 --> 00:58:34.800
around 3rd Avenue
and 145th Street.

00:58:34.800 --> 00:58:36.030
- But the kids can't come out,

00:58:36.030 --> 00:58:37.530
and if they do, they're
always shooting.

00:58:37.530 --> 00:58:39.517
- [News Reporter] Charles
Moham with the ATF says,

00:58:39.517 --> 00:58:42.150
"Today's arrests will
make an immediate impact."

00:58:42.150 --> 00:58:44.520
Patina Long, and Jasmine Morales,

00:58:44.520 --> 00:58:48.630
those words and today's
arrests are bringing some comfort.

00:58:48.630 --> 00:58:52.823
- I just hope it bring some
closure to this project.

00:58:52.823 --> 00:58:54.093
- This girl got shot,

00:58:56.507 --> 00:59:00.300
I think she was eight years
old, or seven years old,

00:59:00.300 --> 00:59:01.300
something like that.

00:59:02.700 --> 00:59:05.100
And people walk around
shrugging their shoulders

00:59:05.940 --> 00:59:07.980
like this happens all
the time, it's no big deal,

00:59:07.980 --> 00:59:09.963
I couldn't understand it.

00:59:09.963 --> 00:59:11.280
And that's what
started my ball rolling

00:59:11.280 --> 00:59:12.930
as far as the gunshots
and all that came.

00:59:12.930 --> 00:59:15.510
Matter of fact, I heard a
shooting last night out here.

00:59:15.510 --> 00:59:20.510
Yeah, so I put on
this long history

00:59:20.850 --> 00:59:24.123
of trying to fight the guns
in the streets since then.

00:59:24.960 --> 00:59:26.847
I could not believe people
just shrugging their shoulders

00:59:26.847 --> 00:59:30.090
and going on about their
business like it was normal.

00:59:30.090 --> 00:59:32.040
And they're acting
like that today,

00:59:32.040 --> 00:59:33.660
which I don't understand.

00:59:33.660 --> 00:59:35.104
But then that's another life.

00:59:35.104 --> 00:59:38.670
You know, I can't even talk
about that, it's so sickening.

00:59:38.670 --> 00:59:41.527
And I just look at them
and I just shaking my head,

00:59:41.527 --> 00:59:43.650
"That could have been your child,

00:59:43.650 --> 00:59:45.300
or your grandchild, you know?"

00:59:45.300 --> 00:59:47.640
And I don't know
what to do at this point,

00:59:47.640 --> 00:59:49.230
to be honest with you.

00:59:49.230 --> 00:59:50.910
All I gotta do is keep
on doing what I'm doing.

00:59:50.910 --> 00:59:54.390
- I remember being five
years old in Patterson houses

00:59:54.390 --> 00:59:58.320
when I experienced what gun
violence was for the first time.

00:59:58.320 --> 01:00:00.930
And there was this
commotion in my house

01:00:00.930 --> 01:00:04.500
and they were looking out the
window, and there was a car.

01:00:04.500 --> 01:00:06.120
And when I looked,
there was a car there

01:00:06.120 --> 01:00:08.527
and I had no idea,
but what I heard was,

01:00:08.527 --> 01:00:11.307
"There's a man dead
in the car who was shot."

01:00:12.870 --> 01:00:14.970
And as a 5-year-old,
you don't process that.

01:00:14.970 --> 01:00:17.460
You have no idea, the
next day, you go to bed,

01:00:17.460 --> 01:00:19.710
you get ready for
school the next day.

01:00:19.710 --> 01:00:21.000
There's no intervention,

01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:24.540
no one's coming to you to
say, "How are you feeling?

01:00:24.540 --> 01:00:27.270
We know that this was traumatic,

01:00:27.270 --> 01:00:30.120
how can we help you and
your family to get through this?"

01:00:31.020 --> 01:00:33.930
But you continue, and I had
to go to school the next day.

01:00:33.930 --> 01:00:37.320
And years and
years of gun violence,

01:00:37.320 --> 01:00:40.920
losing people in the community,
that's what I've seen a lot.

01:00:40.920 --> 01:00:43.710
Close friends, then again at 19,

01:00:43.710 --> 01:00:47.130
I saw a close friend get
shot in front of my building,

01:00:47.130 --> 01:00:49.050
and that sparked something.

01:00:49.050 --> 01:00:51.000
And again, there
was no intervention.

01:00:51.000 --> 01:00:54.120
- It's really like
the lost generation.

01:00:54.120 --> 01:00:57.030
It's like they just,
they don't value life.

01:00:57.030 --> 01:00:59.160
I understand there's
a shootout over there

01:00:59.160 --> 01:01:01.740
at least once or twice a week,

01:01:01.740 --> 01:01:03.810
and the youth are
killing each other.

01:01:03.810 --> 01:01:05.700
They are actually
killing each other.

01:01:05.700 --> 01:01:07.800
Where did the parents
fell by the wayside,

01:01:07.800 --> 01:01:10.560
or they gave up, or
they, I don't understand.

01:01:10.560 --> 01:01:11.393
I don't know.

01:01:13.320 --> 01:01:17.730
And I think we have
to reach the parents

01:01:17.730 --> 01:01:19.890
in order to reach the children.

01:01:19.890 --> 01:01:22.260
We can't just go
after the children.

01:01:22.260 --> 01:01:23.817
We have to show the parents

01:01:23.817 --> 01:01:27.510
and bring them back
into the realm of things.

01:01:27.510 --> 01:01:30.960
- The goal is to create unity
between generations, right?

01:01:30.960 --> 01:01:33.300
Our older generation,
our younger generation,

01:01:33.300 --> 01:01:36.600
and I think creating
a mentorship, right?

01:01:36.600 --> 01:01:39.870
Like, I was raised by my
grandmother, she's now 93,

01:01:39.870 --> 01:01:43.920
but there was so much wisdom
that I got from this woman,

01:01:43.920 --> 01:01:46.530
who, when I was a
kid, was in her 60s.

01:01:46.530 --> 01:01:50.850
The resource that we had
who could really connect all of us

01:01:50.850 --> 01:01:54.240
is the president of the
Tenant Association, Ms. Pat.

01:01:54.240 --> 01:01:59.047
She is the hub, she is the
go-to person in Patterson to say,

01:01:59.047 --> 01:02:00.210
"What do you think about this?"

01:02:00.210 --> 01:02:02.673
Because she's the voice
of the residents here.

01:02:06.766 --> 01:02:09.090
[kids yelling]

01:02:09.090 --> 01:02:14.090
- I've lived here like 39
years and that's a long time.

01:02:15.540 --> 01:02:20.540
And that's time enough
to see some changes.

01:02:20.670 --> 01:02:25.670
At the time of the gang busts,
we were unable to sit out.

01:02:33.480 --> 01:02:36.750
When I say "we," I'm
speaking about the residents,

01:02:36.750 --> 01:02:41.460
the seniors, the children
in the development

01:02:41.460 --> 01:02:46.460
were unable to utilize these
benches, the playground.

01:02:46.620 --> 01:02:49.920
We couldn't sit here because
it was so much shooting

01:02:49.920 --> 01:02:52.860
and gang fighting going on.

01:02:52.860 --> 01:02:57.630
One side, this side was
unable to go to that side.

01:02:57.630 --> 01:03:00.750
That side was unable
to come to this side.

01:03:00.750 --> 01:03:05.750
And these were kids that you
had in your house growing up.

01:03:06.180 --> 01:03:11.180
So it was hurtful
to see a change,

01:03:11.666 --> 01:03:13.710
and the children in
your development

01:03:13.710 --> 01:03:18.710
going through such
things, and you wonder why.

01:03:19.770 --> 01:03:23.130
- I'm the founder and senior
director of YoThatzPeace,

01:03:23.130 --> 01:03:24.870
an organization that I started,

01:03:24.870 --> 01:03:27.600
and after I realized
a lot of young people

01:03:27.600 --> 01:03:31.410
were getting killed due to
gun violence in our community.

01:03:31.410 --> 01:03:33.150
And what sparked
that was a young man

01:03:33.150 --> 01:03:35.070
who was killed in
the basketball court.

01:03:35.070 --> 01:03:36.810
And I found myself
going to the funeral

01:03:36.810 --> 01:03:39.420
and there were so many
young people at the funeral

01:03:39.420 --> 01:03:41.107
that I was wondering,

01:03:41.107 --> 01:03:42.840
"We've gotta connect
to these young people

01:03:42.840 --> 01:03:45.480
because this is a cycle
that continues to happen."

01:03:45.480 --> 01:03:48.480
And so YoThatzPeace
is an organization

01:03:48.480 --> 01:03:50.277
where we come together
with young people

01:03:50.277 --> 01:03:51.600
and we talk to young people

01:03:51.600 --> 01:03:53.070
about the importance
of non-violence,

01:03:53.070 --> 01:03:55.530
the importance of
putting down the gun,

01:03:55.530 --> 01:03:57.510
the importance of being
able to communicate.

01:03:57.510 --> 01:04:00.030
And we do this through
playing basketball, we do this,

01:04:00.030 --> 01:04:02.280
a lot of the young people in
our community love basketball,

01:04:02.280 --> 01:04:04.830
especially the young males,

01:04:04.830 --> 01:04:07.650
which is the population
that's really impacted

01:04:07.650 --> 01:04:11.100
when we look at who's dying
from the guns in our community.

01:04:11.100 --> 01:04:13.080
So we try to focus on that,

01:04:13.080 --> 01:04:16.260
how do we talk to
our young people

01:04:16.260 --> 01:04:19.800
and bring opportunities
and show them access?

01:04:19.800 --> 01:04:24.800
- I believe that the fact
that they had no place

01:04:26.520 --> 01:04:30.990
to really go and just
enjoy themselves,

01:04:30.990 --> 01:04:35.990
release some of that anxiety
that they had doing fun things.

01:04:36.360 --> 01:04:38.640
They didn't have that,
our center was closed.

01:04:38.640 --> 01:04:41.140
We didn't have use of
our community center

01:04:42.180 --> 01:04:44.850
as we did years ago.

01:04:44.850 --> 01:04:45.780
We didn't have youth.

01:04:45.780 --> 01:04:48.720
So all they had was right here.

01:04:48.720 --> 01:04:51.300
And then the police was coming in

01:04:51.300 --> 01:04:53.550
and they would harass the kids.

01:04:53.550 --> 01:04:55.470
The kids would be
standing out here

01:04:55.470 --> 01:04:58.020
and they would come
and, "What are you doing?"

01:04:58.020 --> 01:04:59.460
And cussing them out.

01:04:59.460 --> 01:05:03.270
So you have kids that
have no place to go,

01:05:03.270 --> 01:05:05.850
they have no center,
no community center,

01:05:05.850 --> 01:05:07.620
this is all that they have.

01:05:07.620 --> 01:05:11.250
This is what? 25
buildings, 1,700 units.

01:05:11.250 --> 01:05:14.190
And you start speaking
to them like that,

01:05:14.190 --> 01:05:16.260
what do you think
is going to happen?

01:05:16.260 --> 01:05:18.093
Are they supposed to respect you?

01:05:20.400 --> 01:05:23.820
The thing is too, we
respect one another.

01:05:23.820 --> 01:05:25.530
That's not what
they were getting.

01:05:25.530 --> 01:05:28.680
And I mean, they was doing things

01:05:28.680 --> 01:05:30.300
that they had no business doing,

01:05:30.300 --> 01:05:34.237
but you have nothing to
do, so what do you do?

01:05:34.237 --> 01:05:37.500
"I dare you to do this."

01:05:37.500 --> 01:05:41.613
And those dares turn
into what? Trouble.

01:05:42.872 --> 01:05:45.705
[emotional music]

01:05:53.040 --> 01:05:56.220
- This is gonna be
our goal starting now,

01:05:56.220 --> 01:05:57.480
to try to get these young people,

01:05:57.480 --> 01:06:01.860
because every time you
hear about this project,

01:06:01.860 --> 01:06:03.813
there's always some
kind of violence,

01:06:04.830 --> 01:06:08.070
and I don't know what's
the new people coming in

01:06:08.070 --> 01:06:13.070
or whatever, but we really
need to work on our young people

01:06:13.320 --> 01:06:17.343
because they're our future.

01:06:18.210 --> 01:06:20.162
- This community
is going to change!

01:06:20.162 --> 01:06:21.810
We're gonna change it when?

01:06:21.810 --> 01:06:23.395
- Now!
- When?

01:06:23.395 --> 01:06:24.910
- Now!
- What are we gonna change,

01:06:24.910 --> 01:06:26.493
their minds, right?

01:06:27.970 --> 01:06:31.950
- From 130, from 143rd,
all through the projects,

01:06:31.950 --> 01:06:35.430
marching with the kids
and adults and stuff like that.

01:06:35.430 --> 01:06:38.700
And it was very
successful, very successful.

01:06:38.700 --> 01:06:39.930
We should have had more people,

01:06:39.930 --> 01:06:43.470
but the handful that
was out, I knew their kid,

01:06:43.470 --> 01:06:46.263
because they didn't have
to come out, a beautiful day.

01:06:48.030 --> 01:06:49.303
So I was very happy with that,

01:06:49.303 --> 01:06:52.302
so I could just
continue to do this until-

01:06:52.302 --> 01:06:53.880
- [Interviewer] So the
goal is to bring awareness.

01:06:53.880 --> 01:06:55.080
- Bring awareness to,

01:06:55.080 --> 01:06:58.560
not only to the
adults, but to the kids,

01:06:58.560 --> 01:07:00.510
'cause those are the ones
who's killing each other.

01:07:00.510 --> 01:07:03.000
- I formed and became the founder

01:07:03.000 --> 01:07:05.340
of the Patterson
Alumni Committee.

01:07:05.340 --> 01:07:09.420
We were attending
wakes, every time I saw

01:07:09.420 --> 01:07:12.960
a bunch of us together and
I called Deborah one night

01:07:12.960 --> 01:07:15.780
and I said, my friend
Deborah Foster.

01:07:15.780 --> 01:07:18.090
I said, "We gotta stop
meeting at these wakes.

01:07:18.090 --> 01:07:21.300
We gotta do something
where we all get together

01:07:21.300 --> 01:07:24.600
on a positive, and we just
called up a bunch of people

01:07:24.600 --> 01:07:26.010
and we all met in the park

01:07:26.010 --> 01:07:29.520
and we decided that once
a year we would have a day

01:07:29.520 --> 01:07:32.310
where we all came
back and got together.

01:07:32.310 --> 01:07:36.510
- Ronnie Satch, like I said,
I give him the props for this.

01:07:36.510 --> 01:07:41.510
He wanted to do something
also for the projects.

01:07:42.390 --> 01:07:44.190
He wasn't on our committee,

01:07:44.190 --> 01:07:46.470
which is the Patterson
Alumni Committee,

01:07:46.470 --> 01:07:48.330
but he wanted to give
something back also

01:07:48.330 --> 01:07:49.890
coming from Patterson.

01:07:49.890 --> 01:07:51.967
He called me and said,

01:07:51.967 --> 01:07:53.730
"Listen, we are gonna
be serving dinners,

01:07:53.730 --> 01:07:57.270
start with Thanksgiving
to the senior citizens.

01:07:57.270 --> 01:07:59.460
The senior citizen
would be served first,

01:07:59.460 --> 01:08:03.120
and then anybody else who
comes after can be served"

01:08:03.120 --> 01:08:05.283
and it went over well.

01:08:06.445 --> 01:08:09.453
- For the past five years
we've been doing this.

01:08:10.380 --> 01:08:11.975
And with the help-

01:08:11.975 --> 01:08:14.610
[audience applauding]
You can clap, you can clap.

01:08:14.610 --> 01:08:18.870
And with the help
of a lot of volunteers,

01:08:18.870 --> 01:08:20.760
a lot, I'm talking about
a lot of volunteers.

01:08:20.760 --> 01:08:23.947
Everybody that we
call, jump right on board,

01:08:23.947 --> 01:08:28.440
"Make me a dish,"
that's all we ask.

01:08:28.440 --> 01:08:32.940
- As you know, somebody always
has to keep everything going.

01:08:32.940 --> 01:08:36.120
Some of us come and go,
but some of us are always here.

01:08:36.120 --> 01:08:38.910
So on behalf of the committee,

01:08:38.910 --> 01:08:41.340
we would like to present
this to Ronnie Satch,

01:08:41.340 --> 01:08:42.873
let's give him a hand, y'all.

01:08:43.725 --> 01:08:46.767
[audience applauding] Yeah!

01:08:46.767 --> 01:08:49.057
This is your certificate.

01:08:49.057 --> 01:08:54.057
For willingness to go above
and beyond, Ronnie Satch.

01:08:54.300 --> 01:08:56.580
- I got sucker punched here.

01:08:56.580 --> 01:08:59.218
I had no idea this was coming.

01:08:59.218 --> 01:09:02.718
And I'm in pain right now,

01:09:02.718 --> 01:09:05.613
but getting this
award from my peers,

01:09:06.690 --> 01:09:09.810
but God, I don't feel
nothing right now.

01:09:09.810 --> 01:09:12.000
I feel good. I really
feel good, you know?

01:09:12.000 --> 01:09:15.210
Working along with
the people here,

01:09:15.210 --> 01:09:19.140
with Dana, with Elmo,
with Charlie, with Brenda,

01:09:19.140 --> 01:09:23.700
with Deborah,
Irene, Beverly Bond.

01:09:23.700 --> 01:09:26.030
I mean, without
them, I couldn't do this,

01:09:28.476 --> 01:09:29.670
without them, I couldn't do this.

01:09:29.670 --> 01:09:32.790
That's why community
is called community.

01:09:32.790 --> 01:09:34.383
Community is unity.

01:09:35.310 --> 01:09:39.780
And we have unity in
this community, okay?

01:09:39.780 --> 01:09:41.070
We have that here,

01:09:41.070 --> 01:09:43.650
and that's why we do
the thing that we do.

01:09:43.650 --> 01:09:45.480
But we love The Patterson.

01:09:45.480 --> 01:09:47.070
We love The Patterson project,

01:09:47.070 --> 01:09:50.040
and I really, really
appreciate this award.

01:09:50.040 --> 01:09:51.730
Thank you very
much, y'all. Thank you.

01:09:51.730 --> 01:09:54.490
- I see people working together

01:09:55.560 --> 01:09:57.930
and that's what it's about.

01:09:57.930 --> 01:10:02.130
People coming together,
working together,

01:10:02.130 --> 01:10:03.930
being that village.

01:10:03.930 --> 01:10:06.753
Because when you have
that village, you have power,

01:10:07.740 --> 01:10:10.353
'cause you're working together,
you are building up things,

01:10:10.353 --> 01:10:13.680
then we can demand what
we don't have, what we need.

01:10:13.680 --> 01:10:16.860
We can demand it
as a group of people

01:10:16.860 --> 01:10:20.760
and get what we want, and
get the things that we need.

01:10:20.760 --> 01:10:24.870
So I see Patterson
really building up

01:10:24.870 --> 01:10:26.340
and being a beautiful place.

01:10:26.340 --> 01:10:30.303
And we are going to fight
to keep Patterson ours.

01:10:31.560 --> 01:10:33.546
- Same people that
you say good morning to,

01:10:33.546 --> 01:10:35.040
good evening to,
good afternoon to,

01:10:35.040 --> 01:10:37.920
you gotta get them to
come to the meetings,

01:10:37.920 --> 01:10:39.270
because if they don't
come to the meetings,

01:10:39.270 --> 01:10:41.753
if we don't fight this
together as one person,

01:10:41.753 --> 01:10:44.880
there's gonna be a problem
here just like in Chicago.

01:10:44.880 --> 01:10:48.240
- The heating situation

01:10:48.240 --> 01:10:50.190
that we are going
through right now,

01:10:50.190 --> 01:10:54.120
and we've been going
through for years on top of years

01:10:54.120 --> 01:10:57.270
with a condemned boiler room.

01:10:57.270 --> 01:11:00.810
And these horrible, if you
can see across the street,

01:11:00.810 --> 01:11:05.160
the street boilers that we
have that are just as bad

01:11:05.160 --> 01:11:08.370
as the ones that's not
working in the boiler room.

01:11:08.370 --> 01:11:10.710
We are having serious
problems with that.

01:11:10.710 --> 01:11:12.720
When the weather is very cold,

01:11:12.720 --> 01:11:16.230
extremely cold, and we suffer.

01:11:16.230 --> 01:11:20.010
We have to burn our
ovens, we burn our stoves,

01:11:20.010 --> 01:11:21.870
boiling water like we used to do

01:11:21.870 --> 01:11:24.420
coming up years and years ago.

01:11:24.420 --> 01:11:29.340
We are promised again
that we will be getting

01:11:29.340 --> 01:11:30.840
the full service and whatnot.

01:11:30.840 --> 01:11:33.030
They will be fixing the boilers.

01:11:33.030 --> 01:11:35.340
But it's a real long task

01:11:35.340 --> 01:11:37.620
because they have
to change the pipes.

01:11:37.620 --> 01:11:40.440
The pipes that's
been here since 1950,

01:11:40.440 --> 01:11:42.660
so how long is it going to be?

01:11:42.660 --> 01:11:45.930
NYCHA has the money,
although they claim they don't,

01:11:45.930 --> 01:11:47.400
but they have the money,

01:11:47.400 --> 01:11:50.280
but they're not
putting it to the use.

01:11:50.280 --> 01:11:55.280
- So today we're out here
for participatory budgeting.

01:11:55.590 --> 01:11:57.210
We're trying to get
the community to vote,

01:11:57.210 --> 01:11:59.880
to vote on our project
here for Patterson Houses.

01:11:59.880 --> 01:12:03.780
We wanna get $1 million
so that we can put 500,000

01:12:03.780 --> 01:12:07.590
to renovating the basketball
court on 143rd Street,

01:12:07.590 --> 01:12:11.130
and also building an
outdoor senior facility,

01:12:11.130 --> 01:12:14.730
so that seniors have a
place where they can stretch

01:12:14.730 --> 01:12:15.963
and do some workout.

01:12:18.150 --> 01:12:19.140
And that's what
we're out here doing.

01:12:19.140 --> 01:12:21.540
So we have to get as
many people involved.

01:12:21.540 --> 01:12:22.380
And it's happening.

01:12:22.380 --> 01:12:26.250
We see a lot of young people
exercising their right to vote.

01:12:26.250 --> 01:12:27.420
And if we win this project,

01:12:27.420 --> 01:12:29.970
they'll feel like their
vote counted, so...

01:12:29.970 --> 01:12:32.640
And even if we don't,
it's a great opportunity

01:12:32.640 --> 01:12:36.270
for young people to see
what that civic engagement is.

01:12:36.270 --> 01:12:38.010
What it means to vote

01:12:38.010 --> 01:12:40.320
for something that you
really are passionate about.

01:12:40.320 --> 01:12:43.920
- They have now
what you call NCOs.

01:12:43.920 --> 01:12:48.030
NCOs are police
officers that come out

01:12:48.030 --> 01:12:53.030
and they're trying to
work with the residents

01:12:53.190 --> 01:12:56.430
in the development to
try and make change.

01:12:56.430 --> 01:13:00.060
They're trying to
make peace, okay?

01:13:00.060 --> 01:13:05.060
Get the community and
the police to work together.

01:13:05.700 --> 01:13:10.440
So they have games, they
do a lot of different things,

01:13:10.440 --> 01:13:12.570
activities that they have.

01:13:12.570 --> 01:13:16.260
They hold meetings, and
they have the police come in,

01:13:16.260 --> 01:13:18.480
they do verticals
in the building.

01:13:18.480 --> 01:13:20.610
They have activities that they do

01:13:20.610 --> 01:13:23.880
with the youth in the community,

01:13:23.880 --> 01:13:28.290
and they really are trying
to work with the community.

01:13:28.290 --> 01:13:31.680
- If we can get through
diminishing the violence

01:13:31.680 --> 01:13:35.190
in our communities and
talking, it can solve so much,

01:13:35.190 --> 01:13:36.480
and we can get through a lot,

01:13:36.480 --> 01:13:38.070
we can break a lot
of barriers with that.

01:13:38.070 --> 01:13:39.690
We can get on the same side.

01:13:39.690 --> 01:13:42.210
Compassion is hard in a society

01:13:42.210 --> 01:13:43.860
where you don't have hope, right?

01:13:43.860 --> 01:13:46.920
You don't think that
tomorrow is possible.

01:13:46.920 --> 01:13:48.930
So we have to teach compassion,

01:13:48.930 --> 01:13:50.940
we have to teach
to love one another.

01:13:50.940 --> 01:13:54.120
- It's gotten better,
gotten calmer around here,

01:13:54.120 --> 01:13:56.910
and it's just like, I feel
like I'm in a community.

01:13:56.910 --> 01:13:57.753
I feel safe.

01:13:59.280 --> 01:14:02.160
It's good to come
around and just go outside

01:14:02.160 --> 01:14:04.710
and be able to see your peers

01:14:04.710 --> 01:14:07.890
and your family out
here just relaxing.

01:14:07.890 --> 01:14:09.630
- I would say now
it's probably the safest

01:14:09.630 --> 01:14:11.250
that it's been in a while.

01:14:11.250 --> 01:14:12.840
When I was younger,
they had the gangs,

01:14:12.840 --> 01:14:14.190
we wasn't allowed
to come outside.

01:14:14.190 --> 01:14:16.530
When I had my daughter,
they started again.

01:14:16.530 --> 01:14:17.730
We didn't play,
I didn't bring her

01:14:17.730 --> 01:14:19.830
over here to the parks at all.

01:14:19.830 --> 01:14:22.110
I would always take
her to other parks

01:14:22.110 --> 01:14:23.610
because of the gang activity.

01:14:23.610 --> 01:14:26.520
But yeah, now she
could come out here,

01:14:26.520 --> 01:14:28.530
but there's no parks to play in.

01:14:28.530 --> 01:14:29.670
But she could come out here now

01:14:29.670 --> 01:14:31.440
and we don't have
to worry about running

01:14:31.440 --> 01:14:34.650
or anything from any
gunshots and stuff, so.

01:14:34.650 --> 01:14:37.320
- We have a leadership program.

01:14:37.320 --> 01:14:42.320
We have the mayor
is working with us now,

01:14:43.680 --> 01:14:48.680
and we have groups
where they're coming in

01:14:51.630 --> 01:14:56.630
and they're learning how
to work in their development.

01:14:57.270 --> 01:15:02.070
They're learning
how to write up things

01:15:02.070 --> 01:15:05.040
that they need in
their community,

01:15:05.040 --> 01:15:09.990
how to go about serving their
community, serving on boards.

01:15:09.990 --> 01:15:13.290
And this job that
I'm doing right now

01:15:13.290 --> 01:15:17.493
as Resident
Association President,

01:15:18.360 --> 01:15:23.220
I want to see the young
folks take over this.

01:15:23.220 --> 01:15:27.420
I want to see them
running their community.

01:15:27.420 --> 01:15:31.290
- My hope for Patterson
Houses and for the community

01:15:31.290 --> 01:15:36.290
is that we create a
community of opportunities.

01:15:38.520 --> 01:15:41.790
A community where
education is on the rise

01:15:41.790 --> 01:15:44.550
and our young people
are getting through college

01:15:44.550 --> 01:15:46.203
and not just to college.

01:15:48.480 --> 01:15:51.690
And even if college
is not an option, right?

01:15:51.690 --> 01:15:55.170
Trades and doing things positive,

01:15:55.170 --> 01:15:59.220
I think my goal is to make
sure that every young person

01:15:59.220 --> 01:16:00.993
is a good citizen
in the community.

01:16:01.830 --> 01:16:03.970
Whatever that means,
whether it's helping

01:16:05.430 --> 01:16:09.570
the senior citizens, whether
it's helping their friends,

01:16:09.570 --> 01:16:11.610
whatever it means,
but I think for Patterson,

01:16:11.610 --> 01:16:13.620
we gotta get the violence down.

01:16:13.620 --> 01:16:14.583
- I want to thank everybody, man,

01:16:14.583 --> 01:16:17.100
that came out to
support me and my family,

01:16:17.100 --> 01:16:20.250
his mother, Stephanie,
all my friends,

01:16:20.250 --> 01:16:22.740
all the homies that's
everywhere from Brooklyn,

01:16:22.740 --> 01:16:25.200
to Staten Island, from here.

01:16:25.200 --> 01:16:26.790
I appreciate
everybody, from Harlem,

01:16:26.790 --> 01:16:29.580
I appreciate everybody
that came out.

01:16:29.580 --> 01:16:33.696
'Cause not every day we all
come out like this just because.

01:16:33.696 --> 01:16:34.529
You know what I'm saying?

01:16:34.529 --> 01:16:35.362
It seem like we
only come like this

01:16:35.362 --> 01:16:36.660
when something is happening.

01:16:36.660 --> 01:16:39.870
We gotta stop that
shit, on some G shit.

01:16:39.870 --> 01:16:41.640
It's my son, but it could be

01:16:41.640 --> 01:16:43.471
any one of y'all
sons out here as well.

01:16:43.471 --> 01:16:46.804
[protestors exclaiming]

01:16:48.090 --> 01:16:49.770
As long as they see
us sticking together,

01:16:49.770 --> 01:16:52.173
all this shit gonna
stop, I promise you.

01:16:53.586 --> 01:16:56.640
We can't change everybody's
lives, but we can change one,

01:16:56.640 --> 01:16:58.290
and that's what it's about.

01:16:58.290 --> 01:17:00.030
So again, y'all, I'm Kartier,

01:17:00.030 --> 01:17:02.080
and I appreciate y'all
for coming out and...

01:17:03.200 --> 01:17:04.950
[crowd applauding]

01:17:04.950 --> 01:17:08.550
- Mass incarceration,
that's a problem

01:17:08.550 --> 01:17:10.260
because our families
are being broken up.

01:17:10.260 --> 01:17:14.100
People look down on the
drug dealers and the gangs,

01:17:14.100 --> 01:17:17.670
but they don't understand
that this is a problem

01:17:17.670 --> 01:17:21.600
that's deeper than what
we see on the surface, right?

01:17:21.600 --> 01:17:25.680
So it's dismantling
that bigger problem.

01:17:25.680 --> 01:17:27.930
And those are the things

01:17:27.930 --> 01:17:32.253
I wanna see our young
people less in jails,

01:17:33.270 --> 01:17:38.270
more in schools, and more of
Patterson alumni coming back.

01:17:39.660 --> 01:17:42.030
Those who have been successful,

01:17:42.030 --> 01:17:46.680
those who have made it
out of Patterson, come back.

01:17:46.680 --> 01:17:50.520
- Our era, which I
can say we turned out

01:17:50.520 --> 01:17:53.433
to be a very good
group of people.

01:17:54.300 --> 01:17:56.913
We are motivated,
we are committed,

01:17:59.560 --> 01:18:03.360
we are definitely
community-orientated.

01:18:03.360 --> 01:18:07.140
And like I said, we still
look out for one another.

01:18:07.140 --> 01:18:10.950
- A lot of people
came out of Patterson

01:18:10.950 --> 01:18:15.540
and went on to become,
like Tiny Archibald,

01:18:15.540 --> 01:18:16.920
the basketball player.

01:18:16.920 --> 01:18:21.920
We also have Clarence
Williams III, the actor.

01:18:22.230 --> 01:18:25.380
I remember the Dean family.

01:18:25.380 --> 01:18:30.380
And Albert Dean, he was
the eldest of the siblings.

01:18:31.170 --> 01:18:36.030
His sons have grown on to
be in the music business now,

01:18:36.030 --> 01:18:38.520
they are Ruff Rhyders.

01:18:38.520 --> 01:18:43.520
And then my oldest
brother Melvin, his son Sean,

01:18:43.530 --> 01:18:47.100
is Sean Diddy Combs, Puffy,

01:18:47.100 --> 01:18:49.890
he changes his name
from time to time.

01:18:49.890 --> 01:18:54.890
- And I see people like Adrian
Best and cats be working.

01:18:55.140 --> 01:18:58.140
Where he work?
"Good Morning America."

01:18:58.140 --> 01:19:01.863
I see people that work
at Paramount Pictures.

01:19:02.820 --> 01:19:05.457
I see people that
work all over the world.

01:19:05.457 --> 01:19:09.240
And guess what,
we still got respect.

01:19:09.240 --> 01:19:12.900
- There is no one more
street than Allen underneath,

01:19:12.900 --> 01:19:17.700
but he used all that
street to become a banker,

01:19:17.700 --> 01:19:21.240
a radio personality,
a professional person

01:19:21.240 --> 01:19:23.970
that is known by
everybody in this country.

01:19:23.970 --> 01:19:28.920
He knew how to take the
street and when to put it away

01:19:28.920 --> 01:19:31.560
and when to use it
as a motivating factor.

01:19:31.560 --> 01:19:33.930
And that's, you have
something special

01:19:33.930 --> 01:19:36.510
from growing up in
the streets of New York.

01:19:36.510 --> 01:19:39.180
You have something that
most people don't have,

01:19:39.180 --> 01:19:44.180
but it can kill you as well
as elevate you into success.

01:19:44.580 --> 01:19:48.840
So what you have to
learn is to channel the street

01:19:48.840 --> 01:19:51.270
into something that
makes you successful,

01:19:51.270 --> 01:19:53.820
and this man is a
perfect example of it.

01:19:53.820 --> 01:19:56.992
My co-author, my friend,
my homeboy, Allen Jones.

01:19:56.992 --> 01:20:01.992
- Yo.
[audience applauding]

01:20:03.078 --> 01:20:06.630
You know, I don't
know what any of you

01:20:06.630 --> 01:20:07.620
wanna do in your life,

01:20:07.620 --> 01:20:10.410
but I just want you to
know that you can do it.

01:20:10.410 --> 01:20:13.290
You can do it regardless
of the situation you in,

01:20:13.290 --> 01:20:14.610
regardless of...

01:20:14.610 --> 01:20:17.370
'Cause I know it's hard
in New York, it's hard.

01:20:17.370 --> 01:20:20.100
- [Announcer] He's from
the Bronx in New York City.

01:20:20.100 --> 01:20:22.860
He won the championship
with a sensational knockout

01:20:22.860 --> 01:20:24.930
of Thomas "The Hitman" Hearns.

01:20:24.930 --> 01:20:28.250
Ladies and gentlemen,
the WBC middleweight

01:20:28.250 --> 01:20:31.870
champion of the world,
Iran "The Blade" Barkley!

01:20:35.520 --> 01:20:39.090
- I feel that I've been
blessed to find an opportunity

01:20:39.090 --> 01:20:42.060
to work in an
environment that I enjoy,

01:20:42.060 --> 01:20:43.080
where I'm giving back,

01:20:43.080 --> 01:20:46.050
where I'm seeing
the fruits of our labor.

01:20:46.050 --> 01:20:50.220
That old adage that it takes
a village to educate a child.

01:20:50.220 --> 01:20:53.130
I'm seeing it here at
Hostos Community College.

01:20:53.130 --> 01:20:56.583
This community comes
together, does the handholding,

01:20:57.480 --> 01:21:02.070
and allows students to
go to this metamorphosis

01:21:02.070 --> 01:21:04.140
where they fly out as butterflies

01:21:04.140 --> 01:21:07.740
and become productive
members of society.

01:21:07.740 --> 01:21:10.020
- I always studied
art, I always did it.

01:21:10.020 --> 01:21:12.360
I went to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

01:21:12.360 --> 01:21:16.470
almost four or five
times a year, a week.

01:21:16.470 --> 01:21:20.460
But in PS 18, they encouraged
that kind of behavior.

01:21:20.460 --> 01:21:24.300
It only took 15 cent to get to
the Museum of Modern Art,

01:21:24.300 --> 01:21:27.840
or go to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

01:21:27.840 --> 01:21:31.530
and I spent that
15 cent all the time.

01:21:31.530 --> 01:21:34.920
But it was because of
The Patterson projects

01:21:34.920 --> 01:21:39.180
that I got this certain
arrogance about,

01:21:39.180 --> 01:21:41.460
you have to be the best.

01:21:41.460 --> 01:21:43.650
- I don't know, well,
Johnson's Barber Shop

01:21:43.650 --> 01:21:46.053
has been there for 40 years.

01:21:47.670 --> 01:21:51.660
And people bring their children
back, and we just renovated,

01:21:51.660 --> 01:21:55.443
I just renovated it and
everyone is so happy.

01:21:56.799 --> 01:21:58.299
I'm getting ready to swell up.

01:22:02.340 --> 01:22:05.880
People really appreciate it,

01:22:05.880 --> 01:22:07.913
I don't know where
all this is coming from.

01:22:09.150 --> 01:22:11.253
People are really appreciative,

01:22:13.530 --> 01:22:16.683
and they like it,
and I'm proud of it.

01:22:18.112 --> 01:22:21.779
I guess I'm thinking
about my father, and...

01:22:25.860 --> 01:22:30.510
I know how he
loved the barbershop.

01:22:30.510 --> 01:22:32.550
- [Michael] We really, I think,

01:22:32.550 --> 01:22:34.443
that we really loved each other,

01:22:35.550 --> 01:22:38.883
because of the fact that no
matter where I went in my life,

01:22:40.140 --> 01:22:43.020
I always knew, and
I was always proud

01:22:43.020 --> 01:22:46.110
of being a Patterson
project person.

01:22:46.110 --> 01:22:50.490
This is one American
experience that made it work.

01:22:50.490 --> 01:22:52.110
It really did.

01:22:52.110 --> 01:22:55.263
- Come back, because you
can't forget where you come from.

01:22:56.100 --> 01:23:00.240
Just like you as a young person,
you needed those mentors.

01:23:00.240 --> 01:23:04.470
You needed to hold onto
something to get you through,

01:23:04.470 --> 01:23:06.150
to get you to where
you are today.

01:23:06.150 --> 01:23:08.670
So come back because
there are young people

01:23:08.670 --> 01:23:12.000
going through that same
process who don't have anyone.

01:23:12.000 --> 01:23:14.790
So they need to see
that there are people

01:23:14.790 --> 01:23:17.070
who come from Patterson,
who come from public housing,

01:23:17.070 --> 01:23:20.460
who are doing great, and
they need to know how,

01:23:20.460 --> 01:23:21.690
how can they do that?

01:23:21.690 --> 01:23:24.697
And they need to see our
Black and brown faces and say,

01:23:24.697 --> 01:23:26.790
"We did that," right?

01:23:26.790 --> 01:23:28.050
- When I was in your place,

01:23:28.050 --> 01:23:30.087
I didn't know what they
were talking about either,

01:23:30.087 --> 01:23:32.190
but I got to go make it.

01:23:32.190 --> 01:23:35.040
Most of the places that
people see in the books,

01:23:35.040 --> 01:23:36.750
you can look it
up in the internet,

01:23:36.750 --> 01:23:39.063
I've been to most
of those places,

01:23:40.080 --> 01:23:41.790
because I played a
little bit of basketball,

01:23:41.790 --> 01:23:44.010
and I got an education also.

01:23:44.010 --> 01:23:45.840
- So that's what I wanna see.

01:23:45.840 --> 01:23:47.910
I wanna see more of our alumnis,

01:23:47.910 --> 01:23:52.470
more of our generations
kind of connecting, right?

01:23:52.470 --> 01:23:55.080
Our seniors have
a value too, right?

01:23:55.080 --> 01:23:57.510
They hold a lot of wisdom,
they've been through a lot,

01:23:57.510 --> 01:24:00.120
so I think we need
to connect that also.

01:24:00.120 --> 01:24:02.853
So really creating a
system of full circle,

01:24:03.900 --> 01:24:05.883
those who came
out coming right back.

01:24:10.459 --> 01:24:13.042
[upbeat music]

01:24:24.000 --> 01:24:26.093
- The union thing is
very important to us.

01:24:26.093 --> 01:24:28.410
The union is The Patterson.

01:24:28.410 --> 01:24:33.370
Patterson projects, we all
grew up here 30, 40 years ago.

01:24:35.340 --> 01:24:38.820
So important for us to
keep our roots alive here.

01:24:38.820 --> 01:24:41.220
So many of us have passed away,

01:24:41.220 --> 01:24:44.160
so that little bit
of us that's left,

01:24:44.160 --> 01:24:45.030
we ought to come together.

01:24:45.030 --> 01:24:48.240
We ought to do these
things every year, every year.

01:24:48.240 --> 01:24:49.230
It doesn't matter,

01:24:49.230 --> 01:24:51.090
it doesn't matter if
you come to the dance,

01:24:51.090 --> 01:24:52.860
it doesn't matter if you
come to the boat ride,

01:24:52.860 --> 01:24:54.390
always on Saturday,

01:24:54.390 --> 01:24:56.760
the first Saturday of
the month of August,

01:24:56.760 --> 01:24:57.760
they should be here.

01:24:58.650 --> 01:25:00.114
And that's what it's about.

01:25:00.114 --> 01:25:01.140
It's about coming together.

01:25:01.140 --> 01:25:03.540
The people that we went
to grammar school with,

01:25:03.540 --> 01:25:07.170
high school, college,
it's a beautiful thing

01:25:07.170 --> 01:25:09.300
when Black people
come back and remember,

01:25:09.300 --> 01:25:11.100
and talk about
things that they did.

01:25:12.020 --> 01:25:14.133
Part of their life are
doing part of their life,

01:25:14.133 --> 01:25:15.810
it's so important.

01:25:15.810 --> 01:25:17.670
So I'm just happy to be here.

01:25:17.670 --> 01:25:19.046
I'm just happy to be here.

01:25:19.046 --> 01:25:21.629
[upbeat music]

01:25:23.187 --> 01:25:25.560
- The Patterson community
means the world to me.

01:25:25.560 --> 01:25:27.540
I would not be who I am today

01:25:27.540 --> 01:25:30.540
if it were not for
all those people.

01:25:30.540 --> 01:25:32.880
It takes a village,
that was a village.

01:25:32.880 --> 01:25:36.000
We had so many
mothers, so many fathers,

01:25:36.000 --> 01:25:38.970
so many role models
in the community

01:25:38.970 --> 01:25:41.433
that helped and
looked out for us.

01:25:41.433 --> 01:25:43.890
[upbeat music]

01:25:43.890 --> 01:25:46.817
- Would I trade my years
at the Patterson? Never.

01:25:48.450 --> 01:25:50.190
And again, it's a testament

01:25:50.190 --> 01:25:52.080
that we've been
away for how long?

01:25:52.080 --> 01:25:53.400
But the bond is still there.

01:25:53.400 --> 01:25:56.010
And a lot of people
who are gone, right?

01:25:56.010 --> 01:25:59.280
But they're not forgotten,

01:25:59.280 --> 01:26:03.532
and those that are still
here, the bond is there.

01:26:03.532 --> 01:26:06.720
[upbeat music]

01:26:06.720 --> 01:26:10.320
- My hope is that
the kids will be able

01:26:10.320 --> 01:26:14.040
to at least come out and
play again, to enjoy each other.

01:26:14.040 --> 01:26:16.440
My hope is that they
find camaraderie.

01:26:16.440 --> 01:26:18.420
The same kind of
camaraderie that I found

01:26:18.420 --> 01:26:21.993
when I was their age and older.

01:26:23.460 --> 01:26:27.840
My hope is that they
find discipline somewhere,

01:26:27.840 --> 01:26:31.233
so that they have the
tools to succeed in life.

01:26:33.120 --> 01:26:37.653
My hope is that they
find joy in themselves.

01:26:39.120 --> 01:26:44.120
My greatest hope is that the
violence in The Patterson ends.

01:26:45.477 --> 01:26:48.060
[upbeat music]

01:27:00.372 --> 01:27:03.205
[emotional music]