Speaker 1: Yeah, get get boards. It's back and reloaded all in
Speaker 1: your mind. Yeah, now deep throating. This is for the streets,
Speaker 1: the reel, the railroading, the disanfranchise, the truth, the scapegoating,
Speaker 1: and they ain't knowing we speak the truth, so they
Speaker 1: ain't quoted because we wrote it. The North South East
Speaker 1: coat is g b my keeping your head bobbing, it
Speaker 1: ain't no stopping and wants to be try head by
Speaker 1: then the system is so corrupt they throw the rock
Speaker 1: out their heads and then blame it on us. Don't
Speaker 1: get it twisted on code and me and dancing for
Speaker 1: no buttoment biscuits. It's Willie d y'all scar faces out. Collectively,
Speaker 1: we are the ghetto Boys. Reloaded with another episode of
Speaker 1: information and instructions to help you navigate through this wild, crazy,
Speaker 1: beautiful world. In the studio, Marylyn Gambrel, let me tell
Speaker 1: you something found. Y'all don't know the half. This woman
Speaker 1: is necessary, Sarah, I ain't gonna talk up too much.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a conversation and y'all judge for yourself. Brother,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you, my good friend of over.
Speaker 1: We were just trying to count the years. It was
Speaker 1: like twenty six years. We've been knowing each other a
Speaker 1: long time, long time, a long time. Um, how is Mackenzie.
Speaker 1: Mackenzie is wonderful. She's a nurse. Now my granddaughter is
Speaker 1: an orion emergency. That's crazy, right, So you got when
Speaker 1: I met you, you know, you just had your daughter
Speaker 1: was a teenager, Mackenzie was a teenager, and now you
Speaker 1: have a teenage granddaughter. Well, actually, god, God, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: Believe that. Yeah, man, that's crazy. Wow. How how is grandmotherhood? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's spectacular, it is and is just the She's the
Speaker 1: most amazing mob in the world. I should have warned
Speaker 1: y'all family that Merlin is a serial crier. But and
Speaker 1: the thing about it, though, is that it's in a
Speaker 1: good way, right, because it's like you wear your heart
Speaker 1: on a sleep on your sleeve, and you know, you're like, uh,
Speaker 1: you got this uh surplus of empathy, and that's what
Speaker 1: brings about the tears so often, right. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to like really explain to people the
Speaker 1: impact that you've had on the community in Houston, communities
Speaker 1: in Houston and over just overall, on so many people's
Speaker 1: lives have you ever just really set back and you
Speaker 1: just thought about, you know, the that impact that you
Speaker 1: have on people, like and the number of people that
Speaker 1: you've actually impacted. Sometimes I kind of think back, going
Speaker 1: all the way back, and especially when we started our
Speaker 1: program for children and incarcerated parents and two thousand, how
Speaker 1: many hundreds and hundreds of children have gone through the
Speaker 1: program and to see them excel. But we still have
Speaker 1: children today going through the program. So we're twenty two
Speaker 1: years old now, as far as our program is twenty
Speaker 1: two years old, and we turned twenty in t I thought,
Speaker 1: how magical is that? And we're gonna celebrate every month,
Speaker 1: and we had all these plans. We were out of
Speaker 1: there by Mars because of COVID, so we didn't get
Speaker 1: to do our celebrating. But we're going to might be
Speaker 1: three by the time we get to it. But just
Speaker 1: the numbers and my youngest then in two thousand, what
Speaker 1: you meant you game to class are now thirty five.
Speaker 1: You believe that those children men are in the thirties.
Speaker 1: Tell people what it is that you do. You are
Speaker 1: the founder of Normal Victims. It's an advocacy advocate advocacy
Speaker 1: organization for children of incarcerated parents. That in and of
Speaker 1: itself is is it's unique because there is not a
Speaker 1: lot of programs out that that focus strictly on children
Speaker 1: of incarcerated parents. They're pretty much alike the forgotten, and
Speaker 1: people don't even think about what happens with them when
Speaker 1: a child when their parents goes off to prison. So
Speaker 1: explain to people exactly, you know what that's something like
Speaker 1: that involves, you know, this population of children. Like if
Speaker 1: there were ten risk factors that needed to be that
Speaker 1: a child could fall in these categories, this population has
Speaker 1: every single risk factor. If it's ten each child individually,
Speaker 1: we'll half ten or nine, but it's usually ten because
Speaker 1: it deals with the homelessness, UH, abandonment issues, have been
Speaker 1: abused issues, it's all the above in this one child.
Speaker 1: But then they've got siblings. Now, all the siblings carry
Speaker 1: the same pain and trauma um the caregivers, the struggles
Speaker 1: that they have, the grandparents that are now raising even newborns,
Speaker 1: and the grandparents the usual guardians that step in to
Speaker 1: raise these kids when their parents go off to jail. Yes,
Speaker 1: most most often is the grandparents that take care of that.
Speaker 1: And bless them. Bless because you don't get money from
Speaker 1: CPS or for adopting, like CPS would pay a foster parent,
Speaker 1: but the grandparents needs that additional income now to take that.
Speaker 1: CPS will pay the foster parents, but they won't pay
Speaker 1: the blood. They won't. They won't pay blood grandparents anything,
Speaker 1: won't give them any type of relief. CPS, Shame on you,
Speaker 1: Shame on you. Y'all. Guys, y'all need to go back
Speaker 1: to the drawing board and figure it out. Talk about
Speaker 1: backwards policy. I think it's more and more on the
Speaker 1: table now because there's so many grandparents and answer uncle's
Speaker 1: toopid most often the grandparents that's totally responsible for financially
Speaker 1: and for every aspect. And bless them because when you're older,
Speaker 1: you don't feel well, fixed income and you got all
Speaker 1: these other responsibilities and you don't just a lot of
Speaker 1: times you don't just get one grand baby. They might
Speaker 1: have two of their own children, adult children in the
Speaker 1: penitentiary and taking on maybe six, maybe two. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a lot more to it, can you imagine, and
Speaker 1: then being ill, not feeling well, it's just a limited money.
Speaker 1: At one point, no more victims had graduating ratio. There
Speaker 1: the children. The children that came through the program still do.
Speaker 1: We've only had one time we had that we're graduating
Speaker 1: that year and two didn't, but they did end up
Speaker 1: doing it in August. So still that's all. So every
Speaker 1: single child that comes through the nor More Victim program,
Speaker 1: it's not only expected to graduate high school, but they graduate.
Speaker 1: They do graduate. Some you have to do additional things
Speaker 1: to support them or get them into a home school.
Speaker 1: The bottom line is you're not You're going to graduate.
Speaker 1: First of all. The other aspect, you don't have to
Speaker 1: go to college. You might want to own a chain
Speaker 1: of barbershops, you want to go vocational, you might want
Speaker 1: to go in the military. Being a lot of them
Speaker 1: do go on to college. But the one thing you're
Speaker 1: not gonna do is end up the penitentiary. Now that
Speaker 1: we can work on high school all day long, but
Speaker 1: we know how critical that is. Your secret. So you're
Speaker 1: saying that in twenty two years, right, it's been twenty
Speaker 1: two years of existence, you haven't had one kid go
Speaker 1: to the penitentition. We have our goal is that you're
Speaker 1: not going. Okay, but all your kids graduated, how many
Speaker 1: kids have ended up in the penitenttion? I would say
Speaker 1: a and this giver takes some I may not know about,
Speaker 1: uh the move to other states and stuff, but I
Speaker 1: would stay. I would say out of a thousand we've
Speaker 1: probably had, which is two hundreds of a thousand, and
Speaker 1: that's still a much better ratio than the standard. You
Speaker 1: know what's going on in the schools, just if they
Speaker 1: would just go to school and grew up in these
Speaker 1: problematic environments. Right now, I'm overstating because I don't want
Speaker 1: to go under. I would rather go over. Because we
Speaker 1: were at um the last time when we were really counting,
Speaker 1: where we sat down and talked about it because everything
Speaker 1: is such a whirlwind, it was twenty five din it gone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm adding to that just to cover to be sure,
Speaker 1: because I don't want to leave anything out because it's abnormal,
Speaker 1: especially in the communities that we're in, like on the
Speaker 1: north Forest side, ain't have many children and their parents
Speaker 1: were in prison from there, and uh they on the
Speaker 1: South side. But we've had amazing numbers. When we had
Speaker 1: met with t DC, Texas Department of Criminal Justice before
Speaker 1: and they assumed because it says out of every ten
Speaker 1: children with a parent in prison, six to nine go
Speaker 1: to prison okay, So if that's the case with our
Speaker 1: thousand should have been six And they asked me, okay,
Speaker 1: so how many because they were ready, they said about
Speaker 1: six hundred. And at that point when I was asked that,
Speaker 1: I said no because I didn't even want to say
Speaker 1: twenty four because I didn't want any But it's true.
Speaker 1: It was sway four and I sent twenty four. The
Speaker 1: whole room was like, what, why with those type of numbers,
Speaker 1: with that type of success, why isn't no more victims?
Speaker 1: Like a billion dollar organization and funds like y'all should
Speaker 1: have a billion dollar budget, right, you should have a
Speaker 1: billion dollar budget. Every politician and and so called activist
Speaker 1: organization should be descending on this company and saying, what
Speaker 1: is the formula we need to do this in our community?
Speaker 1: Why is that not happening the journey for this population
Speaker 1: of children? But I found I've been told so many
Speaker 1: hateful things like I'm not helping a dope things kid?
Speaker 1: Who said that? Just people through time and make those comments.
Speaker 1: Give me a name, man, give me a name. Are
Speaker 1: things like, um, how do I know their daddy's off?
Speaker 1: The one that robbed me two years ago? I'm thinking
Speaker 1: the child was three. But these are people who run
Speaker 1: organizations of people who have means, who have money and resources,
Speaker 1: and politicians and people like business people making these type
Speaker 1: of comments. Yeah, it will. It's just politician didn't make
Speaker 1: that type because they never said that to me, but
Speaker 1: not to my face. But we've just dealt with or
Speaker 1: I paid my taxes already. That's my donation to build
Speaker 1: more prisons because they're going anyway. You know, if you
Speaker 1: double over by the time you get away from them,
Speaker 1: because you're trying not to, you're trying not to really
Speaker 1: really come on across like you really want to. But
Speaker 1: those are just the things that I've been and I've
Speaker 1: never told our children that because that would only escalate
Speaker 1: what they already think and feel. But I, um, I
Speaker 1: just heard a lot of terrible things. Yeah, um, terrible things.
Speaker 1: You know. There's a lot of victims, millions of victims.
Speaker 1: And why and I have to understand this, Why would
Speaker 1: they want to take care of the child of someone's
Speaker 1: a child who the father or mother has murdered someone
Speaker 1: and left this other family completely broken. Why would they
Speaker 1: want to do anything to support that child. So that's
Speaker 1: the mentality that comes across and when it comes to
Speaker 1: someone who's a victim and all that they've been through.
Speaker 1: I have to understand that if their family member was murdered,
Speaker 1: their father is no longer there because of something the
Speaker 1: person that murdered them, and here's their children. This child
Speaker 1: is left, the victims child is now left, and this child,
Speaker 1: the child of the offender is left. Now you've got
Speaker 1: two sets of wounded children. But who's gonna work. Who
Speaker 1: do you think they're gonna want to go towards when
Speaker 1: it comes to donating money and helping the family, It's
Speaker 1: going to be that child, the child of the victim.
Speaker 1: So we have so much work to do. There are
Speaker 1: a lot more programs now there are. Isn't that crazy
Speaker 1: that the child of the victim is indeed a victim,
Speaker 1: and that that kid needs a system love and support
Speaker 1: to relief, needs love and support. But the child of
Speaker 1: the offender is equally a victim, and they didn't That's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, And they they equally need support and love,
Speaker 1: relief assistance, and we have we need to work diligently
Speaker 1: to prevent the behavior from the offender's child from that
Speaker 1: behavior not to spiral into doing the same thing and
Speaker 1: being right now and right now, there's really any like
Speaker 1: type of proactive programs that when you identify a parent
Speaker 1: who have done something egregious, especially something violent. Uh, there
Speaker 1: isn't anything to go in and you know, seek out
Speaker 1: those children to make sure those children number one half
Speaker 1: therapy get the property absolutely therapy that they need in
Speaker 1: order the process the events that occurred. All right, how
Speaker 1: does one get into No More Victim program? It's voluntary
Speaker 1: for our children. First of all, they have to want
Speaker 1: to do this. And um, the name of our our
Speaker 1: program on school campuses is inspiring legends. Okay, so we
Speaker 1: want to keep it safe for them, not because at
Speaker 1: smiling no No More Victims was the name of the organization.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, you can create your own name. This
Speaker 1: is the organization's name, nonprofit. You can create a name
Speaker 1: that you want for your school. And they said nope.
Speaker 1: I said, we're probably gonna be bullied and really here
Speaker 1: it and they said, we want them to and I
Speaker 1: knew what that mean. We want somebody to say something
Speaker 1: to us about it. And they would not let me
Speaker 1: give them a different name. They wouldn't do it. They said,
Speaker 1: we're tired of lying about where our parents are We're
Speaker 1: tired of always making up stories and excuses why they're
Speaker 1: not present our kids. And who was the old lady
Speaker 1: that picks you up all the top? They picked all
Speaker 1: the other kids are seeing that and laughing and making
Speaker 1: fun of him, and it's the grandparents. Bless her heart
Speaker 1: for what she does, and they stay in a you know,
Speaker 1: fight mode. You know. They were now had something that
Speaker 1: totally focused on the dair reality and they weren't gonna
Speaker 1: let anybody getting away from it. And they said, that's
Speaker 1: who we're gonna be. So I said, blessed at them
Speaker 1: because I let them. They got to choose everything, they
Speaker 1: got to make all the decisions because they never really
Speaker 1: had any power. So I said okay, And sure enough
Speaker 1: those days came. And we even had a teacher make
Speaker 1: a statement to one of our kids, um, why you
Speaker 1: ask him why you feel a math test? And the
Speaker 1: child said what and then said, aren't you in that
Speaker 1: no more victim's program? Are you gonna be a victim
Speaker 1: of your math class as well? Who said that? It
Speaker 1: was a teacher That child cried and cried and crashed.
Speaker 1: She held on, but when she came she found me
Speaker 1: down the highway and just fell, just fell on me.
Speaker 1: Was the teacher reprimanded? Uh, the teacher was removed. She
Speaker 1: got reprimanded. That was a female teacher. A melody, okay,
Speaker 1: And it's just so many things. Is that you would
Speaker 1: never know unless you do the work, unless you're in
Speaker 1: the trenches. But the kids told me, Isa, we ain't
Speaker 1: in the trenches. He said, you're with us in the gutter.
Speaker 1: I said, well, that's where I want to be. They said,
Speaker 1: the trenches to step up. We're gonna come up and
Speaker 1: we're gonna take all the other kids with the very
Speaker 1: protective of their siblings future, of their future, but very
Speaker 1: I saw the most beautiful things their passion for their siblings,
Speaker 1: um elder. They had such a respect for what had
Speaker 1: been given to them that they wanted to get so
Speaker 1: many good things for that. Grandparents or maybe it was
Speaker 1: their older team was their guardian because mama. A lot
Speaker 1: of times the grandparents in the penitentiary too. But the
Speaker 1: child is eight team turning nineteen, that becomes they are
Speaker 1: a major player in their lives. But they are. If
Speaker 1: you act like you're going to hit a job, they're
Speaker 1: gonna intervene. They don't care if you mild the store,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. They're gonna step up and try to
Speaker 1: protect that baby. And to see that after all they've
Speaker 1: been through that passionate. It's amazing when a kid comes
Speaker 1: into the program for the first time day one. What
Speaker 1: is the process of getting that kid to see things
Speaker 1: in a different way, because usually when you've been you know,
Speaker 1: brought up in an abusive UH situation, you've had neglected parents,
Speaker 1: you know, you think everything that's right is wrong and
Speaker 1: everything wrong is right. How do you reverse it? What
Speaker 1: are some of the steps that you take, some of
Speaker 1: the first steps you take when you come in. First
Speaker 1: of all, it's a choice. This is how we initially
Speaker 1: initially started. You can come in and you can't just
Speaker 1: sit in there. You're gonna have to come in and
Speaker 1: say why to the entire group, and it's smiling. We
Speaker 1: averaged a hundred fifteen a class. They gave us the
Speaker 1: largest classroom on campus, so you had to get up
Speaker 1: in front of your peers. Half been fighting since the
Speaker 1: third grade. Then you had a gang issues that were
Speaker 1: very prevalent on campus that were right there in the
Speaker 1: classroom as well, and you have to stand up in
Speaker 1: front of everybody and make a decision whether you're going
Speaker 1: to stay or not if you're willing to give something
Speaker 1: about yourself. Now you don't just walk in and get
Speaker 1: to sit down. You have to be sworn in what
Speaker 1: you were, which is a great honor, especially when you're not,
Speaker 1: you know, a child at that moment. So once you
Speaker 1: come in, they'd give you the rules if you can
Speaker 1: have eye buy and then we go to the next step.
Speaker 1: Now they're gonna ask you questions because they need to
Speaker 1: know they can trust you. But you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: tell us about you. And when they start talking and
Speaker 1: the things that they say is always very emotional because
Speaker 1: they've held it so long. We've had children that have
Speaker 1: actually vomited in class. Whence they released it, the release
Speaker 1: was so great. And then the kids, the students vote
Speaker 1: on you. It is got to be unanimous. Now, remember
Speaker 1: most of them been fighting, and it's so beautiful to
Speaker 1: see how compassionate the whole classroom begins to be once
Speaker 1: they start healing. Didn't they understand and to see them
Speaker 1: almost be like defense attorneys against the d A going
Speaker 1: back and forth, Well, I don't I don't like her
Speaker 1: because she used to do what well, what if she
Speaker 1: does do that anymore. Now though you're just gonna throw away.
Speaker 1: We could have thrown you away. Oh it's beautiful. I
Speaker 1: just sit back and watch this beautiful protection of the program,
Speaker 1: but protection of each child. And then once you get
Speaker 1: sporning in, that's the reason to celebrate. And then you
Speaker 1: take an oath, and which you take the oath, you're
Speaker 1: in for life. And they they wanted it to be
Speaker 1: a program forever. And twenty two years later, they are
Speaker 1: spectacular in the originals are still right there with me.
Speaker 1: I've got hundreds of grand babies now and then now
Speaker 1: we're in the third generation because one of the grandchildren
Speaker 1: just had our first, my third generation baby, so we're
Speaker 1: in generation three. But it's it's amazing because but you
Speaker 1: gotta have some real courage to do that. And it's
Speaker 1: you can't just come in and so other states that
Speaker 1: have colleges, and once I talk to them, you can't
Speaker 1: just take every child. There's got to be something that
Speaker 1: says you're gonna keep our confidentiality. And once we the
Speaker 1: kids created that process, then they felt good about everything.
Speaker 1: But you just let kids come in and they don't
Speaker 1: have to have any accountability whether they're gonna stay or not.
Speaker 1: Other kids know you're hearing it, and they'll quickly it'll
Speaker 1: turn into a until home miss because they're not gonna
Speaker 1: let you keep coming. They're gonna stop. You got boys,
Speaker 1: the podcast will be right back back. You work with
Speaker 1: these kids on a daily basis. We're talking like dozens
Speaker 1: of kids on a daily basis who have major, major
Speaker 1: like trauma. You wear your heart on your sleeve. You
Speaker 1: internalize that stuff. You take this stuff home. I know
Speaker 1: that for a fact. Take this stuff home. You're rive
Speaker 1: down the street with it. How do you keep your sanity?
Speaker 1: How do you How does Merlin process it to make
Speaker 1: sure that Maryland stays healthy? And when Merlin doesn't feel healthy,
Speaker 1: when Merlin feels like she needs a break, what does
Speaker 1: Merlin do to get through it? Yea? I have felt
Speaker 1: overwhelmed many many days still do um. I had to
Speaker 1: get to a place of well. I teach the kids
Speaker 1: about how important is to write your feelings out, but
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do it. I'm too exhausted to now sit
Speaker 1: down and write after all day and driving through the traffic,
Speaker 1: and you're going to more than one school now too,
Speaker 1: so it's all day long. But I have. Finally, u
Speaker 1: Kinsey has probably been my greatest therapist because she's emergency
Speaker 1: room and she sees the gunshot wounds and things that happened,
Speaker 1: and she's always wanted to work physically and help help
Speaker 1: him heal physically. Yes, shout out to Mackenzie at Madison
Speaker 1: because now she's an emergency room and I would tell
Speaker 1: her what I would process was her what just experiences
Speaker 1: through the day, and she would process with me what
Speaker 1: she thought, and that was that became a really healing
Speaker 1: place and the healing thing for both of us to do. Um.
Speaker 1: God knows I need to nothing. I really don't. I
Speaker 1: really don't just have some set thing that I do
Speaker 1: because everything is involving somehow directly connecting to that. Now,
Speaker 1: the ocean does have a great impact on that. If
Speaker 1: I just get I don't even have to get in
Speaker 1: and just let me hear it. But to be there,
Speaker 1: that's my greatest killing, just the calmness that it brings
Speaker 1: a kind of regroup. But it's never it's never NonStop.
Speaker 1: It's on the phone trying to handle things, and it's
Speaker 1: writing constantly getting this and plans together. But the priority
Speaker 1: is that I have all these stain plans I've written,
Speaker 1: but what do you want to talk about? Today? Every day,
Speaker 1: every class is what do you want? Because things could
Speaker 1: have happened last night, and they usually have. We've had
Speaker 1: children that were sexually assaulted overnight over the weekend. So
Speaker 1: once they talk, you need to go father report and
Speaker 1: get other people involved. That you have to with some
Speaker 1: law enforcement and and CPS, and then you have to
Speaker 1: get them ready because it's also UH testifying in court
Speaker 1: and it's UH. They've seen their parents shot. We have murder,
Speaker 1: we have murdered parents, but we have missing parents as well.
Speaker 1: Been missing twenty five years, no jail time, no prison time,
Speaker 1: disappeared completely and we've talked with the FBI. We do
Speaker 1: everything we can to give some kind of peace enclosure
Speaker 1: because our children carry so much artur parent comes home
Speaker 1: from prison and still doesn't reconnect with the child our
Speaker 1: season for ten minutes, never saw him before until they
Speaker 1: got out. Seeson has a conversation, I'm going to the
Speaker 1: store and drives off forever. Then the child's thinking, well,
Speaker 1: did he or she not like me because they think
Speaker 1: I'm ugly or maybe I'm not their kid? Now once
Speaker 1: against their fault. So we worked so and move forward
Speaker 1: and then they get not back again. So it's like
Speaker 1: every adult in their lives is let them down some
Speaker 1: some way. And but when just come home and they
Speaker 1: know that what they need to do, there's not to
Speaker 1: make it. But I just don't never really see that.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that every adult in their life I've let
Speaker 1: them down at some point. That's how they feel. And
Speaker 1: they come in. Your job is to get them to
Speaker 1: trust you. How do you get them to trust you? First?
Speaker 1: And also let me say this, you're a white woman
Speaker 1: and majorities kids are black and Hispanic, right, how does
Speaker 1: how do you get them to trust you? Um, that's
Speaker 1: a good question been asked that many types. When when
Speaker 1: what I found is when you come in and don't
Speaker 1: have this agenda already planned out, and you're very rigid,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you can think that you may very well
Speaker 1: be when you come in warm, just really warm. Okay,
Speaker 1: what do you want to talk about? Whatever you want
Speaker 1: to do, this is your class. You have all the power,
Speaker 1: tell me what you would like. And of course they're
Speaker 1: they're still checking you out, but that sounds pretty good.
Speaker 1: And as they get to talking and then just okay,
Speaker 1: and and you're not oh, my God, Well, don't you
Speaker 1: dere cut you know, none of that, none of that.
Speaker 1: Leave them alone and just let them be who they
Speaker 1: are and accept them right where they're at. Don't try
Speaker 1: to change them. These are some of the most breeding
Speaker 1: human beings on the face of the earth and can
Speaker 1: survive under the worst of circumstances. So we need to
Speaker 1: be honoring m when we walk in there with them,
Speaker 1: we're in the presence of greatness. We they are the greatness,
Speaker 1: and I come just that's exactly how I see it,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm honored. But David let me in. They
Speaker 1: let me in, and yes, being wide and it's all
Speaker 1: these other things that could have been obstacles and they
Speaker 1: weren't for the child. I think also, your reputation precedes you.
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of kids because they vouched
Speaker 1: for you, some of the kids before they get in
Speaker 1: that they're willing to give you the benefit of doubt.
Speaker 1: And so that's you know, that's maybe softens you know,
Speaker 1: the blow a little bit. You know, um, Lifetime did
Speaker 1: a movie about you back in two thousand five, right
Speaker 1: Beating the Fight, the Merlin Gambrell story. How did they
Speaker 1: come about? That? Was? I'm still stunned even all these
Speaker 1: years later. But we had a lot of media coverage
Speaker 1: from CNN, which led two different like People Magazine. It
Speaker 1: just it was we didn't even we were only two
Speaker 1: years old. Well I hadn't even got my feet wet
Speaker 1: yet to really know, because I had no model to
Speaker 1: follow when I started the program. So we kind of
Speaker 1: overwhelmed all of us because I have work to do,
Speaker 1: and the kids don't want all that. You can have
Speaker 1: a little but they don't. They don't want you in
Speaker 1: there with cameras. We that's our space. We want to
Speaker 1: talk and now we're not gonna talk because you're in there,
Speaker 1: you know, the media, all the cameras. So then we
Speaker 1: had U S News and World Report, cop that's a
Speaker 1: business journey. And I said, but we don't fit with
Speaker 1: y'all usually cover and the person says, um me and
Speaker 1: another one of the journalists thought that this would really
Speaker 1: be something to show America, to show the world, and
Speaker 1: they said, may not even they might not even give
Speaker 1: you a page, but if anything, maybe one. I said, well,
Speaker 1: you have to do it. It's okay if we don't know,
Speaker 1: we think that this is worthwhile. We ended up with
Speaker 1: five pages I couldn't believe it. Now it's it's up
Speaker 1: to all the calls coming in and from around the world.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just you know, America, it was from it
Speaker 1: was from everywhere. We were started from Greece, from Scotland,
Speaker 1: from it was amazing. So that excuse me. There was
Speaker 1: a and director for a new are the movie for
Speaker 1: Lifetime movies. He was one of the ones that had
Speaker 1: all the presented a lot of movies actually for Lifetime.
Speaker 1: And he was getting on a plane and the US
Speaker 1: Now News Report, World Report was in the back look thing.
Speaker 1: The little packet were the as a really by the steed.
Speaker 1: It was behind the scene in front of him, and
Speaker 1: he reached over and and you know, they cleaned those
Speaker 1: out pretty quickly after the plane is empty. So I
Speaker 1: don't know why that one made it in there, but
Speaker 1: he pulled it out and said, oh us, you know,
Speaker 1: he's looking for about what his stocks and stuff are
Speaker 1: going on, and he stumbled across our story. He said
Speaker 1: he read it ten times. He couldn't wait to get
Speaker 1: off the plane. Now we're getting a lot of calls now,
Speaker 1: so all of a sudden, here comes a calm, Yes,
Speaker 1: this is John from this movie movie company, and we're
Speaker 1: interested in doing the story on you for lifetime. And
Speaker 1: I said, no, it's not. He said, ma'am, it is.
Speaker 1: I said stop and I hung up. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to get my hangar a phone call because I hear
Speaker 1: a lot of these stories. People say, well, Quincy Jones,
Speaker 1: car and I said, Quincy Jones. I hung up the phone.
Speaker 1: I have never done that before, like you know, so
Speaker 1: I need to give me one of those. I need
Speaker 1: something like that. And they said, Ms. Gambrielle, we really
Speaker 1: want to come see you. They said, what don't you
Speaker 1: just call us bat And I said, yeah, but you
Speaker 1: you could answer the phone saying you're the same thing.
Speaker 1: If I call you, I wit please saw I call back.
Speaker 1: They answered and gave their name, the company's name, and
Speaker 1: they flew in two weeks later, one just to sign
Speaker 1: a contract. Meant with the board. I said, will take
Speaker 1: two years to do it because we're gonna send in
Speaker 1: writers and all these people. Well, and they came to class.
Speaker 1: The one who found me first from the plane. They
Speaker 1: came to class and he cried like a baby. The
Speaker 1: kids gave permission for him to be in there. If
Speaker 1: they said no, he had to go didn't care for
Speaker 1: you a movie producer, the vice president, you're out that
Speaker 1: it's their program. And they said, no, that's okay, and
Speaker 1: they just talked about their journey and he just he
Speaker 1: couldn't hardly take it. So now he's really on fire.
Speaker 1: So he brought in the writers and other people and
Speaker 1: they just kind of followed the surround and were sent
Speaker 1: to send the script to me as it was being done,
Speaker 1: and they were telling me which scene had just gotten filmed,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was just it just was so surreal,
Speaker 1: like I'll believe that in Canada, Calgary. So they said,
Speaker 1: we want to bring you in, maybe bring five of
Speaker 1: the kids in and put y'all in the booie. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: and now I've got all these children now bye. So
Speaker 1: I picked five that I thought could handle it and
Speaker 1: wouldn't kind of panic and be what those cameras came
Speaker 1: at him, and that would be able to articulate. Not
Speaker 1: know so much in the movie because they did have
Speaker 1: a speaking part, but they found their way in front
Speaker 1: of the cameras and passing these kids going up and
Speaker 1: down the hallway. They got in there. They were great
Speaker 1: and they featured them in the auditorium. Mine were the
Speaker 1: whole row that was right there, and so that I
Speaker 1: got to be in it. I said eight words, so
Speaker 1: I had about eight seconds. But if you didn't know me,
Speaker 1: I ready, you would never know that it was me
Speaker 1: because all the energy was on Jamie Gertz, who played me,
Speaker 1: And it was just amazing. Then they flew us back
Speaker 1: in and they did a Hollywood premier for us, but
Speaker 1: what and there was four hundred people there and the
Speaker 1: kids and kids everybody got to come in that time,
Speaker 1: and it was just amazing. I'm still stunned, and I'm
Speaker 1: still stunned. So what a joy though, I think about
Speaker 1: it is that you're not done, like you've done so
Speaker 1: much more like hell, you probably got a body at
Speaker 1: least three or four books, you know. You know what
Speaker 1: I really really appreciate about the program and what you
Speaker 1: do is that you you empower the kids. See that's
Speaker 1: what worked for me. M hmm. All the way to
Speaker 1: nine grade, I just blew all those teachers away, like
Speaker 1: I mean like like I blew them off. It's like
Speaker 1: there's no big deal. I never really took school and serious.
Speaker 1: And one day my science teacher who was in my
Speaker 1: homeroom teacher, Mrs Mrs Emma Oliver. Bless God, bless miss
Speaker 1: Emma Oliver. At Farest Brook High School. She um after
Speaker 1: me and my buddy came in her class clown and
Speaker 1: singing and stuff with trench coaching and hats on and stuff,
Speaker 1: just adding a food. She made me sit in front
Speaker 1: of the class. Then the next day she made me
Speaker 1: write the daily objective on the board. I always thought
Speaker 1: that the kids who wrote the daily objective on the
Speaker 1: board was the smart kids. So all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling I'm feeling smart. You know, I didn't never
Speaker 1: think I was a dummy, but I didn't really think
Speaker 1: I was like one of the smart kids. Right, So
Speaker 1: this was, you know, usually reserved for the smart kid,
Speaker 1: and I also the obedient kid, right, I never thought
Speaker 1: I definitely wasn't the obedient kid. So here I am.
Speaker 1: I'm writing a daily objective on the board. So now
Speaker 1: I feel a sense of respond instability. Then she made
Speaker 1: me keep names when she would leave the room. Now
Speaker 1: I had had no idea what she was doing to me,
Speaker 1: but she was working me, and she was empowering me.
Speaker 1: She delegated the thirty to me to give me some
Speaker 1: sense of responsibility, So I felt responsible. She knew if
Speaker 1: I can get this one under control, he'll control the
Speaker 1: rest of them, because who wants to go against him? Right,
Speaker 1: So every time she came back into the classroom, the
Speaker 1: classroom was quieter than it was before she left, because
Speaker 1: nobody wanted any problems with me, right, And then also
Speaker 1: not to say she needed my protection, but it was there.
Speaker 1: I was like a nobody messing with Miss Oliver. Anybody
Speaker 1: got a problem with Miss Oliver, got a problem with me?
Speaker 1: And I see that same type of energy with your children.
Speaker 1: Your kids have that same amount of energy. Ain't nobody
Speaker 1: missing with Miss Granbrell. If you mess with Miss Gambril,
Speaker 1: it's on. And so I don't understand why more educators,
Speaker 1: more counselors don't do stuff like that. They don't empower
Speaker 1: the children. They come in. It's my thing, it's my program,
Speaker 1: it's my way of the highway, and they and it's
Speaker 1: and you're you're talking to kids, and you're trying to
Speaker 1: get the best out of them, and you know, you're
Speaker 1: trying to relate to that that you were you're supposed
Speaker 1: to be, trying to relate to their feelings and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But you really are really dismissing their feelings
Speaker 1: when you have this type of attitude of my way
Speaker 1: or the highway, Like, did you consciously go in from
Speaker 1: day one thinking like, well, I'm going to empower them?
Speaker 1: Was that at any point that you did it differently
Speaker 1: and you said, well, I think I can do better.
Speaker 1: I'm doing it the wrong way. Did you come in
Speaker 1: day one doing it where you were empowering the kids
Speaker 1: day one? Yes? And the reason why is I knew
Speaker 1: what worked for me and how you treated me and
Speaker 1: what you said to me would have it impact me.
Speaker 1: Then of course that we have the same in path
Speaker 1: with them, you know, So what do y'all want to do? Okay,
Speaker 1: You're giving me the abilty to make a choice, to
Speaker 1: have power to make decisions over what I want, and
Speaker 1: I don't have any power anywhere else in my life,
Speaker 1: so I knew that would work. And the first day
Speaker 1: m hmm. Well um. The main thing is that you
Speaker 1: keep that door open for the child and whatever they say,
Speaker 1: don't pan can make all these demands. And because with
Speaker 1: their natural way of being may make you uncomfortable, you
Speaker 1: might like, if you don't cuss, you don't this, you don't.
Speaker 1: It's about them, it's not about you. They're not trying
Speaker 1: to do anything wrong or be disrespectful. This is just
Speaker 1: the way they communicate. You can watch children and think
Speaker 1: they're getting a little bit too rowdy and beating each
Speaker 1: other up and bullying each other, and if you try
Speaker 1: to intervene in that, they're gonna come after you because
Speaker 1: that's how they play. So you have to start understanding
Speaker 1: the culture and the subculture behavior, everything that's in there.
Speaker 1: You have to not bring your own mentality from your
Speaker 1: own Like me being white coming in from and never
Speaker 1: ever being around African American children, I wondered where they were.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. I thought I wanted to be with
Speaker 1: all these other children that I hear Jesus loves the
Speaker 1: little children, Ben and Blood, you weren't yellow, black and white.
Speaker 1: Point the podcast will be right back after the point.
Speaker 1: M So. I grew up in the bad area. There
Speaker 1: have fighter near there, so I always thought, well, where
Speaker 1: are they? How much fun would that be? So when
Speaker 1: I'm with them, I knew for a lot of them,
Speaker 1: I was the first white person, not just smell or female,
Speaker 1: that they might have been around. So I'm just looking
Speaker 1: at all of that. But but I just came in
Speaker 1: with wood do y'all want to do? And I was
Speaker 1: high energy? Uh was it like? What did you say?
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. I would sometimes repeat it back to him
Speaker 1: and they would be what I said, Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I know some words and would just laugh and laugh.
Speaker 1: But because we laugh, we laughed a lot humor, so
Speaker 1: healing and so healthy. Anybody know, anybody got a good joke,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a clean wind. No, but cut up
Speaker 1: and they would talk and laugh, and I what we
Speaker 1: honored birthdays. We had birthday cakes. We see, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: we had a birthday the fourth we started January four.
Speaker 1: What by the seventh it was a birthday. We were
Speaker 1: only four days old. So I'm gonna bring a big
Speaker 1: cake for every child. I had all these big plans,
Speaker 1: got him a new backpack, and then pretty soon I
Speaker 1: was having ten birthdays a month. They any more break
Speaker 1: those down to some cupcakes. Get the cupcakes and only
Speaker 1: you get one. You know, it's just so massive, But
Speaker 1: they knew they were gonna be honored. I took them
Speaker 1: to eat all the time, to places that they had
Speaker 1: never been and still do still do, and they just
Speaker 1: get so excited, and but then I hear them talk
Speaker 1: about it. Man, I want to pop those this weekend,
Speaker 1: you know, so proud of the life experiences and seeing, yeah,
Speaker 1: you you can do that too. You deserve to do that,
Speaker 1: and we're going to do it more. And then when
Speaker 1: you are older and working, I can meet you there
Speaker 1: with your children. Anyway, that's cool, you know, making it
Speaker 1: all and now it's looking like, oh my god, these
Speaker 1: things are possible. And then going to college, they do
Speaker 1: even think. There were a lot of our children didn't
Speaker 1: think they were going to live. They won't go to college.
Speaker 1: They were gonna get killed some and they're on neighborhood
Speaker 1: just because a lot that was going on arm they
Speaker 1: were going to kill themselves because they were I didn't
Speaker 1: want to live anymore, or the penitentiary. They didn't see
Speaker 1: any options. I know. You you just experienced something like
Speaker 1: that one of your kids. Last was it last year
Speaker 1: your kids? One of your kids was murdered? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: well it was something about last It was was last year?
Speaker 1: Is when the case was coming up with something the
Speaker 1: trial or something like that. No, No, that it wasn't
Speaker 1: because the guy committed suicide who killed him right right,
Speaker 1: And this was one of your brightest stars. I mean
Speaker 1: it's one of the kids doctor from Colombia. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I was handing the charts to Divine. He was going
Speaker 1: to take over the school program component and I was
Speaker 1: going to start working. We were going to write a
Speaker 1: book together and he was going to take care of
Speaker 1: the schools. And knew we were going to hire more
Speaker 1: of our veteran members who had started with me and Smiley,
Speaker 1: hire them who had gotten degrees and became social workers
Speaker 1: to now run on the different campuses to do the program.
Speaker 1: But he was going to be the top one. The
Speaker 1: kids absolutely adored him. He was so handsome and so
Speaker 1: smart and so funny and they just were And he
Speaker 1: has an identical twin brother, identical so to see him
Speaker 1: together and he went to Forest Brook, he was it
Speaker 1: was they were just so lovely. And when that happened,
Speaker 1: his mom called me then I've never been the same since.
Speaker 1: How did he get on the trajectory of success and
Speaker 1: being this progressive kid that came through the program, so
Speaker 1: progressive that you identified him as a person to pass
Speaker 1: the torch two and then he ends up getting derailed,
Speaker 1: you know, after seemingly having it all together. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I ever say deralled. He was in
Speaker 1: a relationship and begin to see it was the person
Speaker 1: that he was seeing was beginning to stalk him and
Speaker 1: show some violent tendencies. So he wanted out of the
Speaker 1: relationship and the person came back and killed him. Um,
Speaker 1: because he was happy, he brought the guy to see me.
Speaker 1: I got to meet him. And then when I asked
Speaker 1: his mom, but who what happened? And it was the
Speaker 1: same name, And I was sick to my stomach. But
Speaker 1: he was Devon was very, very quiet, but that radar
Speaker 1: was going constantly. He was watching everything around him, and
Speaker 1: he was dealing with Perilla incarceration. And bless his fabulous
Speaker 1: grandmother and grandfather because they they're so precious that took
Speaker 1: care of them. And the mother. She took the kids
Speaker 1: to see their mom in prison. She wanted them to
Speaker 1: clearly know that was their mother, she was the grandmother.
Speaker 1: So she worked really hard to keep that relationship going.
Speaker 1: And he graduated from l s U, which was his goal.
Speaker 1: But when he came to class one day, I said
Speaker 1: to mine, if you want to come bet with us,
Speaker 1: you can do it. No, thank you, just the sweet
Speaker 1: just so precious, and I said, okay, because I know
Speaker 1: you're uncomfortable. And and then the day did decide to go.
Speaker 1: He told his teacher that he was coming to know
Speaker 1: more victims that day, and the teacher said, what, why
Speaker 1: would you go in there with those kids? They're all
Speaker 1: going to prison anyway? Broke his heart and he said,
Speaker 1: I am one of those kids, and I'm going. And
Speaker 1: it shook him to his core. But he came. And
Speaker 1: I just kept watching and looking and never talking. But
Speaker 1: I saw it in him, and I said, you want
Speaker 1: to go to Sacramento to a children's defense filling conference
Speaker 1: with me? And I took another student and I was
Speaker 1: looking everywhere. We had finished the day, all the assemblies
Speaker 1: and everything. I couldn't find him anywhere. Lord, now we're
Speaker 1: in California. Where is this top? I'm looking everywhere, so
Speaker 1: stopping people on the sidewalk that with the big conference.
Speaker 1: They said, you know what, there is still a group
Speaker 1: of kids that's over in the cafeteria. And I went
Speaker 1: in there and there's the arm with all these college
Speaker 1: students and they're all having a debate, and he is
Speaker 1: just controlling the whole thing. He's just firing answers off
Speaker 1: and responses, and they were saying, are you They were
Speaker 1: all amazed with him. But I heard him, and I
Speaker 1: knew the fire was lit. I've watched it get lit
Speaker 1: right there, and from that point foreward, every when he
Speaker 1: went to Connecticut with me and another one of the
Speaker 1: kids and he got he started speaking publicly. Wherever I went,
Speaker 1: I took him and that voice. People just were so
Speaker 1: amazed with him. Then he graduated from l s U.
Speaker 1: He went on he won the Tuman Scholarship, first African
Speaker 1: American in l s u's history to win the scholarship,
Speaker 1: and then from there went on to Colombia beginning his doctorate,
Speaker 1: and he was murdered and we were just he was
Speaker 1: so ready to take it. He was so excited. So
Speaker 1: I'm still not where I need to be. But like
Speaker 1: I didn't want to ride anymore, quit everything. I just
Speaker 1: I just wasn't up to it. But now out I'm
Speaker 1: getting ready. His best friend in Irony, I'm gonna write
Speaker 1: that book, and he's about to get his doctorate because
Speaker 1: coming but we're starting. Our Dr Devonte Wade Social Justice
Speaker 1: Reform Initiative is named after him and all the social
Speaker 1: justice issues that he wanted to make better. He wanted
Speaker 1: to resolve to make the whole the world a better place.
Speaker 1: So he wasn't going to change the world. He had
Speaker 1: already started changing the world. He wasn't going too it
Speaker 1: was happening. What a loss, What a loss to the
Speaker 1: world the universe. Yeah, that was a girl that you
Speaker 1: told me about years ago. That was in a motel room.
Speaker 1: We were have pimp or a drug dealer, and he
Speaker 1: went up there and got her, went in the room.
Speaker 1: You challenged it the guy who was it was? It
Speaker 1: was the guy a drug dealer. Drug dealer went in
Speaker 1: the room in third ward? Was that third one that
Speaker 1: happened that? What was it? I know you didn't go
Speaker 1: to Fifth War over that? You went the Fifth War
Speaker 1: over that? Oh man? Okay. So so he went up
Speaker 1: to a motail room within fifth ward and challenged a
Speaker 1: drug dealer about his what this woman was? It was
Speaker 1: just his girlfriend, right, they might have been, but he
Speaker 1: was dealing with her, and I think we crossed over
Speaker 1: the pimp as well. Back and forth. So you get
Speaker 1: a call from her saying that she's in distress, and
Speaker 1: you this this this this white woman show up in
Speaker 1: fifth ward. If y'all don't know fifth ward fam. Uh
Speaker 1: let's just say, you know, if you see a white
Speaker 1: person there, uh, it would be abnormal. Okay, So do
Speaker 1: you show up and you do what? I went on
Speaker 1: upstairs and you know that it was where the rooms
Speaker 1: are on that the doors are all on the outside.
Speaker 1: Had to go up the stairs and real motel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we kick doing moteel and she told me what room
Speaker 1: and you know, I wasn't afraid. And I looked back
Speaker 1: and think, did you just not realize where what was? Really?
Speaker 1: Where I was? I knew clearly where I was. But
Speaker 1: when it's a child, because she was a miner, you
Speaker 1: better get off your ass and go do what you
Speaker 1: need to do. That I did. So you went there
Speaker 1: and you knocked on the door. He opens the door
Speaker 1: and didn't he have a gun? Yeah? I had a
Speaker 1: good So he opens the door with the gun in
Speaker 1: his hand, head in his hand, and I'm see her
Speaker 1: behind him and I said, said, come on, let's go,
Speaker 1: and he just looked at me like, if you are
Speaker 1: just crazy to come up here and do this, then
Speaker 1: you probably have something on you, a weapon or something
Speaker 1: on you. Because I had no fear, and maybe that
Speaker 1: was just you know what you do what you gotta do,
Speaker 1: and I deal with the rest whatever comes. But he
Speaker 1: didn't argue or do anything. I just took her with me. Then,
Speaker 1: do you have any contact with her today? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's doing great. He's got two babies. That's good. He's
Speaker 1: doing well. But we we've had some terrible things. Um
Speaker 1: which had some terrible things happened where a mother is
Speaker 1: using drugs and she owes the dealer and she had
Speaker 1: got into a new apartment. She got into another complex
Speaker 1: and there was no furnituring thing in there, but she
Speaker 1: had gotten the key and so she was in there
Speaker 1: and she had her daughter with her, who's one of ours.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know the child when this happened, and she,
Speaker 1: thank god, she told the daughter, this is where our
Speaker 1: new apartment is going to be, and had the child
Speaker 1: come upstairs. She was sixteen and she had walked downstairs
Speaker 1: to get something and saw him down the alley, because
Speaker 1: you know, you can look down as you walked down
Speaker 1: and saw him, and he saw her and he comes
Speaker 1: running for her. She's trying to get up the stairs. Now.
Speaker 1: She lost from a size sixteen to a size zero,
Speaker 1: which is very common depend on what drug you're used.
Speaker 1: And he got up there. She used to lock the door,
Speaker 1: and he kicked it in and got in there and
Speaker 1: undid the knob, and when he got in there, he
Speaker 1: held a gun on her and the daughter, and he
Speaker 1: was hitting her with the mom and kicked her and
Speaker 1: told her to crawl over and in the corner, and
Speaker 1: she did. And then he said, this is how we're
Speaker 1: going to take care of this closed off and said
Speaker 1: that to the daughter. So this is a this is
Speaker 1: a minor. Was she a minor at the time. No,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the girlfriend. Huh. The girlfriend is a minor,
Speaker 1: The daughter is a minor. It was the mother, the mother.
Speaker 1: How old is the mother, probably almost at that time,
Speaker 1: the mother's almost forty. And how it is the daughter
Speaker 1: of the miner. Okay, so the drug So she old
Speaker 1: the drug dealer money. Okay, So the drug dealer comes.
Speaker 1: He happened to see her because he was looking for
Speaker 1: and he came running. He saw what steps, he went
Speaker 1: up and she'd like the door. And but he get
Speaker 1: here in there telling her daughter to hide and kick
Speaker 1: the door in, and the made he held he had
Speaker 1: the gun on the mom, told the daughter to get
Speaker 1: her clothes off, and she was of course horrifying, and
Speaker 1: the mother was, please don't, please, don't you can kill me. Don't, please,
Speaker 1: don't do anything to my daughter. And he raped her
Speaker 1: in front of the mother and she was just sitting
Speaker 1: in the corner like a na fetal position. So the child,
Speaker 1: she was new to our school, and one of the
Speaker 1: the school secretary said, I don't know what's wrong, but
Speaker 1: don't though she's in live pain and her mom's a
Speaker 1: daddy to her to come be with us. So she
Speaker 1: came in. But she she was the saddest child to
Speaker 1: look at her. She was so sad. And then she said,
Speaker 1: I want to talk, okay. She came up to the
Speaker 1: further room. She asked me to stay by her, but
Speaker 1: she was pregnant. I said, okay. She said to the
Speaker 1: whole class, what I just told you? None of us
Speaker 1: knew that, and she said, and now I'm six months pregnant.
Speaker 1: It was from there the hope what had happened to
Speaker 1: what happened to this unseviled eyes much? I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't know what happened to him under the mom went
Speaker 1: into treatment. That she went into treatment, and she wasn't
Speaker 1: in jail or anything. But she just went into treatment
Speaker 1: after that. I don't know anything about him. I never
Speaker 1: heard them say his name. But this child, that's what
Speaker 1: was going on. She was carrying them and she's gotten
Speaker 1: infected as well. But she had two STDs. Did it's
Speaker 1: been really it didn't facture. So but I'm not the
Speaker 1: only one. There's there's so many people working so hard
Speaker 1: and doing good things in their life. They put their
Speaker 1: lives on the life, they give up what they have.
Speaker 1: They worked so hard to be sure that children and
Speaker 1: whatever population they are getting what they need. But it's America.
Speaker 1: Just gotta wake up our politicians, everybody. We've got a
Speaker 1: lot more word to do than arguing the White House
Speaker 1: with the Capitol Building. We our children are in terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible danger every time keeping secrets and and then they
Speaker 1: get to school and they cut up and act up,
Speaker 1: so we throw them out, put them in juvie. It
Speaker 1: isn't that the American way. You'd like to put a
Speaker 1: mand aid on stuff like America just I don't think
Speaker 1: America is interested in real solutions. Uh. They love to
Speaker 1: be reactionary, even if it's even something as simple as
Speaker 1: a traffic uh light, right you can have an intersection
Speaker 1: where people are constantly having neres and people are nearly
Speaker 1: getting hit by cars and stuff are they're getting hit.
Speaker 1: There's accidents all the time, and they won't have a
Speaker 1: signal lat to stop sign or anything until somebody gets killed.
Speaker 1: As soon as somebody get killed, it goes up overnight,
Speaker 1: like this is not preventative at all. And you know, finally,
Speaker 1: human trafficking has been here forever. Children have been traffic forever.
Speaker 1: But now that that right after um children, incarcerated parents
Speaker 1: popped up on the radar for a very brief period
Speaker 1: of time, human trafficking became next, and just that got
Speaker 1: shut down and that became the biggest thing. And thank
Speaker 1: god that Now there's so many programs and shelters and
Speaker 1: apartment complexes dedicated to pulling getting women out of those situations.
Speaker 1: But males get in the same situation. They get traffic
Speaker 1: to we don't talk about what happens to them as well.
Speaker 1: So we've got we do talk about it, but not
Speaker 1: nearly on the scale. It should be something we're also
Speaker 1: familiar with because we hear so much about it, what's
Speaker 1: being done about it. But the boy, the boys are
Speaker 1: the boys are being molested and raped, not just by men,
Speaker 1: but also by boys, older boys. Absolutely, you know, like
Speaker 1: so used to be a time you can just put
Speaker 1: the boys in the room and say, okay, all the
Speaker 1: boys going the room, and you know, no big deal.
Speaker 1: You know, you never have to worry about stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But now, you know, you get a boy that's you know,
Speaker 1: five years old, you know, in the same room with
Speaker 1: a boy at seven or eight, he might molest them,
Speaker 1: even eleven year old. Put eleven year old in the
Speaker 1: same room with us eight year old, absolutely he might,
Speaker 1: he might, he might molest him, you know so. And
Speaker 1: then you also got women who are also violated to
Speaker 1: women are sexual abusers. And that's something that's don't nearly
Speaker 1: get talked about enough. That's a that's a plethora of
Speaker 1: issues that we have to deal with in this country
Speaker 1: that we just won't confront And what do we do. Well,
Speaker 1: we don't have a budget, we don't have enough money,
Speaker 1: but we always got money for war. We always got
Speaker 1: money to build another monument or museum or park or stadium.
Speaker 1: And we got that kind of money. You know, we
Speaker 1: got that money. All that money has come out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: But when you talk about using money for for preventive
Speaker 1: preventative measures. You know, that's why when people say defund
Speaker 1: the police, they are talking about totally getting rid of
Speaker 1: the police. They're talking about diverting a lot of those
Speaker 1: funds instead of constantly getting new police officer, more hiring
Speaker 1: more police officers, more, more equipment, more guns. They're saying,
Speaker 1: if we would was a healthier nation, if we were
Speaker 1: healthier people, we wouldn't need as many services from law enforcement.
Speaker 1: We so we could use that money that we're pumping
Speaker 1: in the law enforcement to actually help ourselves. Uh. In
Speaker 1: the mental health department, we can use that money for
Speaker 1: uh for drug addiction, we can use we could use
Speaker 1: that money for mental illness. You know, we could use
Speaker 1: that money to to educate so that we don't have
Speaker 1: as many children who are teenage parents. You know, that's
Speaker 1: what we're talking about. And we don't want to confront that.
Speaker 1: It's always an excuse. And then you put a lot
Speaker 1: of these people in position of power or an authority
Speaker 1: over these kids, and what do they do abuse their authority?
Speaker 1: A lot of them. You know, So, man, we we
Speaker 1: gotta uphill about Maryland. And I'm glad you're on the
Speaker 1: front line. I really do. I mean, I really do
Speaker 1: appreciate you. I you know, uh I would cry, but
Speaker 1: it ain't gangster, you know. But but man, I really
Speaker 1: do love you. I appreciate you. You You are necessary. The
Speaker 1: work that you've put in is immeasurable. I don't know
Speaker 1: a lot of people that that that put it in
Speaker 1: the way you put it in, you know, like and
Speaker 1: you risk it all and you you take it with
Speaker 1: you on a daily basis. You wake up with it,
Speaker 1: you go to sleep with it, and that's commendable to me.
Speaker 1: I salute you, thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And I do want to say there's so
Speaker 1: many amazing, precious teachers as time has gone on that
Speaker 1: I've seen that are they will let me know off
Speaker 1: a child needs something, if the child maybe doesn't want
Speaker 1: to tell them, but they sent it. So I do
Speaker 1: want to acknowledge that. And I'm so grateful to be
Speaker 1: at the schools. Um it's a it's a lot of work.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot more schools that we need to
Speaker 1: be in and there are so many more programs. Bless
Speaker 1: everyone that's working in human trafficking, because I've gone through
Speaker 1: that quite a few times. To get the child horrible
Speaker 1: things right up straight from the school. Shout out to
Speaker 1: Kathy Griffin. Shout out to Kathy Griffin Griffin, love love,
Speaker 1: love you. And she's been in the fight forever and
Speaker 1: coming from that and healing. She's impacted so many lives. Yes,
Speaker 1: love you Kathy. So there's there's just there are things
Speaker 1: going on. But we still need a lot more. But
Speaker 1: we need money to have staff that can be trained
Speaker 1: to help get into more schools, more places, do more things.
Speaker 1: We need to have more money just to take them places,
Speaker 1: exposed them to things. And thank god they do get
Speaker 1: to go on college trips from high school and visit
Speaker 1: college campuses. But we just need to go have fun too,
Speaker 1: h Just go laughing and eat and laughing, just have
Speaker 1: a ball. But they are are I have Our children
Speaker 1: were the most brilliant and as I said, while I go,
Speaker 1: they are absolutely brilliant. Their survivors. They can take care
Speaker 1: of nine years old, taking care of younger siblings and
Speaker 1: kept it under the radar and nobody new. But if
Speaker 1: they go to the corner store or they're selling drugs
Speaker 1: that young, they do guess to keep their siblings fed.
Speaker 1: That's not to be cool, because you're dealing weed or
Speaker 1: drugs or whatever that is a that survival. They shouldn't
Speaker 1: even be in that situation, but they are and they'll
Speaker 1: never tell. So I just make sure that the whole
Speaker 1: family has food. I just drop it off. Hey, I'll
Speaker 1: just if you wanted this just to because you know
Speaker 1: in your soul, your spirit that they're struggling and they're
Speaker 1: not always going to tell you. They're shamed or they've
Speaker 1: been told you did not say anything. So you just
Speaker 1: have to be on your game enough to be able
Speaker 1: to identify it and then you you go from there
Speaker 1: with some wisdom about how to make it happen. The
Speaker 1: trust thing is a very big part of it. It's
Speaker 1: like a certain words that you say, certain things that
Speaker 1: you do that it'll just open up the floodgates for
Speaker 1: communication and they'll tell you everything because sounds like you
Speaker 1: alluded to earlier that they are dying to have that conversation.
Speaker 1: They won't express themselves, but they feel suppressed. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of fear and they've been told they better not
Speaker 1: tell yeah, from family members, so they're they try to
Speaker 1: just keep it inside. But I'm just so grateful that
Speaker 1: we're there. Where you can come in. They might not
Speaker 1: say it the first day, they'll tell you enough that
Speaker 1: they've earned to be able to be in there for
Speaker 1: a minute. But when they do, and there's nothing like
Speaker 1: in the child we always there's always we've never not
Speaker 1: had a child voting in, you know, And people they don't,
Speaker 1: they don't understand that. That's you have to put something
Speaker 1: in place where they feel protected, and you've got some
Speaker 1: rules and you've got to measure up to get in it.
Speaker 1: You have to because kids can't come in and out
Speaker 1: whenever they want to, and all this confidential earthshaking information
Speaker 1: is floating constantly in our classroom and you have to.
Speaker 1: But they decided how they wanted it to run, and
Speaker 1: I thought they were brilliant. Let me get into your
Speaker 1: business a little bit. With no more victims, the budget
Speaker 1: the annual budget for nor more victims. Are you guys okay? Like,
Speaker 1: do you have you okay with money? Uh? Do you
Speaker 1: need more donations? No? We need we need we need
Speaker 1: so much you need donations? How does one donate to
Speaker 1: know more victims? You can? We have merged now with
Speaker 1: launch Point C. D. C Inkinson on the north side
Speaker 1: and uh, just send it go to their web. Go
Speaker 1: to the website. It's the launch Center dot org and
Speaker 1: we're all there and you can see how to just
Speaker 1: push it. Push the button and send the money in
Speaker 1: directly for us. It will be designated to our program. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing program and Mr Ivory Mayhorn is the
Speaker 1: founder of that. And you might yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: I've interviewed. I've interviewed yesterday. He's wonderful and he's an activist.
Speaker 1: He feeds about five family members every two weeks off
Speaker 1: a little yard and he's always been a supporter. We've
Speaker 1: been partners as community UM activists for twenty five thirty
Speaker 1: years now. So he's amazing. And Uh, the launch Center
Speaker 1: dot org and you pull it has the phone number
Speaker 1: on there when you pull that up, and it has
Speaker 1: a way to donate into what program you want to
Speaker 1: donate to. We have two videos on there and Divine
Speaker 1: is in the Nick News video. You can see this
Speaker 1: child and you'll see the greatness when you see him
Speaker 1: talking and he's a senior on that video, but he's
Speaker 1: talking to mothers in prison. So and his mother had
Speaker 1: just been transferred from there a week earlier. We would
Speaker 1: have actually seen her they maybe wouldn't have allowed us
Speaker 1: to be in there because they were family, but she
Speaker 1: had just left. But thank you for asking that we
Speaker 1: always need COVID, not just off our feet. Pretty good,
Speaker 1: you know, because a a lot of donations and things
Speaker 1: stopped because nobody knew what the future was going to
Speaker 1: hold with money. They were holding onto their money, which
Speaker 1: is understandable. And we're still not out of the woods,
Speaker 1: but we certainly will appreciate all the support we can
Speaker 1: get because we're gonna have quite a few children graduating
Speaker 1: in May and we have amazing celebrations when it comes
Speaker 1: to the graduation. I know that people do different stuff
Speaker 1: for kids for graduations. You have people that donate prim
Speaker 1: dresses and tuxedos and things of that nature. So, uh, family,
Speaker 1: you know, if if y'all you know you're feeling the program,
Speaker 1: you feel like it's it's a service that that is
Speaker 1: needed and you appreciate it, you know, reach out to
Speaker 1: them and see what you can do, you know, see
Speaker 1: see how you can get involved. Uh you know, you know,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to talk about it is is a whole
Speaker 1: another thing to be about it. Yeah, absolutely, And Gambrier
Speaker 1: Family also your social media handles, No More Victims, Do
Speaker 1: you have anything? You're on social you're not on social media? Okay,
Speaker 1: well you know that Mr Mayhart is setting all that
Speaker 1: up now because we're getting at a home new website,
Speaker 1: so he's saying it up. But right now, if they
Speaker 1: want to reach out, they can go to the what's
Speaker 1: the website, No More Victims website? It's the Launch Center
Speaker 1: dot org and then you program and then from there
Speaker 1: we can communicate and everything. All right, that's the rep
Speaker 1: Fam No More tub. This episode was produced by a
Speaker 1: King and brought to you by The Black Effect Podcast
Speaker 1: Network and Heart Radio